In a closed system, all it takes is one foreign object to bring it crashing down and to change everything.

If anything, that is the message of Wall-E (the Pixar film). You miss it at first – especially if you are captured by the love story or caught up in the plight to restore life to earth.

But through out the movie you have this small robot, Wall-E, who enters into a closed system (the ship) and bring it crashing down. It wasn’t that he was trying to cause chaos – he was just being himself….

The day after re-watching Wall-E, I was browsing the BBC World News website and noticed an article about the Beatles behind the Iron Wall in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Over and over again the article quoted folks who lived during the Communist era as saying:

"The Beatles did more to undermine the system than the most anti-Soviet literature for which people went to jail” – Moscow leading journalist Vladimir Pozner

[@more@]Immediately I thought of Wall-E and the parallels:

• The Soviet Union was a closed system – similar to the space ship.
• The communist rulers tried to forbid the Beatles music – the ship’s auto-pilot tried to kill Wall-E
• The music changed the hearts of the people – the simple acts of kindness by Wall-E awoke the humans to their plight (as well as some robots)
• People began to think about freedom – the humans begin to think for themselves while some of the robots became independent thinkers
• The Iron Curtin fell – the auto-pilot was deactivate

What does this mean for us?

There are people around us every day that are living in a “closed system” of abuse and death. We need to remember the impact that a simple gesture of love can have upon a person in this closed system.

It may not “destroy” it at once – but just like the Beatles music and Wall-E himself, a foreign object inserted into a close system will bring about change.