A Berlin Wall

(A Bright Future - As Hoped for Back in 2021)

Americans point to German history as proof of how bad it can get. I look to German history as proof of how good America can become.

Germany is a proud nation, and rightly so. Germany was one of the greatest nations in the world long before our nation was even born.

But following the first world war, Germany lost its way. It hungered to restore the Germany that once was. The path it chose to become great once more was to rid itself of Germans they wrongly blamed for what Germany had become. But Americans, and others, put an end to that attempt.

Germans are a resilient people. So, they began anew their quest to rebuild their nation, only to have Russia erect the Berlin Wall that divided one people into two nations. Russia knew that a people divided, like a house divided, could achieve very little.

Then an American president stood at that wall and demanded that Russia tear down that wall. Hearing that call to arms, it was the German people themselves who tore down the wall that had divided them for so long.

Re-united at last, the German people were finally able to rebuild a Germany that has become, once more, one of the world’s great nations.

A “Berlin Wall” of sorts still exists. No longer does it divide the German people into two nations. It now divides Americans into two nations. This resurrected wall is the one we Americans have been busy erecting in our own hearts for the past twenty years. We have, in that time, succeeded in walling ourselves off from our fellow Americans.

The German people taught us that, while a President can sound a call to arms, it is the people themselves who must dismantle the wall. And they also remind us that until that wall is gone and we as a people are re-united, American greatness will remain beyond our grasp.

Unity has always been America’s super-power. And it is only by re-uniting as one, indivisible, people that we can hope to reclaim America’s rightful place among the great nations of the world.

This Berlin Wall of ours that is holding us back is one of our own making. And because it exists in the hearts of Americans, America’s future turns on me removing it from my heart and on you removing it from yours.

How? By listening.

But, while I hunger to re-unite with my un-like-minded fellow Americans, doing so requires listening to what they need me to hear. And in this day and age, I cannot yet muster the courage required to engage in dialogue with those I no longer understand.

I know that others have found the courage to do so. In “Union,” a book published last year, a Democrat and Republican report on their two-year road trip crisscrossing America in a quest for common ground. In “Pantsuit Politics,” a podcast steadily gaining in popularity, a Democrat and a Republican grapple with how to sustain and nurture a friendship that the beliefs of their parties seem to forbid. In “Living Room Conversations,” a grassroots movement that is trying to take root, neighbors of different beliefs experiment with ways of “talking politics” that lead to a shared understanding of each person’s point of view.

History tells us how a Berlin Wall comes down: The people of a divided nation take it upon themselves to remove the wall that divides them and, thus re-united, begin the work of restoring their nation. And each one of these attempts to begin removing America’s Berlin Wall beckons the rest of us to follow suit.

To restore our nation to greatness, we must start by each doing our part in tearing down this wall. We must each muster the courage to begin listening to what we do not want to hear. So, I pray for the courage to begin the work of rebuilding our nation.