“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down!” wrote poet Robert Frost. I wish that everyone shared that sentiment. Unfortunately most people do not. Most people love walls. They see walls as their security, even their salvation.

It is interesting that the largest construction project ever undertaken by humanity was the building of a wall. I’m talking, of course, about the Great Wall of China. It is said that enough stone was used in that 1,700‑year project to build an 8‑foot wall girdling the globe at the equator. The Great Wall snakes its way over more than one‑twentieth of the earth’s circumference. (1) It is the perfect metaphor for humanity’s obsession of building walls to separate one people from another.

The Great Wall of China was built to keep out foreigners.…