Bolting and Boundaries

We have a neighborhood park close to our home. It is bracketed by two busy streets. For reasons unknown to me, two of the three sides of the park are fenced from the street. (Perhaps so it will not be mistaken for a dog park.) We love to watch young families host parties and Easter Egg Hunts in that park; preschool kids sipping juice boxes on the picnic tables with their caregivers. It is a sweet, important space in our community.

When no one is there, we take our pups Beau and Grace to the park and throw a tennis ball for them. We joyfully observe what we call “Clash of the Titans” when they literally leap in the air and throw their combined 145 pounds of canine energy at one another. We’ve worked hard to make sure they stay within the confines of the park. They have been rock solid—willing to do anything for string cheese.

To our horror, yesterday Beau retrieved the tennis ball like he has hundreds of times, and then bolted like a rocket along the fence, picking up speed and running headlong onto the busy road toward a man walking a Labrador Retriever on a leash. Grace sprinted close behind with Malcolm and me yelling their names and whistling their call for “come.” We heard a brief growl and then, thankfully, both came running back and sat right at my feet. We yelled our apologies from afar to the dog owner who must have been terrified by our dogs’ behavior and walked home shaken and ashamed.

Beau and Grace behaved badly, only for an instant, but the outcome could have been so much worse—one of them or one of us getting hit by a car; a beloved pet injured in a fight. Thankfully none of that came to pass. We were aware that we had put them and others in danger by not making sure there were safe boundaries.

I don’t love boundaries—around my time, around my options, around just about anything. And yet boundaries can provide safety and force us to make choices. Parents who are overly-complicit with children deprive them of the opportunity to learn about healthy limits, and possibly can put them in danger. As adults, we are invited to create our own boundaries of what we will and will not do, who we will make time for, how we will offer our gifts, and how we will spend our money. Creating boundaries, or brackets if you will, does not have to come from a place of deprivation, but from a place of appreciation. Appreciation for the sanctity of each moment, each day—balancing time for vocation, and community, and rest, and prayer, and hobbies, and whatever. Without awareness of boundaries, I find myself bolting in directions that do not serve my well-being or others.

So much good happens at our community park. We misunderstood its purpose. There are a myriad of ways we can provide space and play for our pups, just not there. So much good is present in life, boundaries help us clarify our priorities and our purpose, and at times, provide safety.