“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.” (Robert Frost)
The great sector of America called New England is known for many things; the beauty of the White Mountains and “the leaves turning” throughout in the early fall, lobstermen in their oilskins setting off before sunup to haul their traps, and, outlining farms in the countryside with red squirrels navigating their discrepancies, the famous New England “stone wall.” Out of it all, perhaps the silent stone wall speaks the loudest of the rugged individualism that characterizes New England.
They say the glaciers left the stones, and maybe that’s true, and when weather and the elements proved consistently capable of rotting the split rail wooden fences, the golden age of stone walls entered (1775-1825). By 1871 there existed over 20,000 miles of stone walls in Connecticut alone. The stone walls provided fencing for animals, but they also marked the boundaries of neighbors who respected one another’s inviolate territory. Called by some “the most important and beautiful walls ever built” there has come to be a romance of these stones, but as in any romance, there are times and seasons calling for repair. With the deep penetrating frosts of New England moving the earth, with the roots of its trees attacking the foundations, and with hunters scaling their summits, springtime announced a time for repair from two opposing sides of the New England stone wall.
It was this yearly ritual that the great Robert Frost, poet laureate of Vermont, the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, immortalized in his poem “Mending Wall.” Observing what every New England farmer knew well, “Something there is that doesn't love a wall” Frost met his neighbor and together they “walked the line,” mending the wall between them. While Frost muses on “What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense?” his wise neighbor simply says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” And that they do.
The LORD Jesus Christ is our Stone Wall. He is our Rock which the frosty gates of Hell shall never penetrate, and which the roots of Satan’s unseen outreaches can never topple! Our lives are bounded by His love, and the stalwart foundations of our faith are testified to by the abiding, never rotting, always standing, Stone Wall of Jesus Christ. Yes, we need our springtimes of revival, but these are simply our “walking the line” with our brothers and sisters in Christ so that we may rededicate ourselves to “make up the hedge, and stand in the gap” as we repair the breaches of these temples of the Holy Ghost that we dwell in. Our own Stone Wall represents us, distinguishes us, and protects us. The aesthetic beauty is there in our Stone Wall, the romance is there as well, and His standing strength will never fall or fail. Satan is certainly “something that doesn't love a wall,” but as children of God passing through the Red Seas of this life, our God is our (Stone) wall on our right hand, and on our left! (Exodus 14:29)
The LORD Jesus Christ is our Good Neighbor, and that’s His policy!
Love and Prayers to all,
Pastor
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