Boundaries

January 5, 2019

On January 2 I wrote that I want to be more like an exuberant puppy. And I do. But even puppies need boundaries.

When I was 18, I lived in an apartment on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Then, as now, there were lots of homeless people in that neighborhood, though we didn’t call them that. The politically correct term in Berkeley was “street people.” Many of the street people were also beggars, though we called them panhandlers.

At first I gave spare change to the panhandlers, even though I was making $3 an hour as a dishwasher. After awhile I stopped giving away my money when I recognized the same panhandlers week after week, month after month. I figured that if they really needed money that badly they could get a job washing dishes too.

One day I met a street person at nearby People’s Park and attempted to convince him to join our Buddhist movement. When he showed some openness to my message, I invited him to my apartment to have something to eat and take a shower and spend the night for a few days. But after a couple of days my Buddhist roommates (whom I had not consulted before making the invitation) let me know that they didn’t want a stranger sleeping on the floor in our two bedroom apartment, so I had to tell him that he could no longer stay with us. But he was still welcome to join us in attaining enlightenment and world peace.

I was reminded of that episode a few days ago when my friends Jim and Linda and I spent part of New Year’s day exploring the charming Central Valley farm town of Woodland, California. As we walked around a pretty neighborhood featuring lots of beautiful old Victorian homes, we came across a lawn sign in English and Spanish. It said something like this: We don’t care what your legal status is. You are welcome in our neighborhood.

I’ve seen signs like this before. And while I admire and respect sentiments of kindness and welcoming generosity, I can’t help picking up a sense of smugness and moral superiority emanating from such public advertising of similar political beliefs. Maybe a holier than thou vibe.

Not long after seeing the sign, we were walking a few blocks away on Main Street when a pickup truck drove by blaring Mexican music. I laughed, and told Jim that I wonder how the homeowners with the welcoming sign would feel if a Mexican family playing similar loud music moved in next door to them.

I personally don’t mind loud Mexican music – when I’m in Mexico. Do I want it in my neighborhood? No. I’m all in favor of unconditional love, as long as whoever lives next door to me isn’t noisy. Oh wait – I guess that’s conditional.

I’m sure that the people with the lawn sign are well meaning folks. And I share their desire for tolerance and egalitarianism. But sometimes those noble goals can be naive if not implemented wisely. Diversity is wonderful except when it leads to friction and violence. Multiculturalism is great, but not when it adversely affects public schools or public safety.

When Jim and I and his Nicaraguan wife stayed with her family for two weeks in 1989, we visited their nearby capital, Managua. When Jim’s wife expressed surprise at seeing a large slum in Managua that hadn’t been there before, her relative explained that the leftist Sandinista government had foolishly invited peasants to move to the capital, and so they did, by the tens and maybe hundreds of thousands. But there was no infrastructure waiting for them – no housing, running water, sewers, schools, health clinics. So now there were thousands of people living in poverty and squalor, with rising crime and other social problems. A welcoming policy not thought through, with unintended consequences.

Yes, I want to be loving and friendly like a puppy. But I haven’t invited any more homeless people to stay with me. Paradoxically, I feel more open-hearted when my home and country have secure boundaries. I want world peace, but on my terms. Play by my rules, and you can live next to me.

I guess my days of puppy bliss might be further away than I had hoped.