Walls and Fences
Walls, fences, and drawn boundaries define spaces. From outer space, one can see the Great Wall in China, the only human-made structure! When we are flying 30,000 feet in the air, for the life of me, I can’t see state boundaries. It just looks like one country.
When we lived in the Valley Forge area, there were very few walls and fences. The belief is that the greater Philadelphia area has been influenced by Quaker thought where common property and common-wealth are values that Pennsylvanians hold. But living in California, it’s known for its gated communities with a sentinel gatekeeper. It’s only when you have been vetted by security and given approval by a resident that one can enter.
When we moved into our home in Marin County over 22 years ago, there were no walls or fences around our property. To this day, the only things that separate us from the public are euryops pectinatus ‘Viridis’ plants that bloom yellow flowers every spring. When little kids would walk down the public stairs, I invite them to pick the yellow flowers to put them in their hair.
There may be no solid wall or fence but often there are invisible or understood ones. Where I grew up in Roxbury, a neighborhood in Boston, the understood fences were Columbia Road to the east, Warren Avenue to the west with Blue Hill Avenue running through it. We rarely went farther south than Grove Hall. When I was growing up in Roxbury, my Black friends were afraid to visit Chinatown.
In San Francisco Chinatown, it’s a 12-block area with Powell Street on the west, Kearney Street on the east, Bush on the south and Broadway on the north with the infamous Grant Avenue running through it! When I taught some African American seminarians and they came to visit Chinatown, some of them had never been there, especially at night.
Our news today reports thousands of children and youth are crossing the US border from a number of Central American countries because they would like to live in a safe country with opportunities to pursue their life’s goals. They are seeking asylum ensured by international laws.
If we are going to have walls and fences, I like those that the French priest, Michel Quoist wrote in The Wire Fence.
The wires are holding hands around the holes;
To avoid breaking the ring, they hold tight the neighboring wrist,
And it’s thus that with holes they make a fence.
Lord, there are lots of holes in my life.
There are some in the lives of my neighbors.
But if we wish, we shall hold hands,
We shall hold very tight,
And together we shall make a fine roll of fence to adorn Paradise. (1954)
If we are going to have walls and fences, let us hold hands to be compassionate, loving and merciful. Forgive us, Lord when we build walls and set up fences that destroy our humanity. I pray that our fences will adorn on earth as we know it’s already the case in heaven. Whatever separates us, we believe that in Christ, he “has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14)