doors

I was reading Kate's blog and remembered a poem I've had copied down for years which in the strange ministry like way blogs can take on at times also linked in with posts from, and conversations with Julian and Pete too.

In my life I have found myself facing many doors
Some have opened
Only to shut
Them in terror
Others have opened for me
and I have seen much sorror and pain

Some I have never yet had the courage to open

But there is one which
When it opens spills a great blaze of golden light into my life
Beyond it I can see the smiling faces of all the people that I love,
Who have preceeded me through the door.

This is my favourite -
the door marked 'Summer'

Michael Bentine

I've had conversations with all three about closing chapters of our lives and moving on. The poem also reminds me of a bereavement workshop I went to at Newcastle Meeting about 15 or so years ago as the door image was used - I remember drawing my 'door marked Summer' and it looking remarkably like the front door of Bag End! At it they likened grief from lost relationships to grief from death and that the same stages need to be worked through. Some stages take longer than others and some of us find it easier than others.

But I like Kate's Hogwart's like imagery of corridoors of doors fading away, moving around or ending up leading someplace else altogther from where they used to. Some people drift out of our lives (or us theirs!), some doors get left ajar and others firmly closed behind us, or even slammed shut. However I can't say as I'm one for locking them, that doesn't feel right, nor vanishing them if we're going to stay with Harry Potter a bit longer.

The hard part though is where those either side of the door are quite happy with how it is thankyou but someone else is jangling the keys, tapping their foot and clearing their throat, or worse standing in the doorway. Maybe time out in the Room of Requirement is needed - for all concerned? Then maybe a way will open... (if you'll pardon the use of the expression!)

One thing I've really learned over the last year is that whilst we might find ourselves in life hanging around a particular door, hoping to get the help we need from the other side of it, our Room of Requirement is often right there next to us if we but shift our gaze a little to see it. The times when someone else who is there in the right place at the right time has an insight we need we wouldn't have got otherwise, a different turning opens up a whole new vista of possibilities, not getting something we wanted meant when what we needed came along we were free to take it...

But as Kate said 'I don't really want to know which bits are pushable, I'm waiting to see what I find is newly ajar.... I know there are new chapters to be written.'