something there is

 

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Nehemiah 3:15-5:13. Nehemiah and his friends are rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. In the picture above, you can see the actual wall that they were working on. And if you look closely, in the top right corner of the picture you can see Nehemiah.

Just kidding. That's a woman from modern times. But the whole idea of building a wall does have applications to modern times, doesn't it? Isn't there someone in the US who promised to build a wall and is in the process of doing that?

Well, the idea of wall building has always been a controversial one. Even Robert Frost, who generally didn't write about huge heated political issues, wrote about building a wall. He starts his wonderful poem by saying "Something there is that doesn't love a wall", and ends with "good fences make good neighbors."

Do we need walls? Borders? Gates? Locks on our doors? Of course we do. As long as we live in this fallen world, we'll need these things.

But are they ideal? No. And we should be working toward the ideal. Building more bridges, both literal and metaphorical, and fewer walls. 

See, the world is getting smaller and smaller. Not in physical size, but in our relationships with one another. We can't (like we used to) ignore the problems of other countries, walling them out and pretending they don't exist anymore. We are all, the whole planet, in this together. And we need to take care of each other.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall - and that is love. Love doesn't like walls. Love builds bridges.

As we lock our doors and patrol our borders and build the walls that are necessary, let's make sure that we're building those bridges and opening our doors and loving our neighbors at the same time.

God, thanks for teaching us that walls might be necessary, but they're not ideal.