Monday, October 15 ~ Wes Ebert
In 1979 I lived in Germany for a year. One of the hardest things for me to get my head around was “the wall.” It divided the country down the middle, having been built by an oppressive regime to exert control over its people. In the minds of my peers it had been there forever and everyone believed it would stand forever. But in reality it fell a mere decade later.
The Separation Wall by Wi’am’s play yard
Looking at the dividing wall through Bethlehem today I was having flashbacks.
● The graffiti was the same, complaining about the powers that had built it and belittling
those who enabled the oppression.
● The guard towers looked frighteningly familiar
● And the fact that it was intended to divide a community and keep people apart was eerily similar.
Wall surrounding Rachel’s tomb
I know the situation here is very different, but the fact that the seemingly permanent wall through Germany is merely a topic of history books today gives me hope, hope that a similar situation could occur here and the two opposing sides could come together in unity and peace.
The more I look back at what I’ve just written, the more naive it looks, especially in light of all we’ve learned throughout the day. But I believe God is powerful enough to bring about transformation in unexpected ways. Such changes never come easily, but the harder we all work for the justice Christ taught us, the closer we can get to achieving that goal.
*Blog title: ref. to Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”
