Watching the unfolding events in Virginia this past week has only deepened my personal commitment and drive to address two key topics: identity and sorrow. These will be a new focus of our Studio on Community moving forward.

In September of 1964, King visited the Berlin Wall and spoke about “breaking down the dividing walls of hostility” that can separate people from one another. As MLK Day approaches, and our nation is mired in a seemingly endless impasse over building a wall on our southern border, I can’t help but think about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s urgings to tear down the walls that stand between us.

Just last week I was in Israel and visited the West Bank city of Bethlehem, where a young Palestinian man, Noor, took me around. As we turned a corner in the city, all of a sudden I confronted the wall that separates the West Bank and Israel. Up close, it is huge, imposing, cold and haunting. Here in the U.S., the federal government shutdown enters week three, locked in a showdown over a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. I wonder, what is the meaning of such walls?