Doors and Other Thresholds

I have a thing for doors. I suppose it began when I first saw the doors to my first cathedral, climbing the wide steps leading us up, seeing doors six times my height, and hearing the sounds as they opened. The doors filled me with awe and excitement. To this day, whether at cathedrals or someone’s home, I get excited standing at a threshold.  It is a moment of arriving, just as it is a moment of beginning.

Recently, I have come to see how I am equally enamoured with the various thresholds I encounter in my life, not just the physical ones, but the metaphoric ones as well. As a person of faith, I have journeyed to the threshold of faith. As one in recovery, I have knocked on the door of a clean and sober life. As a father, I have come to the place were my children and I could enter into a new level of intimacy. As a husband, I have stood where I could know and be known.

Thresholds one and all . . . the problem is, I’m scared to open the doors.

Rather than open the door, I stand and admire it. I celebrate reaching the threshold. I point at it for others to see. Too often, my journey often ends there. Rather than enter, I'll put a fresh coat of paint on the door or polish its hardware. I’ll buy a spotlight to show the door to others, but I won’t open it. I’ll buy another book about Jesus instead of opening the door to a personal relationship with him. I’ll create another lesson plan for newcomers of twelve-step recovery, instead of traveling up and down the steps myself. I’ll buy my children or wife something, rather than give them myself.

As we approach the season of Lent, it’s a good time to stop standing at the thresholds and cross over, to stop admiring the doors and open them. There is new, or more abundant, life on the other side, but to reach it we need to open the door.