The Doorway
An artist friend of mine has a spacious studio in the Matthews area. Several years ago I was meeting with her to talk about her doing an evening “talk” for a Wednesday night supper at one of the churches I was then serving. Part of several sessions on the theme of creative spirit.
The studio walls and easels at various spots around the huge light filled room were crowded with canvases at all stages of evolution. Some finished and waiting for a “forever home.” Quite a few simply “works in progress” waiting for finishing touches. There were even some older canvases, as she pointed out that had never felt “finished” but were pulled out, waiting for a few more brush strokes or even a do-over as, she said, her Muse might reveal.
On my tour of the studio, she paused in front of one very large canvas that had a little “sold” sticker on it. Then she told me a story about it. A client very much drawn to the picture had bought it, but before doing so he had asked her a question about the center point of the painting where an old, somewhat weathered but elegant in a simple way house stood. He pointed to the front door of the house and commented, “It doesn’t have a doorknob – why? How does one get in?” My artist friend said that the question startled her. A detail she had overlooked even as she considered the painting finished. A bit puzzled she added, but there is one on the inside of that door, you just can’t see it. We tiptoed into the possible meaning of this, sharing some stories. Enlightening.
I remember growing up in a house with a mother who was frantic that someone would stop by our house and find everything not perfect. It was as if the only doorknob that worked to protect her from this fear was one on the inside – to control who we let in and when. This fear followed me when I got married, had my own home. The fear that the interior of my home was deficient, unfinished, messy and I would be judged by its condition. It has taken me years to live into the grace of letting folks in, even though my interior is not “just right” when someone knocks on the door. Actually, I now play with my fear and embrace some of the interior messiness and love whoever drops by or I invite by simply accepting whatever that interior may present at any given time. I merely comment, “It’s a work in progress.”
We are approaching Advent, a doorway into a new year in our Christian liturgical calendar. A threshold time. Advent can be a scary time. On one hand we are excited about a holy baby coming into the world to shed light on our Way forward. On the other hand we begin Advent with a voice calling us into the wilderness to repent, shape up, clean up our act because “Here comes the Judge!” Don’t we all want to open our door to the holy sliver of light coming to lighten the darkness? But hold at bay (“Please come back another time, my house is a mess”) Holy Guy who will judge us?
We will be reminded that the Judge is one who loved us so much he came to redeem our messiness and offer us new, renewed life by offering up his to show us how much we are truly, essentially loved at the core of our being. However, most of the time it is so hard to trust this truth.
Some years ago after my mother’s death I went to a counselor to try and sort through some “stuff” left over from my family of origin. To try and sort through some of the messiness, figure out what and how to let go of some of the old stuff, forgive myself for clinging on to it too long, how to make space for something new. Before our last session she gave me homework: “When you come back let me know what you want on your tombstone,” she said. I struggled and struggled with that question. On the eve of my last session it came to me. How I wanted God to receive me at the last: “A work in progress by the grace of God.”
Like my artist friend, I realize that the doorknob that is the most essential, the way into my home place is the one on the inside that I control out of either fear or love. Advent waits. The door waits to be opened. Light and Love want to enter and help us get ready for something new to be born within and take up residence. We stand on the inside, pausing at the threshold of a yet to come. “Have courage,” our Lord says. “Can’t you hear me knocking on the door of your heart, mind and soul? Reach out and turn the key in that door. Let me in?”
Together may we find the courage to do so,
Torrence
