One of my favorite poets is Robert Frost. Of all his writings, my favorite is “Mending Wall.”
It’s the story of two New England farmers who go out each spring to mend the rock fences that have fallen down over the winter. They do it every spring, under the belief that “good fences make good neighbors.”
But this particular spring, one farmer is beginning to question that long held assumption. As they work their respective sides of the fence, wearing their fingers raw with the rocks, he begins to reason. “He is all pine and I am all apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines. Why is it that we need to build these fences back every spring?” Then he says this:
Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know
What I am walling in or walling out
And to whom I am like to give an offense
For something there is that doesn’t love a wall
That wants it down.
Friends come into our lives when the rest of the world is going out. As we saw in last Sunday’s Gospel (John 4:5-42), Jesus stopped to befriend the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. That’s the Jesus I want to know. How well do you know that Jesus who tears down walls?
Thanks to J. Howard Olds. Thanks to Inthemomentprints for the photo.
What walls do you still have in YOUR life with family members, acquaintances, and people YOU don’t like for some unfounded reason? Lent is the time to take down YOUR walls.
GOD WILL WRECK YOUR PLANS WHEN GOD SEES THAT YOUR PLANS ARE ABOUT TO WRECK YOU!!
