WALLS (Scripture reference Ephesians 2:14-19)

My own reflections: I haven't yet decided how I feel about "the wall". It isn't cut and dried and for me ultimately isn't about politics. My considerations are for the safety of our nation from our southern border and the ability to keep terrorists and criminals from entering freely. It's about our economy, and jobs that should go to American citizens who need them badly. So in these considerations, I can see that tightening border security and allowing only legal entry is absolutely a good thing. But...

There is also something about The Wall, that feels wrong. Perhaps the political nastiness, political gamesmanship, and manipulative media coverage is what leaves a bad taste. My father was a Baptist minister and many years ago, my mother gave me his briefcase full of handwritten sermons from his many years of preaching so that I might put them into this blog. Daddy was also an intellectual, and a man of deep philosophical consideration. I can't help wondering what he would have thought of this wall.

I reached into the briefcase this morning (2/23/2019) and pulled a sermon out randomly and felt it directly related to this wall concept so wanted to share it for your consideration. I still haven't made up my mind, but this makes me think. He starts by drawing attention to a Robert Frost poem written in blank verse, called "Mending Wall." Forces of nature and of men are at work to destroy the wall. The landowners of each side meet and walk the boundary line each year to make repairs. Something there is fundamental in human nature and the American ideal, something there is at odds with rigid separation between neighbors. And yet something there is that compels neighbors to continue erecting fences and walls. This barrier seems unnecessary as there is no livestock to keep in or out - only trees. There are so many metaphorical "fences" in our society. - Cheryl

The Mending Wall (by Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

'Why do they make good neighbors?

Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me—

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The sermon continues: 

"Walls personal! Walls institutional! Walls that separate man from man, Christian from Christian. There is much in religion that clanks. There are walls of engrained thought and habit. There are walls of distrust from those who differ from us. There are walls made of shattered expectations - sometimes unsaid. There are church vs church walls. There are men and women walls. There are walls of tradition -- it must be done in the way it has always been done! 

The body turns away -- one feels alone.
The rejecting look on a face -- one feels judged
The unwillingness to hear what one says -- one feels misunderstood.
The multitude of nonverbal ways in which we speak -- one feels abased.
The harsh advice given in the presence of hurt and pain -- one feels as an object.

We all have this ability --
I on my side of the wall and you on yours.
We pick up the old stones with which the wall was built and we each put them back in place.
Do we even know what we are walling in and walling out?
Usually a lot of love -- An opportunity to be human to another.