Walls

Mending Walls 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 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 neighbor 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. . .

We wear our fingers rough with handling them. . .

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 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,

That wants it down.’. . .

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 neighbors.

Are walls good or bad? Are they necessary or unnecessary?

It’s the very question that poet Robert Frost wrestles with in his poem Mending Walls (quoted, in part, above). The neighbor is intent on the idea that “good fences make good neighbors.” The poet, on the other hand, thinks “something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

It can be argued that walls provide protection or safety in a world of uncertainty; one could even argue that strong walls make for more peace. Walls define us, they help us establish who we are and who we aspire to be.

And while Frost’s poem is about a literal fence, and while actual walls have been built throughout history as a means of separation, walls are not always quite so literal.

It was a “wall” that set the nation of Israel apart. The sign was circumcision, and it defined who was “in” and who was “out.”

But then, Jesus came. The good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection began to spread. Specifically, it began to spread to the Gentiles, non-Jews, those who had always been on the outside.

Something about the Gospel of Jesus Christ couldn’t stay behind the wall; it couldn’t be contained by a wall.

But that left a question, what about the wall that had separated and defined these communities for as long as anyone could remember?

Was that wall good or bad? Was it necessary or unnecessary?

Grace and peace,

Kimmy