Faith Matters - Fences
I always believed that I knew a fence when I saw one. After all, in my rural zip code fences are a standard feature of many yards. There are fences to keep dogs and children corralled. There are fences to keep the relatives of Bambi and Thumper from the chard. There are fences to mitigate wind-driven snow. There are fences that give permission for Morning Glories, Clematis, beans, cucumbers and peas to get a grip as they stretch sunward.
Over my dashboard, driving out of town, I watch a new fence under construction. However, I soon begin to wonder what rationale has set this project in motion. What would motivate this fellow to invest so much labor in such a serious barrier? Day by day it grows to fifty yards from road to woods. It is eight feet high, an additional three-foot amendment wired to the original five to give it a prodigious height. All I can imagine is that it intends to keep whitetails from their midnight buffet in his broccoli. But with that height, I am now picturing Bullwinkle more than Bambi.
What really kidnapped my attention, however, was the observation that the fence had only one dimension: road to woods. A garden fence with only one side would deter no deer, raccoon, rabbit, or woodchuck. Even intellectually challenged wildlife would merely walk around and graze on the other side, perhaps using the fence as a backscratcher. I watch the progress each day as I crest the hill to see where this will all end. I keep waiting for the appearance of the other sides of the fence that will make an enclosure. Finally, the homeowner and his tools take their leave with only a single line of fence standing.
It becomes clear that this fence was not designed to keep anything either in or out. The fence was a billboard erected to convey some angry message to the man’s immediate neighbor. It was a sign of the enmity between them. I can only guess what real or imagined offense captured the man’s time, energy, and money for such a useless barrier. I can only imagine what satisfaction he derives when he opens his curtains and sees the fruit of this labor. I can only speculate about what the fenced-out neighbors feel as they mow their lawns along opposite sides of the galvanized divide.
A well-known Robert Frost aphorism linking quality fences and quality neighbors specifies “good” fences. Could this in any sense qualify as a good fence? I am trying to make my way back from the answer to the question. When a fence is the answer, fear and anger are generally part of the question.
Many of us remember both the construction and destruction of the Berlin wall. A wall is a fence with an exclamation point. Even as the sound of that falling wall still reverberates in our ears, another wall is under construction in the land where Jesus walked. And a further fence is stretching along in its mission of separation on the southern border of our own land. Fences are a regular feature of the landscape east of Eden.
We are about to enter an interminable, angry season in which political parties will try to convince us to join them on their side of the fence in order to keep the other side from power. Fear is distributed indiscriminately and extravagantly. Words become the “no trespassing” signs hung upon those barriers: conservative, liberal, gay, straight, black, white, terrorist, freedom-fighter, war, peace, patriot, traitor, saved, lost, clean, unclean, them, us. We build the barriers with tools wielded in clinched fists. Such fences seduce us into a cul-de-sac of self-righteousness. Caveat emptor: fences imprison as well as protect.
In addition to a lighted candle, new clothing, and a certificate, one additional gift that we should consider giving a child at baptism is a sack of hand tools: hammer, saw, wire cutters, and wrecking bar. The baptized life is one of both building up and tearing down: bridges to build and walls to demolish. Our baptism unites us with a Christ who has “broken down the dividing wall of hostility” and has given us “the ministry of reconciliation.” Part of growing in grace is learning to discern when it is time to break down and when to build up, as well as practicing the means to do both.
A one-sided rural fence sets me to dreaming about a day when I might get to see the neighbors on both sides of that “good neighbor” fence out there together in the sunshine, sharing tools, laughing as they dismantle that useless barrier. In spite of how unlikely that may be, it remains a hope within me. I smile as I imagine that happy scene.But that new spite fence also serves to remind me, as I am passing through, about some of my own unfinished business. It gets me to remembering that there are still some anger and fear fences in my own life. There are self-righteous walls upon which I have labored long with grim determination and clenched fists. I have my own one-sided fences to demolish. I have my own useless walls to tear down. It is time to open that neglected box with the baptism tools inside.
God’s peace.
Chuck Johns