We were in Greenwich Village yesterday afternoon, a few blocks from where President Biden was inaugurating a visitor center at the Stonewall National Monument.
Police were posted everywhere as was metal fencing. At one corner we came across a 4-foot gap created for people to pass through. A police officer stood watch, and I watched him speak with a woman and then let her pass.
When I approached the officer said, “Where are you going?” I didn’t have a good answer, so I responded, “that direction,“ and vaguely pointed beyond the fence. The officer said, “You can’t do that. You have to go up four blocks to cross.” He pointed to his right, nodded his head, and our conversation ended.
Walking away I thought the key to being waved through this barricade was having a specific direction you were heading. If I had an address, even a store, I would have been waved through.
Then it occurred to me, wherever we want to go professionally, spiritually, relationally, with a hobby or project, it’s a good idea to have identified a specific “address” for moments when we encounter a fence and the question, “Where are you heading?”
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