If I were to name the year 1989, I wonder if you would know the significance of it. I imagine most people would think back to something that happened personally to them that year, something that touched their life in a dramatic way, like a birth or death in the family. We wouldn't forget that. But in 1989, during the season of Advent, you will remember, the Communist empire crumbled, the Cold War ended, and the Berlin wall came down.

I have a piece of that wall. Our children gave it to us after a trip to Germany. I treasure it, because I know that someday pieces of that wall are going to be in museums, and school children will take buses to go see a relic of one of history's most significant years, 1989.

George Will wrote in one of his columns that it will be one of the most important da…