The Wall: A Parable or Just A Wall
“Now you begin to understand love. Without love all the things I have told you would be meaningless. You will begin to live in peace and understanding. You will learn gentleness and kindness. But it will take time.”
This is a 2-parter. Don’t forget to come back for the 2nd part: “The Wall: A Social Media Parable”
I have the best therapist. However, I’m starting to question my homework assignments. She has started giving me short readings. I love it! But I overanalyze (doesn’t she know this about me)?
I seriously think as much time analyzing what she will interpret from my understanding and why she thought the reading was relevant as I do introspectively taking it for what it is (maybe she forgot this part about me).
However, I never turn down an opportunity to add another book to my reading checklist (I have to finish 50 this year and I’m at 28, bring it on).
Recently she sent me home with “The Wall: A Parable” by Gloria Jay Evans (1977). It’s a short easy read. I’ll paraphrase it for you.
The Parable, in a few words…
A woman builds a wall made of blocks, each representing different things in her life: pride, self-pity, jealousy, disillusionment, resentment, childishness, vanity, fear, mistrust, indifference, etc. She builds it at first to keep people out. But it worked too well and she got lonely.
She believed her wall to be a beautiful, perfect one even and wanted to share it with someone. But the world is imperfect and cruel and pointed out all of its imperfections.
In despair, however, someone shows her God’s love. Then His light brings her comfort, and joy, and eases her loneliness. But it doesn’t take it away.
He also helps her understand the wall she built and learn the names of the stones: jealousy, resentment, mistrust, etc.
He helps her take her wall down and eventually encourages her to leave her wall to share what she has learned with others. To share His love with others, so that they can tear down their walls too.
Through this journey, she discovers that His presence in her life, while it doesn’t abate her loneliness, replaces the need for the wall (stones in the wall) and makes room for love. And it’s that love that allows her to be a part of the “great family of God.”
Here are some thoughts for you:
- I’m a Christian, however not everything I have to learn about myself is about God or my Christian experience.
- This “parable” was written in 1977. The Christian experience and social world when dealing with mental health was very different then. Especially as they relate to each other.
- I’m unsure of the actual parable this story wishes to convey; there are probably several and I believe all of them to be at a certain level of indoctrination and encourage you to take them as what they are “parables.” A.k.a. simple stories meant to communicate a spiritual lesson. And question them as our world and understanding of it and our spiritual journey change.
- To make this wall what this book intends it to be, I believe it makes being a Christian a Wall in and of itself. It adds guilt and complete responsibility for that wall to the builder when sometimes life circumstances and relationships have led to the placement of some of those stones. It’s like I contracted security for the openings of my wall, and instead, they just gave me more stones to build it higher.
Ramblings…
I’m not shy about most of my therapeutic learnings. As humans, we share certain feelings and I want to share my experience as I traverse them.
I’ve been dealing with loneliness, and it’s probably because I’ve built a wall (hence this book recommendation I suppose). However, the wall mentioned above is NOT my wall (hence my questioning of my therapist’s recommended readings).
But this introspective has led me down a path of learning that is still very valuable.
I have built a wall, we all do, and it’s made up of various stones with names. And what Gloria Jay Evans may find interesting, is that wall has a physical manifestation in today’s society, it lives on the internet, on my phone, on my iPad, or whatever digital device I have in front of me at the moment.
Perhaps for some, it’s a wall that separates them from God as well as others. Perhaps it’s a wall that is made up of our darkest sins. Or maybe it’s made of blocks that hide the darkest parts of ourselves, but they aren’t sins, they are blocks of what it means to be human.
I believe most of our walls, and most of us do have them, are the latter.
Hmmm… now I wonder if this is what I therapist expected me to learn from the book? I do surprise her. 😉
Thanks for reading.
❤️
