Tonight I walked over an area that I was arrested at a number of years ago.
For forty-years or so a Ten Commandments monument stood where this grass is today. A number of years ago, the City of Boise decided to move the monument to a non-public parcel of land near the Capitol - a church. A dozen citizens protested and in a quiet way, and through civil disobedience, knelt around the large granite tablet. We were arrested for doing so. I was among them.
Time went by. Many years now.
Over these years I didn't visit the site much, unless by accident as I walked on Boise's famed Green Belt, alongside the Boise River.
Tonight I passed it, snapped this pic and moved on.
For about seventy-five yards.
Until I came to the beautiful Anne Frank Memorial. It's an amazing work of stone that captures the dimensions of the Frank family's upstairs hiding place. A lone bronze statue of young Anne holding her diary as she looks out of a window, is the centerpiece.
Though Anne is gone, her words are not.
The emotions evoked by this place of remembrance are vital to our culture as people of the Old and New Testaments.
And to me, the empty grass-filled space holds my attention too.
Though the stone and inscriptions are no longer on public land, as are the words of young Anne, the memory of Moses' mighty words of the Torah that moved Anne and her Jewish family, truly are more real than any 40 year-old monument could have made them be - for all of us.
They are the foundation of what Anne Frank knew to be true as a Jew.
I am so glad that the Anne Frank Monument is in Boise - it calls out our common need to honor and respect all of humanity.
If Anne were with us, she would point to the Torah and agree with all those who believe deeply in truth, monuments or not.
Den
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