“Finding God in the ecotone of faith and life” by Fr. John for The Texas Catholic.
As Catholics, how should we imagine our relationship with the world? We often talk about “walls” and “doors” and “bridges” to explain how the Church should either connect to the world for the sake of evangelizing it or separate herself from the world for the sake of remaining faithful to God.
These images are helpful, but I like another one I learned from some Cistercian nuns in Boulaur, France. These nuns think a lot about monastic renewal and evangelization; and when they imagine their relationship with the world, they often use an idea from ecology — ecotone. An ecotone is a transitional area between two different biological communities, like between a forest and a grassland or a marine and freshwater environment. Such areas have characteristics belonging to both communities and often contain the same species but in greater density, as well as totally new species. Organisms from the bordering communities need this area for mating, nesting, or foraging.
An ecotone is thus an area of exchange and abundance to which living things must travel to support their native communities. This image can help us imagine the relationship between the Church and the world.
First, an ecotone is not made by human beings (in contrast to a wall, door, or bridge). We can steward an ecotone, but it is ultimately established by the Creator, whose Spirit “blows where he wills” (Jn 3:8). When we move into an ecotone, we must therefore be sensitive to powers beyond our own and humble before the living God. A wall, door, or bridge suggests we are constructing our relationship with the world; but an ecotone suggests that while we are responsible, we are not autonomous. An ecotone calls us to search for God’s will rather than simply carry out our own preconceived strategies. In this way, it encourages us toward patient faith, discernment, and obedience.
Second, an ecotone is a mixed space that only gradually challenges organisms. Living things leave their native environments and meet each other in a space that contains both familiar and unfamiliar elements and thus safely promotes their growth. When we think of doors, bridges, and walls, we think of one species completely transitioning into the native space of another. Such an immediate and one-sided transition can call to mind something positive like conversion, but it ignores the need living things have for time to adapt to a new environment, as well as the way in which all living things need to move beyond what is already comfortable for them if they are to grow. By contrast, the image of an ecotone encourages everyone — including those already at home in the Church — to seek growth through a proportionally challenging encounter with someone from another environment.
Finally, an ecotone allows the bordering communities to remain completely intact even as their species interact. When we think of species passing through doors, bridges, and walls, we could easily think of something destructive like an invasion or infection. Images that suggest there are only two spaces, such as the fully converted Church and the fully sinful world, set us up for conflict and anxiety, because they frame our relationship in a way that makes conquest or contamination our only two outcomes. Meanwhile, the idea of a third space allows us to imagine fruitful encounters without compromising our native environment.
For example, monks who exercise hospitality in an ecotone (like a carefully designed guesthouse or school) can experience the world’s challenges in ways that push them toward greater self-knowledge, compassion, and zeal. As they strive to listen and serve others, they can discover their own need for growth. As long as a monk is able to return to his native environment — and leave the temporary space of the ecotone — the growth inspired by his contact with the world can enrich him and his community. Of course, if the ecotone is not carefully designed (i.e., if it is just the world’s native environment in disguise), or if the monk never truly leaves the ecotone (i.e., if he allows his own native environment to be corrupted), then he cannot expect to bear much fruit.
What spaces can we cultivate in a way that allows us to be ourselves, as Catholics, and at the same time allows others to be themselves, so that we all might open ourselves to God’s constant call to greater conversion and growth? How can we design our schools, offices, libraries, cultural exhibitions, businesses, cafés, and other spaces to become fertile ecotones?