Points Of Access

The gates of acceptance are first forged by family, childhood friends, and those who don’t care much for us at all. In the malleability of our youth, they take turns bringing the frame of the gate to its melting point, shaping it, and letting it cool in place. The most influential hands, I’m glad, were determined to grant a wide berth – one through which I could see and be seen. I could be accessed by those I don’t already know.

I twisted the gates of others, too. Each kindness and transgression manipulated a threshold’s shape. I’m no more skilled a metalworker than the next, but we all share the capacity to heat the iron then leave it cold.

But in adulthood, those gates, however world-worn, are heated and shaped by our own aspirations. We have the capacity to open and re-open our hearts to the world that may have deformed us. As a means of re-shaping and of granting access, we must accept, forgive, and love even those who seem to deserve it least.

I’m not always accessible, vulnerable, or bearing the energy to be those things. But when we see others as they are and accept them through our gates, we fortify them against the hazards of tyranny and hate. In turn, they will do the same for us. In that way, kindness is a form of resistance. The transmission of positive energy subverts the wills of the selfish and greedy. And when we open our gates to others, it’s easy to see that we’re made from the same material to begin with.