Expanding the Walls

Every human draws circles around himself or herself in order to determine how large his/her world will be.

Most of us prefer to live in a world made up of people who look like us, think like us, believe like us, and talk like us. So we wall in those who are "like us" and we wall out those who are unlike us. "Good fences make good neighbors," says the man on the other side of Robert Frost's wall (the previous blog post).

You don't have to look far in contemporary culture to know this truth. In fact, you likely see it in the world before you notice it in yourself. Examples abound, and are easy enough to see . . . men or women are all stereotyped because of the actions of a few . . . entire ethnic groups are stigmatized because of the behavior of a small portion of that population . . . all persons within any identity sub-set of life are all characterized in the same way.

I tend to "profile" all persons who drive a particular brand of automobile (these persons also tend to drive the same color of that make and model!) as "entitled" and "arrogant" . . . even as they cut me off and speed on down the freeway.

Most all of us do this kind of thing in one way or another, creating insiders and outsiders . . . whether we label those outside our circle as "liberal elites" or as "a basket of deplorables." We have one set of labels for those inside the circle with us, and another set of labels -- usually much more pejorative -- for those outside the circle.

Jesus spent little time cozying up to those who would have been inside his wall or circle . . . those who looked like him, talked like him, or shared a common background. Using the vocabulary I've suggested, Jesus was mostly focused on those on the outside of culture's norms, not those inside. As I've said before in this space, while Jesus gave most of his attention to those who were on the outside of society's wall, it is doubtful Jesus ever met anyone who he considered to be an outsider. He was spacious enough, generous enough, that he had no walls, no need to create divisions.

That kind of spaciousness and generosity -- perhaps we could call it "mercy" or "compassion" -- is fundamental to the nature of God.

Expanding your walls -- or eventually letting them crumble -- is not as easy as just wishing it so. It takes an ongoing, daily intention to see the actual truth of our lives . . . to be deliberate in our self-reflection . . . to be honest with ourselves about who we are and how we are in the world. We have to be willing to see ourselves as we are, not merely as we wish to be . . . to acknowledge the truth about the walls we live within (who is included, who is excluded) . . . and to take small steps which make wider the circles in which we live.

Engage someone who is "outside" your circle in conversation, not intending to change their mind, but simply to listen to them.

Be in settings made up of people who are not "like you" (whatever you take "not like you" to mean). Be there as an observer, as a compassionate presence.

Seek to understand as honestly as possible how someone who sees life differently could be the way they are. For example, try to see life from the perspective of that family member whose politics are 180 degrees different from yours. Or try to imagine life from the perspective of that neighbor who is from a different culture, a different part of the world. Your perspective, after all, is NOT the only perspective.

Small steps . . .

I do know this . . . it takes a lot of energy to go about this more expansive inner work. It is not easy.

But as Frost's poem, "Mending Wall" suggests (in the previous post), it also takes a lot of work to keep mending the same old walls, leaving them right where they have always been.

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall

As you can see from my post last week, I'm considering the size and shape of our personal world, and the many ways we draw circles around ourselves to create a world that is as large or small as we can stand to live in. In that spirit, I offer you this well-known poem by Robert Frost, "Mending Wall."

I'll not comment on the poem . . . but would love to commend it to you for your consideration and meditation. I'll provide some suggestions for reflection at the bottom of the post that might prompt you to work with Frost's poem a bit. To hear the poem, read it two or three times through, perhaps once or twice out loud. If you print the poem, highlight the lines that stand out for you, or the phrases that intrigue you. Jot down your own questions about the poem.


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.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door 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 neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? 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 neighbours."


** What might be the "something" that doesn't love a wall . . . the "something ... that wants it down"? I have a couple of ideas for myself. What do you think?


** "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."

These three lines seem to be a statement that mocks civility, as if the work of keeping the wall in place -- and between the men -- was the most normal work in the world. How do you understand these lines, especially in light of the "something" that doesn't love a wall?


** There are several places where the poem implies, "This is how it has always been, and this is the way it will be into the days ahead." Note the passages which suggest a clinging to the past. How do you react to them?


**Hold these two lines in your hands -- perhaps one in each hand -- and consider them together. Then, see where you come down.
"Good fences make good neighbours."

"Why do good fences make good neighbours?"


**Frost writes,
"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."

Think of walls you have encountered . . . either literal walls that separated you from others and impeded your travel . . . or metaphorical walls that have kept you apart or separated from a job, a vocation, a relationship, etc. As you consider specific encounters with a wall, what was walled out? What was walled in? (Walls always function both to wall out and to wall in, though that is seldom acknowledged.)


** What would you say to Robert Frost about his poem? Do you have questions to ask him? What would you like to know that you can't readily assume from the actual poem?