We do not all choose
the same place
of beginning;
not all doorways
are meant for entry.
And so
when silence falls
across the threshold
I have meant for welcome,
may you, guardian of every passage,
cast your shadow
at my door.
~Jan Richardson
Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas
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| The Chapel Door at Mariawald Renewal Center in Reading, PA |
I love doors.
To me, a door is a symbol of threshold. Threshold invites. Threshold calls. Threshold is a powerful image which holds anticipation and possibilities and mystery. Sometimes, threshold carries chaos. And into our chaos, threshold evokes a sense of waiting … silent waiting until the door is opened from within.
Reading Esther de Waal’s book, To Pause at the Threshold, I became familiar with this traditional saying of ancient wisdom, “A threshold is a sacred thing.”
In many Asian traditions, the sacredness of threshold is honored by removing the shoes. In a way, entering over the threshold to a home is a “mini-pilgrimage.” The shoes are physically removed to symbolize leaving behind the outer world in order to enter the inner world of relationship, with the self or with others, depending on whether the home is your own or the home of another person.
Just as Moses removed his shoes at the burning bush because the Holy One “spoke” into his chaos, when silence falls across our threshold, we come barefoot and vulnerable. All of our chaos wrapped up like a hobo’s kerchief on the end of a stick, as we fall silent, prostrate and broken, we unwind and unwrap and let go as we enter the threshold spaces within which God resides.
Meister Eckhart, a 15th century mystic said, "What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God fourteen hundred years ago and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be Mothers of God." Eckhart reminds me that it is these threshold spaces that connect me to the suffering world, for God invites me ever so gently to emerge from the silence to turn, emerge from the safety and protection I've found in the depths of my threshold spaces and carry the healing love I find in the center back out to the borderlands of my world.
For me, advent is the most sacred threshold of the year. Advent is the time of the "already and the not yet," paradoxically and simultaneously, a concept that my mind cannot comprehend ... but images hold so beautifully.
I love doors.
Reflection: What images hold your advent waiting this year? Is there an invitation being birthed within the silence of your threshold spaces ... within you?
Prayer: Advent God, as I dwell in this wild and mysterious threshold space, hollow me out so that I may carry you with grace, hold you with awareness, and birth you with love into the world. Amen.
