WALLS

With so much in the news these days about building walls to keep people out with physical and legal barriers, I created some pieces that comment on why these obstacles get implemented and the consequences they generate.

Pope Francis, in an audience at the Vatican in 2016 stated, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

Although the Pope never directly referred to Donald Trump, the President felt compelled to tweet in response, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

The Great Wall in China, the Berlin Wall, Trump’s vision of a barrier on the Mexican-American border and now his mandates on immigration policy—only time will tell what effect these structures and policies will have on the arc of history.

As Martin Luther King said in his 1964 Baccalaureate sermon at the Wesleyan University commencement, ““The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quote was so important to President Obama that he had it woven into a rug that graced his tenure in the Oval Office.

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Is it a Fence, a Wall, a Partition, or a Barrier?

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.  -—Buddha

                                                                                                                                                      

You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. 

                                                                                                                              —Yogi Berra

                                                                                                      Writing and illustrating this blog will give me a chance to engage 
in commentary that I refrain from on my website, Facebook, and Instagram sites.

From Buddha to Yogi Berra I try to look at history, the present, 
and the future through the eyes of revered philosophers, spiritual sages, and world leaders whose vision points either forward or backward depending on how the wind is shifting.

(Left—self-portrait with background credit to Yayoi Kusama)

JUSTICE

Since the founding of our nation American political thought has had an enduring focus on justice. The concept of justice and equal protection rights has been questioned recently in response to the proposed Immigration Ban.

The Preamble to the American Constitution says that one of its primary goals is to “establish justice.”  In 1788 James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers that "justice should be the goal of all government and of all civil society, that people are willing to risk even liberty in its pursuit."  

I created this piece, entitled “Justice,” after traveling through Eastern Europe and considering how every society has had to define justice in pursuit of freedom.

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