My Walls

                                             The Wall




Tomorrow is the 25th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.  Change is possible.  But what does it take to manifest the desire to take down the walls I build around myself; let alone to let those walls come down?  I just caught myself doing maintenance on one of my walls.

Thinking of someone I am likely to encounter today, my story of them begins to flow in my mind.  Then I queried - “Who is talking.”  The building chatter dissipated, evaporating as quickly and quietly as it arose.  Instead I now chose to send this person loving and healing thoughts.  Looking at their positive attributes, their love.  A crack forms and a few bricks loosen.

I have two small pieces of “The Wall” my friend Hernan brought me back from Berlin that year.  Two nondescript pieces of rock, formed with fear, maybe even hate, into a large solid obstruction of the flow of life.  I grew up hearing about “The Wall” and fear was instilled about “those people” who were behind it.  Yet now I see that perhaps we were all behind it; under it; smothered in it. 

I keep those tiny pieces of Berlin to remind me of what is possible in the lives of men - the good and the bad.  What is possible in my life?  Today?  Now?  May I and all of us find the people, the reasons, the hope and the love to begin to tear down our walls - to open what is truly possible for us and for everyone. Let us build tiny walls within gardens; walls that shelter the homeless; and walls that protect the fragile.

Let us begin right now.



Photo by Paul Downey