The Mix Up at the Berln Wall

I’m sitting at the table taking the heads off of a dozen bunches of green onions (Donny’s cooking again), when a news story comes on about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the anniversary celebrations. I don’t usually get tears over green onions, so I think it was the story. The PBS news program didn’t say anything about the accidental nature of this occurrence, but that’s what I read in the paper this morning: that it was an accident. The evening news showed the routine press conference where Guenter Schabowski announced the opening. The Associated Press article said this, “Years later, Schabowski told a TV interviewer that he had gotten mixed up. It was not a decision but a draft law that the Politburo was set to discuss. He thought it was a decision that had been approved.”

It would have happened eventually anyway, but Schabowski got mixed up, and it happened that day. If you ever need hope in what comes out of getting mixed up (or your vision getting blurred, or the accidental nature of things), remember his. Whenever you find yourself getting fixated on your plan, remember this mix up.

There was probably somebody out there, on one or another side of the wall, who couldn’t have waited one more day.