Wake Up: The Walls That Set Us Free

It is a peculiar fact, worthy of some considerable pondering, that when men speak of walls they almost invariably speak of division. Yet the greatest walls in history have nearly always been built for unity. This paradox finds its perfect expression in the story of Nehemiah, who built a wall not to separate his people, but to create something altogether new and altogether ancient - a people who could once again be themselves.

The modern mind, which prides itself on seeing through walls, cannot see through this simple fact. For Nehemiah's wall was not meant to keep Jerusalem from the world, but to keep Jerusalem for the world. Without it, there could be no city on a hill, no light for nations. The wall made possible the very thing it appeared to prevent - influence beyond itself.

This is the first and most striking parallel to our own time, though we are too close to our own stones to see it. For we live in an age that congratulates itself on tearing down walls while watching helplessly as civilization crumbles. We have removed all boundaries only to find we have lost all foundations. We have made everything permeable only to discover we have made nothing permanent.

But there is another wall in our history that bears even closer examination - the great spiritual awakening that built the American soul. It is fashionable now to speak of the Great Awakening as a mere religious enthusiasm, a kind of spiritual fever that fortunately broke before it could do too much damage to our rational republic. This is rather like congratulating dry bones for remaining quietly dead before the troublesome breath of life could disturb their dignified decay.

For the Great Awakening was not great because it was an awakening - though it was certainly that - but because it awakened people to greatness. It did not merely stir religious feelings; it built religious foundations. Like Nehemiah's wall, it created a protected space where something could grow. That something was the American conscience.

Here we stumble upon another paradox that would have delighted our forebears and bewilders our contemporaries: the wall of conviction that made possible the space of liberty. For the revivalists who crisscrossed the colonies did not preach freedom as we conceive it - the freedom to do whatever one wishes. They preached the infinitely more demanding freedom to become what one was meant to be. It was not freedom from constraint but freedom through constraint - the same freedom by which a tree grows mighty by being deeply rooted.

The modern mind, which cannot conceive of liberation through limitation, finds this all rather confusing. It wants awakening without walls, revival without reform, spirituality without spirit. It wants, in short, what never has been and never can be - fruit without roots, growth without ground, life without law.

This brings us to the great question of our time: can there be another Great Awakening? The usual answer is either an easy optimism that doesn't understand the question or a fashionable pessimism that doesn't understand the answer. The real answer is both simpler and more demanding: there must be another Awakening because there is no other way forward.

For we have tried all the alternatives. We have tried awakening without walls - and produced a society so "woke" it cannot rest. We have tried spirituality without spirit - and created a generation that believes in everything and commits to nothing. We have tried reform without revival - and watched our institutions become ever more rigidly corrupt. We have tried, in short, all the clever innovations that clever men can devise, and they have left us more cleverly lost than ever.

What we need now is something both more ancient and more radical. We need walls that make true freedom possible. We need conviction that makes true tolerance possible. We need, in short, precisely what Nehemiah built and the Great Awakening ignited - a protected space where the soul can grow.

But here we come to the deepest paradox of all. For while we desperately need a new Great Awakening, we cannot have one until we are awakened to our need for it. This is the terrible and wonderful circularity of all spiritual truth - we cannot be reformed until we want reformation, and we cannot want reformation until we are reformed.

This is why the awakening must begin within our own souls. We must build there first the walls of conviction that make growth possible. We must establish there first the foundations that make freedom meaningful. We must become there first what we hope our society might become.

This is not, as some might imagine, a call to retreat from public life. It is rather a recognition that we cannot give what we do not have, cannot build what we cannot envision, cannot awaken others until we ourselves are awake. Like Nehemiah, we must begin with prayer before we reach for stones. Like the revivalists, we must be ignited before we can ignite.

The good news - and it is very good news indeed - is that this pattern of renewal has been proven countless times in history. Every great awakening began with a few souls who built walls of conviction in their own hearts. Every revival started with a handful who were themselves revived. Every reformation commenced with a small number who were themselves reformed.

This is why the parallel between Nehemiah's wall and the Great Awakening is more than historical curiosity. It is a blueprint for hope. For it reminds us that renewal always begins with reconstruction - first in our own souls, then in our communities, and finally in our civilization. It reminds us that we must build before we can grow, must be awakened before we can awaken, must be reformed before we can reform.

The task before us, then, is both humbler and grander than we imagined. We are called not primarily to change our society but to be changed ourselves. We are invited not mainly to reform our institutions but to be reformed in our own souls. We are summoned not merely to awaken others but to be ourselves awakened.

This is a harder path than either the optimists or the pessimists would choose. It offers neither quick victories nor the luxury of despair. But it is the only path that has ever led to true awakening, true reform, true renewal. It begins, as it has always begun, with souls who are willing to build walls of conviction that make possible spaces of growth.

The question is not whether we need such an awakening - we manifestly do. The question is whether we are willing to begin where all true awakening begins - with the humbling, hopeful work of rebuilding the walls of our own souls.

For in the end, the paradox of Nehemiah's wall is the paradox of all spiritual renewal: it is when we are most firmly grounded that we can reach highest, when we are most deeply rooted that we can grow tallest, when we are most carefully walled that we can be most wonderfully awakened. This is the wall that wakens, the boundary that frees, the foundation that raises us to heights we could never otherwise attain.