Tag: door

Fixing Eyes on the Unseen – A Door Left Open

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The world hides God from us,
or we hide ourselves from God,
or for reasons of his own God hides himself from us,
but however you account for it,
he is often more conspicuous by his absence than by his presence,
and his absence is much of what we labor under and are heavy laden by.
Just as sacramental theology speaks of a doctrine of the Real Presence,
maybe it should speak also of a doctrine of the Real Absence
because absence can be sacramental, too,
a door left open,
a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting.
~Frederick Buechner from Telling the Truth

…my faith has weathered in a holy way;
it’s larger, gentler, especially as I have learned to bear the needs of others,
to pour myself out at least a little bit like God does for me.
In that offering, I’ve learned a lot about God’s quiet, ever-present nourishment.
A larger, patient acceptance has come to me.
I haven’t found every answer, I still ‘want’ so much more of God than I have,
and yet, I also have learned to live with the holy hunger that is the groaning
of God’s Spirit within me as I wait for the full coming of the Kingdom.⁣
~Sarah Clarkson reflecting on Buechner’s quote above

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:24-25

To wait is a hard sweet paradox in the Christian life.  It is hard not yet having what we are promised will be coming – truly Real Absence for now.  But it is sweet to have certainty it is coming because of the footprints we have seen:

He has been here among us. 

Like the labor of childbirth, we groan knowing what it will take to get there, yet we are full to brimming already.

The waiting won’t be easy; it will often be painful to be patient, staying alert to possibility and hope when we are exhausted, barely able to function.  Others won’t understand why we wait, nor do they comprehend what we could possibly be waiting for. 

We persevere together, with patience, watching and hoping; we are a community groaning together in sweet expectation.

This year’s Lenten theme:
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18

Is There Anybody There?

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‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
   Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
   Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
   Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
   No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
   Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
   That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
   To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
   That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
   By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
   Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
   Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
   That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
   Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
   From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
   And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
   When the plunging hoofs were gone.
~Walter de la Mare “The Listeners”

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.
Revelation 3:20

This poetic tale of a mysterious traveller, knocking but getting no response from a house of silent apparitions, has been cited as an appropriate ghost story for Halloween. This is a day of trick or treat knocks on doors everywhere.

I read the poem differently: to me this describes the return of Christ to retrieve us on the final day, just as He said He would.

If we are the phantom listeners, ignoring His knocks on our door despite hearing His announcement of arrival, we have lost the opportunity to open the door and welcome Him in.

Is anybody there?

It isn’t enough to be just a listener. We must respond and answer the door, welcoming the Son of Man who is doing exactly as He promised.

Let Him in. There can be no better treat.

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The Beginning Shall Remind Us of the End: Unlocked and Opened Wide

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What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning…
Suddenly a wall becomes a gate.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias! A Letter of Consolation

As Christians we do not believe in walls,
but that life lies open before us;
that the gate can always be unbarred;
that there is no final abandonment or desertion.
We do not believe that it can ever be “too late.”

We believe that the world is full of doors that can be opened. Between us and others.
Between the people around us.
Between today and tomorrow.
Our own inner person can be unlocked too:
even within our own selves,
there are doors that need to be opened.

If we open them and enter,
we can unlock ourselves, too,
and so await whatever is coming to free us and make us whole.
~ Jörg Zink from “Doors to the Feast”

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
~T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding” The Four Quartets


We stand outside the gate, incapable of opening it ourselves,
watching as God Himself throws it open wide. 
We choose to enter this unknown unremembered gate
into the endless length of days,
or we choose to remain outside,
lingering in the familiar confines of what we know,
though it destroys us.

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo

1 Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates; 
behold, the King of glory waits; 
the King of kings is drawing near; 
the Savior of the world is here!

2 Fling wide the portals of your heart; 
make it a temple, set apart 
from earthly use for heaven’s employ, 
adorned with prayer and love and joy.

3 Redeemer, come, with us abide; 
our hearts to thee we open wide; 
let us thy inner presence feel; 
thy grace and love in us reveal.

4 Thy Holy Spirit lead us on 
until our glorious goal is won; 
eternal praise, eternal fame 
be offered, Savior, to thy name!

This year’s Barnstorming Advent theme “… the Beginning shall remind us of the End” is taken from the final lines in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees”

A book of beauty in words and photography, available to order here:

Lost Moments

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When I was a child, I had a powerful sense that I wanted to commemorate things. I even remember thinking at the time that it was a strange word for a twelve-year old to use.

… it is the idea that every life is sacred and that life is composed of details, of lost moments, of things that nobody cares about, including the people who are wounded or overjoyed by those moments. I don’t think people allow themselves to value their lives enough. They ignore and discard these fragments.

I would like my writing to be precise enough, detailed enough so that the attention I bring to bear on something unlocks a door to the reader’s life. In that way, by honoring one’s own life, it’s possible to extend empathy and compassion to others.
~Patricia Hampl – Alaska Quarterly Review, Fall and Winter 1995 (interview)

photo by Ben Gibson

I have been writing here nearly daily for over twelve years:

I have come to know so many of you who I will never meet face to face
but who share with me:
your love of beautiful words and pictures,
your love of the land we all steward,
your love of good stories and poetry,
your love of your animal companions,
your love of hanging on to lost moments,
and most of all —
your love of our resurrected Lord.

