We live in a world of barriers, borders, and boundaries.

Another wall is built just as yet another bridge is

burnt. What was once neighborly behavior now seems suspect; fences have replaced front porches.
These are terrorizing times. We swim in seas of uncertainty and insecurity, desperately grasping for a life
preserver. Nothing seems secure anymorenot even our ability to relate to one another. Civil discourse
is but a dinosaur, extinct in our own modern experience. Indeed, we live in a world of barriers, borders,
and boundaries. Sadly, this has led to the widespread notion that we are also separate from God. If we
feel so bitterly divided among ourselves, how could we not feel separate from God? On whose side is
God? Does God choose sides? Is it possible for God to be on both sides of a wall? In this age of discord
and division, the earnest words of Jesus farewell prayer on behalf of his followers could not feel more
relevant or more urgent. I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe
in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they
also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I
have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may
become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even
as you have loved me (John 17:20-23). With his beloved disciples during the Last Supper, Jesus prays
for oneness, connection, unity.