The Significance Of Walls: A Trip To The Arizona-Mexico Border

My best friend, Sarah, went to Arizona and Mexico this summer to learn about immigration, the border, and the mistreatment of immigrants by the United States government. This trip was with a group called BorderLinks. She learned a lot from this trip and she shared a presentation about it before church a couple of Sundays ago. This presentation inspired me to share my thoughts on "The Significance Of Walls."

Walls can be very important, whether they are tangible or intangible. The wall Sarah was mainly talking about that Sunday is tangible. This wall that separates the United States and Mexico was the main topic of conversation. This wall that isn't even a full wall because the United States Border Control know that in certain parts of the desert it is too hot for people to survive, so there is no wall standing between those people and America.

The American side of the wall is to have no decoration or memorials of those who have fallen. It is kept military style with all of its fancy gadgets that keep out illegal immigrants. The Mexico side, however, is beautiful. It is painted to show birds migrating to show that migration is normal.

As I said above, the American side of the wall allows no decoration or memorials, that includes memorials to American's who have died. But, the people who are being kept out of America have placed a memorial on their side of the wall for a dead American.

This information is only a small piece that Sarah presented to everyone at our church that morning. This is about the tangible wall that separates two countries, but what about the other wall I mentioned? This wall is intangible and it is inside the minds of most people. This wall is the wall that we use to shut out everything that we don't want to see going on around us. This wall was in place during big events such as the Holocaust and the modern day immigration issue and small events such as local shootings. This wall I feel is more dangerous that the tangible ones.

These intangible walls in our minds stop us from seeing the world as it truly is and the horrors that happen around us. This makes the world fall into more turmoil because if we cannot see the horror around us, then how are we going to fix it? The answer is we can't. We need to break down our intangible walls and go break down our tangible ones. There was once an American President, who said many great things, but one of his sayings stands out today,

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
-Ronald Reagan

Even though we are not Mikhail Gorbachev, we should still listen to these words. Tear down the walls in your mind and stop the horrific events around you.