What do I seek to commemorate in my words and photos as I prepare this daily?

I know your light and love illuminates as it finds its way
through the darkest and thorniest corners of my life:
how precious is a kind word, a silent tear, a crooked smile, a whispered prayer.

What do I want you to experience having visited here?

I want you to remember
there is warmth in these words
and colors in these photos
that don’t come close to what it is like for real,
that lost moments will be found and cherished.

I want you to know that each morning,
I send out this love to thousands I’ll never meet but feel I know,
as you are nevertheless my Barnstorming brothers and sisters.

Carry me with you and pass the light forward.
Keep lost moments in your pocket to pull out when needed.
Open this door to others and welcome them in.
You never know where it could take them.

A book of beauty in words and photos you can share with others, available to order here:

Standing Ajar

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It is enough to enter

the templar
halls of museums, for

example, or
the chambers of churches,

and admire
no more than the beauty

there, or
remember the graveness

of stone, or
whatever. You don’t

have to do any
better. You don’t have to

understand
the liturgy or know history

to feel holy
in a gallery or presbytery.

It is enough
to have come just so far.

You need
not be opened any more

than does
a door, standing ajar.
~Todd Boss “It is Enough to Enter”
photo by Barb Hoelle

It is enough to be open.

It is enough to have come this far.

I don’t need to have my questions answered.

I don’t need to have places to be, things to do, people to see.

It is enough to stand ajar like an unlocked door, looking in and wondering what or who might pass through.

Who knows what might happen next?

the wardrobe from C.S. Lewis’ childhood home built by his grandfather, later to serve as his inspiration for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” from his home “The Kilns” at Oxford. Now at the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois

A new book from Barnstorming available to order here:

Will I Open the Door?

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Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
Revelation 3:20

…we are faced with the shocking reality:
Jesus stands at the door and knocks, in complete reality.
He asks you for help in the form of a beggar,
in the form of a ruined human being in torn clothing.
He confronts you in every person that you meet.
Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor as long as there are people.
He walks on the earth as the one through whom
God calls you, speaks to you and makes his demands.
That is the greatest seriousness
and the greatest blessedness of <His> message.
Christ stands at the door.
Will you keep the door locked or open it to him?
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from an Advent Sermon “The Coming of Jesus into our Midst”

photo by Nate Gibson

Sam does barn chores with me, always has.  He runs up and down the aisles as I fill buckets, throw hay, and he’ll explore the manure pile out back and the compost pile and have stand offs with the barn cats (which he always loses).  We have our routine.  When I get done with chores, I whistle for him and we head to the house. 

We head back home together.

Except this morning.  I whistled when I was done and his furry little fox face didn’t appear as usual.  I walked back through both barns calling his name, whistling, no signs of Sam.  I walked to the fields, I walked back to the dog yard, I walked the road (where he never ever goes), I scanned the pond (yikes), I went back to the barn and glanced inside every stall, I went in the hay barn where he likes to jump up and down on stacked bales, looking for a bale avalanche he might be trapped under, or a hole he couldn’t climb out of.  Nothing.

Passing through the barn again, I heard a little faint scratching inside one Haflinger’s stall, which I had just glanced in 10 minutes before.  The mare was peacefully eating hay.  Sam was standing with his feet up against the door as if asking what took me so long.  He must have scooted in when I filled up her water bucket, and I closed the door not knowing he was inside, and it was dark enough that I didn’t see him when I checked.  He and his good horse friend kept it their secret.

He made not a whimper nor did he bark when I called out his name, passing that stall at least 10 times looking for him. He just patiently waited for me to finally open the door I had previously locked tight.

It wasn’t Sam who was lost. Sam lost me. He patiently waited until I realized he was waiting for me for me to come around and open the door.

He was ready to accompany me back home. 

Though you are homeless
Though you’re alone
I will be your home
Whatever’s the matter
Whatever’s been done
I will be your home
I will be your home
I will be your home
In this fearful fallen place
I will be your home
When time reaches fullness
When I move my hand
I will bring you home
Home to your own place
In a beautiful land
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
From this fearful fallen place
I will bring you home
I will bring you home
~Michael Card

Singing Between Two Great Rests

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When I lay my head in my mother’s lap
I think how day hides the stars,
the way I lay hidden once, waiting
inside my mother’s singing to herself. And I remember
how she carried me on her back
between home and the kindergarten,
once each morning and once each afternoon.

I don’t know what my mother’s thinking.

When my son lays his head in my lap, I wonder:
Do his father’s kisses keep his father’s worries
from becoming his? I think Dear God, and remember
there are stars we haven’t heard from yet:
They have so far to arrive. Amen,
I think, and I feel almost comforted.

I’ve no idea what my child is thinking.

Between two unknowns, I live my life.
Between my mother’s hopes, older than I am
by coming before me. And my child’s wishes,
older than I am by outliving me. And what’s it like?
Is it a door, and a good-bye on either side?
A window, and eternity on either side?
Yes, and a little singing between two great rests.
~Li-Young Lee The Hammock

I’ve become the window bridging four generations, waiting for the door to reopen:


I remember my grandmother’s soft hands smoothing my hair when I was upset.
I still see her tears when she said goodbye.

