So I Stay Near the Door

Entrance to Chartres Cathedral by Tom Kauffman

So I Stay Near the Door
A poem by Rev. Samuel Shoemaker

I stay near the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world --

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There's no use my going way inside and staying there,

When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is only the wall where the door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands,

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,

Yet they never find it...

So I stay near the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world

Is for men to find that door -- the door to God.

The most important thing that any man can do

Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,

And put it on the latch -- the latch that only clicks

Ad opens to the man's own touch.

Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die

On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter --

Die for want of what is within their grasp. 

They live on the other side of it -- live because they have not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,

And open it, and walk in, and find Him...

So I stay near the door.

Go in great saints; go all the way in --

Go way down into the cavernous cellars,

And way up into the spacious attics.

It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.

Go into the deepest of hidden casements,

Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.

Some must inhabit those inner rooms

And know the depths and heights of God,

And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.

Sometimes I take a deeper look in.

Sometimes venture a little farther,

But my place seems closer to the opening.

So I stay near the door.

The people too far in do not see how near these are

To leaving -- preoccupied with the wonder of it all.

Somebody must watch for these who have entered the door

But would like tot run away. So for them too,

I stay near the door.

I admire the people who go way in.

But I wish they would not forget how it was

Before they got in. Then they would be able to help

The people who have not yet even found the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,

Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,

But not so far from men as not to hear them,

And remember they are there too.

Where? Outside the door --

Thousands of them. Millions of them.

But -- more important for me --

One of them, two of them, ten of them.

Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,

So I shall stay by the door and wait

For those who seek it.

'I had rather be a door-keeper...'

So I stay near the door.

Thinking today of some of the door-keepers who have been a part of  my life:

Arvon Hughes

Marky Barrett

Carole Rasmussen Dryer

Earl Magnusson

Muriel McDowell
Miriam Adeney

Dan and Carolyn Brannen

Rick Rood