Checking Out the “Great, Great Wall”

We drove east on I-8 and then south on Arizona route 85 yesterday to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.  It is just a few miles north of the US border with our neighbor, Mexico.   The sunset here last night was spectacular and the sunrise this morning beyond description.   But what I noticed most, as I drove southward yesterday and while taking a little walk this morning, was a “great, great wall.”  No architect could have created such a stupendous design.  No engineer could have built it.  No artist could ever have  painted it. There is not enough money in Mexico or in the United States to finance such a project.  It is a “great, great wall!”  This wall may be the Growler (I like the name because it describes my mood whenever I think “wall”) or Granite Mountain range. Maybe is the Ajo mountains—I’m not sure.  It does not separate one country or people from another, but it is a grand wall, and from my perspective the only kind of wall(s) that should exist in our world.

Today, if we do decide to get on the road again (we are undecided at the moment) we will drive through a number of Border Patrol check-points.  This is enough of a “wall” of protection—we do not need any more—as far as I am concerned.  We have erected enough walls already in our country—walls that divide—walls of prejudice, walls of color, walls of religion.  This universe is a friendly one—there is enough room, enough bread, enough wine for everyone.  The America I have known, the Constitution that I gave oath to support (over 38 years of military service) is not about building walls, but about climbing over them and breaking them down wherever they discriminate, produce hate or fear; wherever such walls block the roads to freedom, harmony and peace among all peoples.  When we, as Americans even think of building “great, great walls,” we have become what we have always been against!  My grandad tried to avoid cuss words, using the word “confound it” for damn!  Confound it, Mr/Mrs/Ms Americans, stop talking about a damn wall!  It makes me growl!