Beyond the door

Every door has a story, a history, a reason for being.  Its weathered the lives of those who've gone in and out, protected and sheltered them, become a part of their story.

My friend has just moved house, leaving farmlands and the drone of the harvester for life in the city. It’s an emotional journey closing the door behind you, leaving all that’s familiar and opening a new door to the next chapter of life. Strange how a door can be both a symbol of endings and beginnings, of loss and gain, pain and joy.

Its what’s behind the door that’s important, whether its a door into a home, a relationship or a career.

Doors come in all shapes and sizes … I’ve seen them all, ornate and opulent, elegant and refined, plain and ordinary or basically practical and often the deepest warmth is found behind the simplest door.   
 
I found it in a tiny mud brick home in the middle of the desert in Burkina Faso, kindness, generosity and joy … a door of hospitality opened as wide as the ocean, by folk who had precious little other than a dwindling store of grain.

I’ve experienced it in relationship when someone has opened the door from the inside and poured themselves into my life sacrificially, not counting the cost, and I’ve felt loved and nourished.

Ralph Waldo Emerson encourages us to “Be an opener of doors” ... to invite people into our home, our life and our heart ... to be hospitable in every sense of the word.  

But then there are broken doors that let in the cold and leave us feeling insecure. Doors that need fixing but no one seems to care, and doors that appear to go nowhere and we’re left wondering why. Why infertility, singleness or relationships with rusty hinges and shattered latches? Why retrenchment or debilitating disease?
 
Someone said, “Life is a house of a thousand doors”.  A child is born and we discover a door into the most difficult and joyous adventure we could ever have imagined; a loved one dies or a relationship breaks down and we walk through deep grief, heartache and despair or like my friend we close one door and open another and with it a whole new beginning … each in its own way is an invitation to know ourselves more intimately.

I love doors, they are full of potential and undiscovered wonder. And so are our lives. We have the choice to open the door wide and let people in or protect ourselves behind closed doors, but we will never know what we've missed if we are unwilling to open the door and walk through it into the uncertainties and challenges that open us up to rich and rewarding relationships.

The door into my favourite restaurant in Rome where we had the most sensational cannelloni I've ever tasted.

I can only imagine the stories this door has to tell of students coming and going over all those years.