Places

Places. You can feel the spirit of places. On a recent speaking tour in Germany, I learned that again. Our first weekend conference took place in Barmen. Here in 1934, the leaders of the Confessing Church gathered to draft the Barmen Declaration, a theological statement against Hitler and Nazism. Karl Barth was the principle author. Everyone who signed the Barmen Declaration was eventually exiled, imprisoned, or killed.

Most people at the conference seemed unaware of the historical significance of our meeting place, but a few knew the story. They sensed my excitement and offered to take me to the church where the 1934 gathering had occurred. The original church had been bombed, and a new building stood on the site. No memorial to that great event of almost 50 years ago remained. I felt that to be strange and sad.

Berlin was a striking visual parable of political tragedy. As an American I had grown up with vivid images of the Berlin Wall, but being there was stark. A feeling of great evil dominates it.

As I stood there gazing at this ugly symbol of division, I thought, this wall doesn't end in Berlin, but runs around the world, imposing itself on all political reality, running through the hearts and minds of people everywhere. It is a wall against the work of Christ. On one side is a philosophy of godless materialism, on the other, the practice of godless consumerism. But there were signs of hope on both sides.

In West Berlin, we met with Joachim and Inge Kanitz, an elderly couple who had been married by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, participated in his underground seminary at Finkenwald, and had been active members of the Confessing Church. These old Christians were full of life, with eyes that sparkled with warmth and love. They had learned something about the gospel, and in their home I could feel a different spirit. I felt a similar spirit in East Berlin, where we visited a Christian base community, which was outside of official structures and committed to peace. Being with the community, even for a few short hours, felt like home.

At the very end of our German pilgrimage, we traveled south to Italy and took two days of rest and peace in Assisi, the home of St. Francis. I had been wanting to go there for years, and I finally made it. It was a special joy to share the experience with my friend, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan who had been my companion for the whole trip.

Assisi was all I had hoped it would be and more. There is a spiritual energy and holiness in that place unlike anywhere else I've ever been. Goodness has been here just as surely as evil resides at the Berlin Wall.

I especially felt the presence of something very holy at San Damiano, the little chapel where Francis received his call to rebuild the church and began his first restoration project, at the Portiuncula where the Friars lived and worshiped for many years, and in the caves on Mount Subasio, where the brothers often retreated for solitude and prayer. I found the cave of Brother Masseo and just sat there for a while, thinking and praying. What faith has been in these woods! What depth of prayer and love! The presence of God was there in a special way. I could just feel it.

Places--filled with good or evil, touched by life and death, and formed by the spirit of those people and events that had been there.

Jim Wallis was editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.