NOT JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL

The rock group Pink Floyd was wrong back in 1979. They wrote Just Another Brick in the Wall to protest what they believed was a poor educational system in England that treated the students as “just another brick in the wall.” In other words, the students were really nobodies whom the system didn’t much care about. If they received an education, well and good. If not, well they “don’t need no education” anyway.

No one is just another brick in the wall. Not only are we one as a people the world over, no matter where we find ourselves and no matter what configuration we are in we are not just another brick in the wall. Whether we are with only one other person or as a member of a family or grouping, no matter how small or how large, we are not just another brick in the wall.

Perhaps the students Pink Floyd was protesting for believed they were nobodies in the eyes of the educational powers to be and even if they were actually treated as such, nevertheless, they were somebodies and were important. Every one of us is. There are no exceptions. The problem is that as individuals we don’t seem to understand this truth both when it comes to how we are treated or how we treat others.

Let me explain by drawing a mental picture: a wall, a wall made of bricks. It does not matter how small or how large that wall is: two bricks (you and me), ten bricks (my family), 150 bricks (my church community), 30,000 bricks (my community), 300+ million bricks (my country, 600+ billion bricks (my world). Each brick is vital to the strength of that wall. Pull one brick out and the whole wall is weaker.

The point, of course, is that no one of us is a nobody no matter where we are, who we are, the amount of education we have, the income we earn, where we live, the color of our skin – the list is endless. Nothing about us lessens who we are and the importance of who we are wherever we are, wherever we find ourselves at the moment, in whatever wall we happen to be at the time.

Sometimes that truth is so easy for us to forget when we are treated as if we are unimportant or when we treat others as if they are unimportant, as if they or we are just another brick in the wall. Somewhere along the line we have lost sight of the truth that no one is unimportant. No one. And no one is better than anyone else. Just as each brick is vital to the strength of the wall, so each one of us is vital to the strength of whatever wall/community to which we belong.

At this time in the life of our county I think that is a message that we not only need to hear but to begin to live out. Unfortunately, what I am hearing are too many voices shouting to others that they are just another brick in the wall. No one is just another brick in the wall, no one. When will we learn? Will we ever learn?