Salvation Army, New York City © Craig Dahlberg
New York City’s Yellow Cabs inched along and honked incessantly, like a gaggle of geese. Workers plunged ahead down crowded streets. Steam drifted from sewer covers. A slight breeze carried the whiff of rotting trash.
I wondered how people down on their luck in this massive, impersonal city could even find their way forward?
As I wandered past a towering Salvation Army facility—a glass wall, tall and cold as an iceberg—several displaced men perched on the stone steps alongside strutting, head-bobbing pigeons. Above them all, a gigantic sign invited passersby to “Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving.”
Life brought these men here. Whatever the details of their stories, they had lost their residence, their direction, perhaps a loved one. Their way “Into His Gates,” now seemed very far away.
Yet these men did not appear to be wandering aimlessly. They had come to a place where help might be found. They awaited an invitation into those gates from the good-hearted people inside.
As I gazed at that scene, I thought about how reflective glass can be a gate. Those waiting outside may see little more than their own reflections, unable to know who or what lies on the other side. They also discerned that, until those doors open, they will remain locked outside.
As a consultant for nonprofit charitable organizations, I had spent countless hours at the downtown Los Angeles library, poring over directories of charitable foundations. I needed access to financial resources to help the organizations that I represented.
Since foundations receive so many funding requests, they sometimes keep fundraisers like me at a distance. Understandably, they may use gatekeepers—employees, processes, or protocols—to control the crushing need at the gates.
I understood that, but I was still often frustrated. If I could not raise the necessary funds, resources dwindled and the gates stayed closed. With gates closed, services shriveled. Things got serious fast; people lost food, medical care, safe living units, transportation, and other life essentials.
But gatekeepers also excel in two things.
First, they create safe boundaries. What stays within that secure ring is protected, ensuring the resources are used for their intended purpose. The moral burden of a gatekeeper is in knowing to whom, by whom, when, why, where, and how the gates will be opened.
Yet a gatekeeper does something else. By establishing a boundary, the gatekeeper also identifies where someone may knock. The boundary may discourage some, but others will persist, emboldened by what lies beyond it.
When a Canaanite woman approached Jesus, pleading for her daughter’s healing, the disciples wanted her sent away; even Jesus did not initially grant her request. But the woman persisted, convinced that the mercy she sought would bring a new quality of life. That day, the gate opened. Jesus commended her faith and healed her daughter.
We are all gatekeepers, discerning where to direct our efforts, balancing grace with responsibility, and weighing the needs of others against limited capacities.
Pigeons that strut endlessly by the doors inscribed “Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving” do not weigh such matters.
But we do.
We can open gates for others. We give them single-minded drive to boldly enter with thanksgiving.
That can change everything.