Finding a Way Through

Southport Swinging Bridge

If you want to get to Southport Island from Boothbay Harbor by car, you can only get there by this bridge.  It's called the swinging bridge--because it does exactly that--it swings open to stop cars and permit boats to pass.  You can see the span and the narrow channel it crosses below:

Now I have sat while the bridge opens and closes and there is nothing you can do but to sit there and be patient!  It occurred to me that the bridge opens a very limited, finite way around Southport Island--maybe a mile--but the way it opens for boats is a limitless waterway to any part of the world.

This may seem a stretch.  Life is like that, isn't it?  The places we feel stopped and frustrated with may reveal to us the channels for living that can be practically limitless. 

Then I thought of some people I know--and how they use their lives to open a way into a limitless world.  The are advocates.  They open doors as gatekeepers, or bridge builders where nobody before could pass.  In fact, the word "Pontiff" (Pope) literally means "bridge builder."  I think back to "Good Pope John 23" and the many bridges he built between the Church and world.  On Christmas Day, his tradition was to go to the jails and visit the inmates.  He opened the way for God to touch them in special ways.  In what ways can it be said of us?