Brian Underwood is director of School Development for Sierra Lutheran High School.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall …
This opening line from the poem Mending Wall by famed American poet Robert Frost is not the line most people remember from Frost’s 1914 poem.
However, it delivers the much-needed rationale to tell the rest of the story of this blank verse, and to characterize what impedes our Christian walk with — and to — others.
The more iconic line from the poem is, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Intentionally or not, this verse seems to resonate with all too many in society, both literally and figuratively.
Coming through COVID, where the world was forced to quarantine from itself, the notion of being detached was really all too familiar.
You see, we were already in isolation in many ways, sans the masks. By way of such things as social media, fast-paced lives, and microwave expectations for progress of every stripe, we were already often living in our own individual worlds fortified by walls and fences, unaware that it helped separate us from others. And we still do.
This is contrary to what Jesus said when asked about the most important commandment. In Matthew 22:37-38, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees which is the greatest commandment of all. His reply: “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind … The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.”
Now the first part of that seems pretty easy to understand for all God has done for us, but the second part might make some of us pause a bit.
In Mending Wall, the narrator (speaker) and his neighbor gather in the spring to assess the damage done to the stone fence that separates them. The cause of the damage is unclear, but there is damage nevertheless.
It is the neighbor who holds to the axiom about fences, much to the confusion of the speaker.
“He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
if I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? 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 offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.’”
Our compulsion for isolation, be it physical, digital, or otherwise is contrary to the Christian life that seeks for believers to boldly witness Christ’s love found in the Gospel, and to let our light for him shine, as well.
In the opening line of Mending Wall, the speaker says, “Something there is that doesn't love a wall,” because nobody sees or hears anybody breaking the wall. It is never revealed what causes this fence to continually break, but I can tell you that the walls we put up to keep out others, block out negative situations or shrink from doing what’s right are about as strong as they come. These kinds of fences are often made with Grade A materials like fear, bitterness, envy, regret, loss. But take heart, love is stronger.
I’m not talking about romantic love; rather, I’m speaking of that from the power of the Holy Spirit, which makes us smaller and someone else greater. And it begins with one step, literally and figuratively.
A few years back, there was a great book by Bill Hybel called Just Walk Across the Room. The premise of Hybel’s book was about personal evangelism and putting faith into action — one step at a time.
He teased the work by writing, “What if you knew that by simply crossing the room and saying hello to someone, you could change that person forever? Just a few steps to make an eternal difference.
“It has nothing to do with methods and everything to do with taking a genuine interest in another human being. All you need is a heart that’s in tune with the Holy Spirit and a willingness to venture out of your ‘Circle of Comfort’ and into another person’s life.”
The heart he speaks of is one filled with equal measures of the tenderness and tenacity needed to break down the walls of worry and insecurity we feel when faced with seminal moments to right wrongs, and to impact others. The words of the apostle Paul, often known as the “Love Chapter” in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, are:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
A great friend of mine — and a terrific Christian leader — is Jeffrey Beavers, CEO of Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, Calif., and a licensed marriage and family therapist for more than 30 years. He made a profound statement to me one time that I'll never forget. He plainly but profoundly said, “You can never underestimate how much pain exists in this world.”
Fences and walls have a lot to do with that pain. We erect fences out of pain to protect ourselves from things that have occurred in the past, and to guard against potential pain we think we might experience by taking chances — such as steps toward people who need us. But all too often, we are afraid to be vulnerable and show them love.
As a boomer, I vividly remember the threat of nuclear war with Russia throughout the Cold War. So it was an extremely historic moment on June 12, 1987, after decades of uncertainty, that President Ronald Reagan delivered the famous Berlin Wall speech, where he directed the Russian president: “Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” which celebrated the destruction of the wall that had separated Communist East and West Berlin for 26 years. And with that came a softening in the relationship between the two countries.
That was a historic day, and yet the Lord rejoices that much more when we tear down the walls that divide us, both those that separate us from others with whom we have discord, and those that enclose our fear.
In Luke 15:10 we read, “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Good neighbors are not predicated on fences; quite the contrary. They are predicated on loving one another enough to take chances — chances to love one another enough to break down fences — and mend relationships. And chances to take the first important step to changing a life.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall. His name is Jesus.
Brian Underwood is head of Mission Outreach & Development at Sierra Lutheran High School.
