Yesterday evening a friend wrote, “20 years ago today… the walls came tumblin’ down. Happy tumblin’ down day.” Oh, yeah; I’d forgotten: twenty years ago the Berlin Wall fell.
Vranna Lynn said, “The immovable crumbled...reality laughed at impossibility.” She said, “Concrete and barbed wire surrendered to flesh and bone and spirit.” Those are profound thoughts, and, I believe, a description not just of an extraordinary event, but of reality.
But what really struck me was that yesterday Vranna Lynn was thinking about freedom and transformation and transcendence…and millions of people in Germany were celebrating a remarkable event… and I was oblivious. It’s not that they needed me. The wall came down without my help, and they celebrated just fine without me. But I wonder: how often is something powerful happening, some liberating sea change, some miraculous healing, some earth-changing event unfolding, and I think otherwise?
The Berlin Wall fell because of many complex political and social forces. One was that people met for years in houses and church basements and prayed for the wall to fall, prayed for freedom and peace, and acted in that light in their daily lives. Of course, I had not been aware of that.
We tend to think about what we can see. So we think mostly of our own lives, and our daily chores, and less about the greater human family, less about the unseen powers. But the real essence of life is invisible energy, intangible connections, and unseen Presence. God’s basic mode of operation is grace and redemption, miracle and resurrection. It’s always happening. And sometimes it’s happening in big ways, as it did in Berlin, or in South Africa, or the Philippines… Our sin is not so often wickedness as it is self-centeredness and obliviousness.
I’m not saying you ought to join in every movement or remember every little anniversary that goes by. Just be mindful. Be mindful that despite the world’s vast injustices, grace is afoot; justice is coming; miracles happen; things can change; there’s more going on than you see; people right now are working for peace and justice; and, as some graffiti on the Berlin Wall said, “Many small people, who in many small places do many small things, can change the face of the world.” Every day is a day of liberation.
Happy tumblin’ down day.
Vranna Lynn said, “The immovable crumbled...reality laughed at impossibility.” She said, “Concrete and barbed wire surrendered to flesh and bone and spirit.” Those are profound thoughts, and, I believe, a description not just of an extraordinary event, but of reality.
But what really struck me was that yesterday Vranna Lynn was thinking about freedom and transformation and transcendence…and millions of people in Germany were celebrating a remarkable event… and I was oblivious. It’s not that they needed me. The wall came down without my help, and they celebrated just fine without me. But I wonder: how often is something powerful happening, some liberating sea change, some miraculous healing, some earth-changing event unfolding, and I think otherwise?
The Berlin Wall fell because of many complex political and social forces. One was that people met for years in houses and church basements and prayed for the wall to fall, prayed for freedom and peace, and acted in that light in their daily lives. Of course, I had not been aware of that.
We tend to think about what we can see. So we think mostly of our own lives, and our daily chores, and less about the greater human family, less about the unseen powers. But the real essence of life is invisible energy, intangible connections, and unseen Presence. God’s basic mode of operation is grace and redemption, miracle and resurrection. It’s always happening. And sometimes it’s happening in big ways, as it did in Berlin, or in South Africa, or the Philippines… Our sin is not so often wickedness as it is self-centeredness and obliviousness.
I’m not saying you ought to join in every movement or remember every little anniversary that goes by. Just be mindful. Be mindful that despite the world’s vast injustices, grace is afoot; justice is coming; miracles happen; things can change; there’s more going on than you see; people right now are working for peace and justice; and, as some graffiti on the Berlin Wall said, “Many small people, who in many small places do many small things, can change the face of the world.” Every day is a day of liberation.
Happy tumblin’ down day.
