Walls

I’ve been thinking about walls. I think walls are good. They keep us safe from others - and others safe from me. And more importantly walls have doors in them. 

When I think of walls and people I imagine cities and castles. 

Like I am the princess who lives in the top of the tower in the centre of the city. There’s a whole series of walls between me and the outside world. 

People I don’t know walk around outside the city. 

Acquaintances come through the first set of doors into the city. 

Friends come through the second into the castle. 

Good friends get into the courtyard around the tower. 

And, Best friends get into the tower. They are heart friends. 

The best thing about doors, and the worst thing about doors, is that I’m the gate keeper. I get to say who comes in, and who leaves. Actually it’s more like a negotiation. People knock on the door and indicate they are interested in coming in - knowing me more, I get to decide if that’s going to happen. Or sometimes I’ll invite people to come further in. They get to decide if they want to come. 

Sometimes a person comes in looks around and says this is not my kind of city and leaves again. That is sad, but allowable. 

Sometimes I make mistakes. I let a person into the castle or further who should never have been that far in and they cause damage because they don’t respect the privilege. 

Or sometimes I push a person out who I should have let stay and I hurt them. I always regret that when I realise I’ve done it. 

Sometimes I close all the doors and go hide for a while. I think this keeps me safe from monsters, but in actuality the monsters in my imagination are far worse than the monsters outside of the city. 

And sometimes I just need alone time to heal. 

My thought is that I open and close doors in response to fear or to love. 

If my door opening and closing is fear induced then their will be problems either way. Although I suspect with fear the doors stay closed most of the time - either to keep people out, or to try and hold them when they don’t want to stay. 

But if I open and close the doors in response to love then it is a joyous thing, and I expect those doors mostly stay open. 

My thought is that most of the damage that occurs in relationships - from simple friendships to the closest of heart ties - occurs when we try to protect ourselves. We start to fight the monsters we fear, to protect our city from damage, but the city is damaged anyway, and so is the person I’m fighting, the one I have mistaken for a monster. 

I think that as people learn to trust love they become less defensive and they are willing to accept that there is something of a monster in all of us. In me and in you and in everyone we know. 

When we trust love we stop fighting to hide the monster inside, we start to trust that maybe the monster can be loved in spite of it’s scaley skin and bad breath. 

Love allows us to accept the monster inside ourselves and inside everyone else. It allows us to stop fighting. To say “Yes, I am this terrible thing, but I am still loved.” “Yes, you are this terrible thing, but you are still loved.”

And over time as we hold onto this love, to live in this love, and to trust this love more fully, the monster we see inside others starts to shrink and finally to disappear. And we take the doors off of our city walls because it’s safe to allow people to come and go as they wish. That kind of freedom makes more people visit the city and so the city rejoices. 

It takes a special kind of love to bring this kind of change. It takes the love of someone who doesn’t have a monster inside. It takes the love of God. It is as we look into His love, as we accept His non defensive goodness, as we dwell in His presence that we learn to trust His love. And then that love changes us. It turns the monster into a princess. (Or a prince.)