Immediately after the devastation of the First World War, the Society of Friends (“Quakers”) distributed food and clothing to the impoverished people of Poland. One relief worker, who had served a variety of villages, suddenly contracted typhus and died within twenty‑four hours. Since only Roman Catholic cemeteries existed and canonical law forbade burying anyone not of that confession in consecrated ground, townspeople buried their cherished missionary friend in a grave just outside the cemetery. The next morning, however, it was discovered that the villagers had moved the fence during the night. The cemetery now included the grave.
This story balances the notion of boundaries. Although boundaries keep me safe, I must see when they turn into a rigid exclusion of life and love. When that happens, a door or window may need to be cut into the wall. Or a fence may need to be moved.
Here’s a few examples of people moving their fences: a woman who loves watching professional football; a man who knits afghans (of course, only his wife and I know about it); another man who regularly makes time to draw pictures with his three‑year‑old daughter (and genuinely enjoys it). Each person has moved a fence (these examples happen to be about gender) that might have defined them or kept them safe, but they saw it was time to expand the notion of who they were.
When groups of people do this (as in our opening story), the effects can be far reaching. Real fence moving is not “Do Gooding,” where people do what they think they ought to do. Fence moving comes from the heart, when people, singly or in groups, see that they must risk some of their "comfort zone" to comply with their law of love.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I it was like to give offense.
Robert Frost
The Poetry of Robert Frost
And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus; Luke 18:16
Qalqiya Wall
between Israel and the West Bank