What I learned about unity from my visit to the Berlin Wall

On my first visit to Europe, I saw the Berlin Wall and both Berlins up close, and had an important lesson in unity.

Two friends and I went on a month long journey throughout Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. It was December 1986, I had just turned 28, and I was ecstatic to see the world. We planned to be in Germany for Christmas and the New Year, and to travel to East Berlin for a couple of day trips while we were staying in West Berlin. This meant going to the other side of the Berlin Wall, through the Iron Curtain. That wall, that dividing line inside of Germany, was a sharp reminder of not only a horrific war, but the many divisions human beings create between themselves in daily life.