I remember my father carrying me on his shoulders when my legs grew weary and my patience short.
I still feel his final breath as he finally gave up his struggle.

I remember my children needing me for nearly everything.
Now, living so far away, I give so little as they soothe and comfort my grandchildren when I cannot.

I wonder what my grandmother, my father, my children, my grandchildren were thinking. I can only imagine, stuck as I am between the closed pandemic door and the someday-open window.

Once again I am the one in need: praying life and hugs might happen again.

Soon. Soon and very soon. I can almost hear the singing between us.

The Hinge of Faithfulness

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No one compels you, traveler;
this road or that road, make your choice!
Dust or mud, heat or cold,
fellowship or solitude,
foul weather or a fairer sky,
the choice is yours as you go by.

But here if you would take this path
there is a gate whose latch is love,
whose key is single and which swings
upon the hinge of faithfulness,

and none can mock, who seeks this way,
the king we worship shamelessly.
If you would enter, traveler,
into this city fair and wide,
it is forever and you leave
all trappings of the self outside.
~Jane Tyson Clements from  No One Can Stem the Tide

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
~T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding” The Four Quartets

I can, with very little effort, remember the restlessness of my late teens once I learned homesickness was not a terminal condition.  There was a world out there to be explored just beyond the gate of my childhood barnyard, and I just knew I was meant to be a designated explorer and traveler, seeking out the extraordinary.

Ordinary simply wouldn’t do.  Ordinary was plentiful at my childhood home on a small farm with a predictable routine, a garden to be weeded and daily chores to be done, with middle-aged parents tight with tension in their struggling marriage.

On a whim at age nineteen, I applied for wild chimpanzee research study in Africa, and much to my shock, was accepted.  A year of academic and physical preparation as well as Swahili language study was required, so this was no impulsive adventure.   I had plenty of time to back out, reconsider, choose another path and retreat to ordinary again.

It was an adventure, far beyond what I had anticipated and trained for.  When I had to decide between more exploration, without clear purpose or funds, or returning home, I opted to return to the place I started. I saw home differently, as if for the first time,  after  experiencing the world in all its glory and ugliness. The next path I took, I needed to leave the trappings of myself behind, unlatch the gate with the key I had been given from the very beginning. The hinge of faithfulness opens the gate wide.

I must remember I have chosen the path that leads to forever, though neither smooth nor easy. Entering that unknown, unremembered gate means I will arrive where I started, back at the beginning and knowing the place for the first time.

What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning…
Suddenly a wall becomes a gate.
~Henri Nouwen from A Letter of Consolation

Locked from the Inside

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“Jesus moves among men and women–even if it means passing through doors locked from within”
Fr. William M. Joensen

Many of us frequently–or continually–bolt the doors of our hearts from within, yet we long for Christ to come to us.  We can have great hope . . . for He is the One who can enter “through doors locked from within.”
~Sr. Dorcee Clarey “Witnesses to Hope”

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
John 20: 19-20

We’re bolted in alright, to ensure we’re safe from confronting our greatest fears and our most fervent longing.

But there is no lock or latch or deadbolt that can keep Him out. He knocks, waiting for us to answer and let Him in, but if we don’t answer, He’s ready to move right through those barriers we carefully construct.

Throw open wide the door of our hearts.

The Lone Lamp Post

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lewiswardrobe
the wardrobe built by C.S. Lewis’ grandfather that served as his inspiration for “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” — it first stood in his childhood home and later in his home “The Kilns” at Oxford. Now part of the C.S. Lewis collection at the Marion Wade Center at Wheaton College, Illinois

 

oaklane102418

 

You are our portal to those hidden havens
Whence we return to bless our being here.
Scribe of the Kingdom, keeper of the door
Which opens on to all we might have lost,

Generous, capacious, open, free,
Your wardrobe-mind has furnished us with worlds
Through which to travel, whence we learn to see
Along the beam, and hear at last the heralds,
Sounding their summons, through the stars that sing,
Whose call at sunrise brings us to our King.
~Malcolm Guite from “C.S. Lewis: a sonnet”

 

 

lane111618

 

snowylamp

 

 

Sign on the Lewis wardrobe: “We do not take responsibility for people disappearing.”

This is no mere piece of furniture;
Enchantment hangs within
Among the furs and cloaks
Smelling faintly of mothballs.

Touch the smooth wood,
Open the doors barely
To be met with a faint cool breeze~
Hints of snowy woods and adventure.

Reach inside to feel smooth soft furs
Move aside to allow dark passage
Through to another world, a pathway to
Cherished imagination of the soul.

Seek a destination for mind and heart,
A journey through the wardrobe,
Navigate the night path to reach a
Lit lone lamp post in the wood.

Beaming light as it shines undimmed,
A beacon calling us home, back home
Through the open door, to step out transformed,
No longer lost or longing, now found and filled.

 

barn-door

 

 

oaklane1116182

 

wardrobe2