A Reflection on Doorways

An open door—an invitation to journey with ourselves, with God. What lies beyond the door? Why is there some fear inside us to push open further, to step inside? We know we want to be closer to the One who gives us life. Do we possess the secret of the door deep within us? Do we hold the key, and what do we need to open the door to real life, real love, real self? We have to open the door to go beyond, rather than merely exist in the outside turmoil of faceless and nameless doors. Sometimes it seems as though we are standing at the threshold, where we might see a glimpse inside. Perhaps there is some resistance and we simply are not ready to push the door open. We can stand in question at the threshold or we can forge ahead. No doubt each of us has stepped, and will be asked to step, through a variety of doorways.

Doorways are of great importance in our lives. Without them we remain stranded in place. We cannot pass into the next room, enter a different building, or even begin a new period in our life’s journey without them. They mark beginnings and endings, entries and exits. We greet people in doorways, wave goodbye from them, carry loved ones across them, hang mistletoe above them, and even in our churches, place holy water right inside them.

We think of our own earthly existence as a journey marked by various doors: some are open, others are closed—both offer grace-filled opportunities from our God to move us closer to our true selves.

Consider these doorways: vision, diversity, and passion. The doorway of vision helps us to put creativity to use in finding solutions. It helps to turn a problem into an opportunity. Think of what happens to our world and to us when we put vision and intent into what we think, feel, and do. We become co-creators in a world seeking healing and transformation.

The doorway of diversity allows us to bring together many different people’s perspectives, which can bring us out of our own fears and narrow confinements of thinking and being. We see new alternatives that shift us into new patterns of change, of mutuality, of understandings. There is creative power that causes us to grow beyond stagnation to generativity.

The doorway of passion is that profound gut feeling of conviction that leads us through the doorway, gives us the inner courage to reach for a new vision and propels us to move beyond where we are to where we could be. As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “What do you want to do with your one wild and passionate life?” This is the only life we will ever live, so let’s live it with passion for sure! Going through the doorway is a choice that only we can make. Fear stops us from opening that door, but if and when we do, new life happens—we hear the heartbeat of all creation—and nothing is ever the same again.

What doorways do you need to enter or exit to bring freedom, clarity, and grace to your life?

Prayer: God, help me to open the doors of my life. Together we can dare to risk a new vision. Open my eyes that I may see the beauty of all creation and develop an ever-widening embrace of diversity. Thank you for the doorways that enlarge my horizons and bring me new life. Amen.

Soul Searching: The Inner Landscape of an Ordinary Life, Sr. Barbara McMullen, 2012