The Great Wall

The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)[2] from Shanhai Pass in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass. Seeking information about the Chinese I found that they where the inventors of:

• Abacus Chinese Calculator
• Paper money
• Battens in sails
• Belt drive
• Blast furnace
• The cannon
• Cast iron
• Chain drive
• Chinese cuisine: Tofu, Ramen, Sushi
• Chinese clothing: Qipao, Hanfu
• Chopsticks
• Bituminous coke for the iron and steel industry
• Compass
• Crank, hand-operated
• Crossbow and repeating crossbow
• Escapement mechanism for clocks
• Exploding cannonball
• Fire Arrow
• Gunpowder
• Firearm
• Horse collar
• Hull compartments/bulkheads
• Kite
• Land mines
• Lottery
• Naval mines
• Noodles
• Paper
• Pendulum (Zhang Heng)
• Pound lock
• Printing (woodblock printing and movable type)
• Rockets: Fire Arrow, Multistage rocket
• Rotary fan
• Rudder
• Sailing carriage
• Seismometer (of Zhang Heng)
• Silk
• South Pointing Chariot (differential gear, of Ma Jun)
• Sluice gates
• Toilet paper
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Trebuchet (traction)
• Trip hammer
• Vaccination
• Wheelbarrow
• Winnowing machine

Most of this inventions appeared before the construction of the Great Chinese wall, nevertheless, after the wall… the inventions stopped. According to some researchers, the great wall protected the Chinese civilization from the barbarian attacks, but also restrained the advance being disconnected from other civilizations.

Last Sunday I was dazzling about the fact mentioned on the book “Peppermint filled piñatas”, once we become Christians, most of us starts an isolation process, we disconnect from the “world”, we listen Christian Music, use Christian Clothes, we chew christian gum, even we have Christian Mints… our friends become only other Christians and little by little we lift up our “Great Wall” that will protect us from the “barbarian” attacks from the world, but also segregate us from the God’s purpose to reach others. There is a Story on Mark about Levi, one tax collector who was invited by Jesus to follow him, and he followed with no questions. Then he invited other tax collector to a party to talk about Jesus…

What are we doing with our lives? Are we raising walls, stopping our creativity and inventively mind? Are we taking the risk to grow, read, learn, investigate and have a transparent life?

This next Sunday, we are starting a project called “My Naked Pastor.com” and will show just a man, who choose to take the risk of to show a transparent life with no walls, who has difficulties as many others, but seeks for an alternative to walk out of it taking it as an opportunity. He will be sharing his life 24 x 7 for five weeks… would you do the same?