From somewhere in my memory, a fragment of a children’s song from my Sunday School days surfaced, unbidden:

One door, and only one          One door, and only one
And yet its sides are two,         And yet its sides are two,
Inside and outside,                  I’m on the inside,
On which side are you?          On which side are you?

I didn’t remember the rest of the lyrics; this bit might have been all that we sang. A quick internet search, though, revealed other verses, with equally stark choices. “One Lord and only one” offered the “right way [or] wrong way,” and “one Book and only one” put the singers in “the good place or the bad place.” I’m glad that as a child I didn’t sing about the good place and the bad place because I was already plenty worried about place.    

I hadn’t heard the arrogant certainty of the tone, nor had I paid attention to the astonishing gap between that dichotomy of choice and a God whom we believed to be the Creator of a world with mind-blowing variety and breadth. To be clear, the small agricultural community where I grew up, where almost everyone attended church (the choice of two churches was hardly a choice at all with their minimal differences), had given me no real awareness of a vast universe with infinite galaxies and equally infinite complexity in the tiniest clusters of cells. That came later.

Then I had obediently pointed to myself for “I’m on the inside” and to unknown others for “on which side are you?” while trying to stifle the persistent inner fear that I was probably not on the right side of the door.  

 Very likely, the song writer’s intent was to reassure children that all would be well if  they were given clear answers about how the world worked, both now and hereafter. I’m choosing also to assume that the song writer had not considered the long-term consequences of such direct, uncompromising “othering” of everyone who didn’t speak of God in precisely the same way or didn’t even believe in God. After all, this was a simple child’s song, with a very catchy, bouncy tune.  

            The appeal of the door as a metaphor is understandable. A door does indeed have two sides and in a wild rainstorm or a blizzard, the obviously welcoming place is inside. Who, after a long journey, hasn’t arrived to stand at a door and knocked hopefully? When that door is flung open, warmth rushing out to envelope the traveler even before arms offer hugs, all the travails of the journey are forgotten. Then again, another scenario is possible: the house lights are off, the door remains firmly closed.

Doors are, by definition, openings in walls, in buildings, in enclosed gardens, in institutional offices, and so on.  They are a very visible symbol of inclusion and exclusion. They offer a way in, or, if necessary, also a way out.

 When the persistent little ditty of “one door and only one” refused to leave my mind, I began looking at doors. I drove along streets in our neighborhood and others. Camera in hand, I stared at doors – so many styles and colors, so many different yards leading up to those doors. Such astonishing variety in just the doors, let alone the atmosphere that must have been behind those doors, or the greetings that would have spilled out in so many languages.

            This is not the venue to explore fully the nuances of inclusion and exclusion, either sociological or theological, although I do want to mention one book (no regular reader here will be surprised!), Myroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace, which is the best book I’ve ever read on the human need to form supportive communities and the divine imperative to keep those communities open-doored.  Volf writes as the Christian he is, but he points out that all world religions speak of love and the grace of welcoming strangers.

As we walked through the ruins, I began to linger, wanting to be alone, suddenly aware of a Presence. Light was everywhere, including within me.

People had worshipped on this site since 1818 (the ruined St. Boniface Cathedral was the third one built there); over the generations, they had expressed their faith through beautiful architecture as well as through songs and homilies and sacraments. Now the façade and walls stood open to the light and the wind. The solid beauty of the rock belonged to the outdoor gardens and to the open sky. That felt right. It included me, protestant that I am.

            These days as the rockets fall, hurled out of the hatred and fear spawned by the cruelties of centuries, I wish there were fewer fences and more open doors. I wish that the necessary doors (and they are always necessary to keep out insects and unwanted animals and the wind and the rain and . . . . ) could be openings into welcome and understanding. I wish that we could stop dividing complex issues and multiple needs into either/or, good/bad. Even as I recognize that evil does exist and must be dealt with, I wish that we could find enough humility to listen better and to recognize our common human yearnings for love and security. I don’t know how to end a political/religious conflict that is already bathed in the blood of thousands. At least in my neighborhood, I want to learn a gentler language and leave a door open wide enough so that the possibility of community can be glimpsed on both sides.