Doors

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Life comes with no Owner's Manual. So what do you do, when things slip away?

That slipping away happens to all too many. Souls living in pain, in an unbearable imperfect tense, incomplete, unable to find peace. People who cannot see - or grasp - the Grace that surrounds us, even on this Easter day.

This season speaks to renewal, to a fresh start, to forgiveness - of others, but perhaps the hardest of all: of yourself. For some people, there's a door blocking their way.

Open it.

Walter Koenig's son couldn't. I was moved by a post that spoke not to Andrew Koenig, but to everyone who finds himself in front of that closed door, unable to open it:

You may find yourself wishing you could give the unwanted years of your future to the clients of those hospitals and hospices. I did, years ago, when I stood where you are standing now. I was on my knees at the time, offering that trade with all my heart. It doesn’t work that way. Those who tend the hospices can tell you why, and the people in the churches and temples can explain why it shouldn’t.

...

If your walk takes you past sunset, watch the cars rolling into the driveways of apartments and houses. If you walk from night into morning, watch the people reluctantly leaving their homes, to provide for their families. Those people are not wasting their lives, but fulfilling them. They return home to enjoy their reward, and renew their inspiration.

Open it.

Especially today:

It’s not the recognition of my own unworthiness or even the realization that He doesn’t care that I’m not worthy, that He embraces me despite my unworthiness.
I think, after years of feeling tears course down my cheeks as I say this phrase, that it’s the healing I know is coming that makes that lump blossom in my throat. It’s knowing that my arms are wide open, and so are His. It’s knowing that I’ve been going along, not looking back or around, but when I come back, on my knees, He always offers me the same healing, the same peace.

Doors separate us, but they also join us. Open it. Join us.

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.

- John 20:1