“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. “
Psalm 90:14
There’s something about a front door. One year I thought about painting ours a new color. Yellow maybe or the right shade of blue? I started to notice doors around the neighbor and all around town. I suddenly discovered the variety. Ultimately, I decided to keep our door as it was.
This past year I have found myself noticing our front door again. The whole family was often home during the day during Covid. I could take a walk by way of the front door. It’s been interesting to change my perspective, being the one to enter rather than open the front door. As I have opened and closed our door I noticed the outside door handle is showing some wear; marks of love leftover over from all the hands that have held it throughout the years.
How would you describe your front door? Who was the last person who walked through it? If you were to describe your life as a journey through a doorway, where would you be? Would you be on the outside, knocking on the door to the future? Are you at the beginning of something? Are you standing in the doorway, in that in between space? Are you in the middle of something? Would you be on the other side of the threshold? Are you at the end of something?
I bring this up because I’ve been thinking about transitions lately. I just spoke to someone today who is at the end of something. He shared that he and his wife will be empty nesters in a couple months when his son goes off to college. I have another dear friend who is in the process of moving. That’s a major transition. I guess we all are at the beginning of something as we move into summer and out of Covid. Starting anew can invite us to take a fresh look at our days and rethink what matters most. We all have beginnings and endings and find ourselves in the middle of the process of living but we also have moments throughout the day — opportunities to enter into tasks or relationships or movements of the day intentionally. We can chose how we approach our day. We don’t have to live on autopilot or let our days fill up with needless busyness. Every day opens the door to a new opportunity. We get to decide how we will approach it and how we will go through it.
Frederick Buechner writes, “In the entire history of the universe, let alone in our history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.” *
The first thing you see after opening our front door is a vertical wooden sign that says, “HELLO”. Wouldn’t it be lovely to greet each day this way — hello. What if we framed our day with a morning and evening routine to mark it’s coming and going where we express our gratitude and thanks as we would upon receiving a loved one at our door? Let’s make time to laugh and love as we go through our day. Let’s carve out some time during the day to be still and just be. Let’s make time to learn something new and pay attention to the people and places and things all around us. Let’s do what we need to do, the laundry and the dishes as well as what we can to better ourselves. And as we do, the sun will shine and the rain will come. Surely, the fireflies will appear and invite us into the wonder of it all and we will find ourselves blessed along the way. Let’s stand at the door of each new day, embracing the well worn handle, greeting each day with intention, “Hello.”
* Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith.
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Reflect
1, How do I greet the day?
2. How can I add a practice of gratitude to my day?