2019 January 9
Walls
I like what the designers call open concept. You know what I mean, the living, dining, family, and kitchen as rooms are not open through a doorway, but open, walls to walls with one another. But, liking open concept means you have to think about things like ventilation, heating, smoke from the kitchen stove, privacy and noise. It is easy to put things in the boxes that are rooms surrounded and divided by walls; you could say manageable. The dried fruit that was in the pantry for seven years because it was in a cupboard behind the door on that shelf just a bit above eye level. Manageable until you lost sight of it. It was then lost, wasted.
Robert Frost wrote in his poem, Mending Wall: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall” and later at the conclusion ‘”good fences make good neighbors.” Two contradictory statements yet both carry an element of truth.
The first truth is that walls, by their very nature, keep things separate. The walls of the house, keep the outside out and the inside in, separate and apart, perhaps safe. But those walls limit our ability to get to know each other, stops us from being able to interact on a larger scale, and that puts us into those boxes of we, them.
The second truth is that fences make good neighbors. Growing up on a farm it was easy to see when our cattle got through our neighbor’s fences. Those barriers helped us to assure that our animals gave birth at the time we wanted them to do, by keeping the neighbors bull and our bull in their own pastures. Fences allow us to see and interact with our neighbors. By their nature fences are intended for us to keep our foolishness and arrogance contained, yet evident as a means of civilizing us, on both sides.
Borders do the same thing. Like gates in a fence, we are given passage from one country to another. But a barrier, even an invisible one welcomes the stranger and shows the safety we offer, and the concern provided to them and us.
Borders, fences, and walls define how we see ourselves. The neighbor who says that fences make good neighbors is not telling you to keep away. Instead and very importantly that neighbor is saying who he or she perceives he or she is. A border, by its presence states, or at least should, that this is the limits where this country and land can support, defend and nurture its inhabitants. A border is where we as a nation end and you as a nation begin, not as a point of contention but an understanding of what we as a country can and have defined us as who we are. It is a limitation that is imposed by that understanding and a desire to live together. With respect, a border becomes a means for each of us to control our populations, and who sojourns with us.
Walls also define us. Walls surround us and obscure us. Walls lie about what we believe, what we hope, what hold to be true, just because walls keep us in and you out. The lie that we are safer because of the wall rages that they are out to get us and deceives us into believing in the fear. Walls hide us from us and the world. In this day and age, a wall is a deception that we can not afford either spiritually or physically. Walls take away respect and conversation and leave separation and discord.
As spiritual beings, or specifically followers of the Christ, we are called to welcome the sojourner, the traveler within our borders, our country, our home with the same deference and respect as we give one another. Fences and boundaries define for us where we are responsible for the safety of our neighbor as well as ourselves. Walls relegate that responsibility to the illusion that our security is in something physical, instead of our willingness to work and live together.
We can shake hands across a stone or split rail fence. We can have a conversation that allows us to be fellow travelers, sojourners, living together and caring for our world. Walls may shelter our bodies enclosing us against the cold and heat and the storm and protecting us while we are crushed under their emotional weight and failure. To bring us into the light of community that we need, it is not the wall of fear but the openness of hope and reconciliation, and yes, the fence of respect that allows us to live together –us.
