As I crossed Fremont Ave. it made me think of the whimsical troll carved out under the bridge, where tourists come and movies film (10 Things I Hate About You), and of the whole idea of trolls who come out to stop us. I met the other day with a group of bridge builders; ecumenists trying to bring people together and I couldn’t help but think about whether it really is the troll under the bridge, the things we see as blocks to our coming together that we fear, or if it is more the idea of what happens once we cross the bridge that scares us. Even the existence of a bridge means change, it means we don’t have to go around things any more and it means that new possibilities exist, so there’s plenty of resistance to building bridges, or even finding bridges as the case may be, but I am more concerned with who will use them once they exist. Who will stand in the gap and stick their tongue out at the trolls beneath in defiance or simply acknowledge their existence with a wave and cross over anyway. We need bridge builders, but we need even more people who will be bridge crossers. Those who are willing to step into the territory of the other, to learn about what exists “over there” and maybe even close or narrow the gap and perhaps go so far as to crush the trolls in the process. Those who go around the gaps have a roll too, but I don’t think we really get anywhere if we ignore the trolls or pretend that gaps don’t exist.

Maybe I am just using a new metaphor to say what’s already been said, but I think this is something else. We often talk about the “elephants in the room,” the things we won’t really or don’t really talk about, but to me those aren’t the trolls. Those may be the things, which prevent bridges being built in the first place or the things that the bridge builders never talked about, but if the bridge exists then those things aren’t what is blocking people from crossing; so what is? Apathy? Fear of losing yourself? Fear of change? Maybe the builders have not been clear enough about how to cross or about what it might look like as we go back and forth and sometimes meet in the middle. Maybe we think it has to be something big, some grand gesture with fanfare, but what if it’s just a couple of friends from different traditions sitting together in a public place showing that it is possible to cross that bridge. My point is that there are lots of bridges out there waiting to be crossed by those willing to stand up to the trolls. We must be willing step out.