The Mended Wall
One day, not long after we moved into the Rectory at Saint Luke’s Parish, one of my daughter’s friends—a young driver—was backing out of the driveway late at night and hit the column on the end of the old stone wall that ran along the road.
The end-column, about a foot higher than the low wall, was pushed back off its foundation, opening a six-inch gap. An ugly gash. I was upset because it was such a beautiful stone wall, and I wondered how we could fix this. I thought, Somehow we’ve got to lift this end column and move it back in line with the wall.
Now, if you’re thinking, “What kind of numbskull are you, to think you or anybody would be able to lift a ton of rock and turn it back in place?”, you’d be right. It’s crazy. But I didn’t know it at the time.
So I called a friend named Ken Weeks, a retired stone mason and master wall builder. He came over early one morning and I told him my plan—to move the one-ton column back in place. And Ken, bless him, didn’t say, “Anderson, You’re nuts!” He just said, “Let me see what I can do.” And I went on to work and left the master with my broken wall.
When I came home that night the wall was beautifully itself again. So I called Ken, and I said, “How did you get that column back in place?” And he said, “I just took about a dozen rocks and small stones and filled in the little gap—took me about 20 minutes.” I went out to look closer, and sure enough, he had just finessed it with a few stones.
I sat on my haunches staring at this mended wall, and thinking, That’s the difference between a crazy, driving energy to make something perfect, to get it back to its original state—so help me God!—and the wise energy that just knows that walls get hit and bruised and wounded, just like people do—and you can’t always make them exactly like they were before the injury. It’s not always possible.
But you can heal the wound, you can pour in love, and the thing will be whole again. It won’t be perfect, but it will be forever after a work of love, a stone wall or a man or a woman with a story to tell.
What a wonderful image, David. Thanks so much!
David, That’s a lovely analogy!
Well, most people know I build a lot of stone walls these days, so it’s top of mind for me.
Dear David, I am so thankful for the way you open my eyes and soul to what God would have me see. I am currently visiting a close family member. Because of the damage and my desire for healing, I have created unrealistic expectations (like you did). Yet God’s love can repair and heal in unexpected ways that are beyond my perception. Thank you!
We all create unrealistic expectations…especially with close loved ones. It takes prayer and surrender to be able to accept what is real and on offer, now.
David…
Many thanks for this post. It reminds me of the un-repaired stonework on my springhouse, which actually doesn’t have to be PERFECT.
It also led to re-reading an old friend poem, Robert Frost’s Mending Wall.
……..
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
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.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Yes, my “Mended Wall” was a nod to Frost’s Mending Wall. Thank you for posting that.
Beautiful and so true!
Not only is this a wonderful story, it brought lovely Ken Weeks flowing back into my mind. I’m going to go over and look at that wall tomorrow. Thank you David.
Thanks for mentioning him, Gloria. I so love that man.
Oh I love this one David…the older I get the more and more I realize those holes and imperfections in our walls are where the good stuff lies! Thank you for the story and reminder.
“are where the good stuff lies”—wonderfully said.