Thursday, May 4, 2006 at 2:02am
If you see a fork in the road, take it
Column: Our Place in the Universe
From the Statue of Liberty...
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
— Emma Lazarus
Everyone knows this poem forever carved on the Statue of Liberty, symbol of America's promise. The poem's promise is a "door," albeit a golden one. In my musings I'm thinking that it is how we see and use this "door" that is important.
I've discovered recently that a door is not the same as a brick wall. Now that's a big discovery for me to make, since I have always felt that closed doors signify a shutting out, or a path I am unable to follow. Just the fact that it is a door and not a wall is significant. However, we first must open the door before we can go through.
A friend had mentioned the movie "spring, summer, fall, winter ... and spring," so my daughter and I rented and watched it last night. There were doors in the movie. There were doors in front of the beds, but no wall separating the bed from the rest of the room. There were doors at the edge of the lake, again with no walls, making the doors unnecessary in the "normal" sense of the word.
So why was there this separation? Are the doors a barrier to prevent us from getting closer to what we would like, or a hint that the purpose of our passing through is to create a new awareness of our surroundings?
How do we open these doors, with what key? Sometimes what we are faced with are brick walls in life that we feel we need to blow up. Ahhh, I used to believe that myself. Then I discovered there are other choices — going around, or over, or under. However, I hadn't considered the possibility of finding the door, and going through.
What directions are there that show us how to create doors? Archetypal doors with no knobs to turn, or insurmountable walls without doors at all, are often a product of what our own minds and hearts fear. How do we find the way on this journey through our fears that will show us how to open the door?
And some doors aren't meant to be passed through — the doors that exist in that gray area between what follows universal principles and what doesn't. When I see more clearly what doors are not to be opened, I also see more clearly how to open the other doors that are there because of fear. This is a task done only with lots and lots of practice.
Our life here on earth, and how we live it, is the time to practice opening the doorways of life. What is on the other side of the door is determined by our very thoughts, speech and behavior in each moment. Will we remain captive behind the same old doors that separate and divide us? Are we building walls with our religion, culture, nationality, race or even our assumptions? Or are we opening doors with our connections built on understanding, encouragement, acceptance and openness?
Connectivity is the key to expansion and harmony in the world around us. Many businesses are learning from nature and are encouraging an "open door" policy inviting individuals to collaborate, building trust and exchanging ideas. Networking is the key to success these days, and it often opens doors to that job or interview that we've been waiting for. Closed doors imply secrets, lack of willingness to communicate or insecurity.
Our experiences with opening doors is like climbing mountains or digging wells — in the end it's about truly knowing one's self, the truth of one's self, which is at the heart of the matter, in other words, the Heart of the Universe.
Scott Russell Sanders, in his book "Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World," says, "The experience is not a glimpsing of realms beyond, nor of becoming someone new, but of acknowledging, briefly and utterly, who I am." We journey to the ends of the earth in search of a new Self only to find that we have never been anyone else!
Together, through a renewed consciousness, we can create that pathway through the golden door through which the lamp's light will shine to bless those less fortunate. "I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut" (Rev. 3:8).
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her master's in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
— — —
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
— Emma Lazarus
Everyone knows this poem forever carved on the Statue of Liberty, symbol of America's promise. The poem's promise is a "door," albeit a golden one. In my musings I'm thinking that it is how we see and use this "door" that is important.
I've discovered recently that a door is not the same as a brick wall. Now that's a big discovery for me to make, since I have always felt that closed doors signify a shutting out, or a path I am unable to follow. Just the fact that it is a door and not a wall is significant. However, we first must open the door before we can go through.
A friend had mentioned the movie "spring, summer, fall, winter ... and spring," so my daughter and I rented and watched it last night. There were doors in the movie. There were doors in front of the beds, but no wall separating the bed from the rest of the room. There were doors at the edge of the lake, again with no walls, making the doors unnecessary in the "normal" sense of the word.
So why was there this separation? Are the doors a barrier to prevent us from getting closer to what we would like, or a hint that the purpose of our passing through is to create a new awareness of our surroundings?
How do we open these doors, with what key? Sometimes what we are faced with are brick walls in life that we feel we need to blow up. Ahhh, I used to believe that myself. Then I discovered there are other choices — going around, or over, or under. However, I hadn't considered the possibility of finding the door, and going through.
What directions are there that show us how to create doors? Archetypal doors with no knobs to turn, or insurmountable walls without doors at all, are often a product of what our own minds and hearts fear. How do we find the way on this journey through our fears that will show us how to open the door?
And some doors aren't meant to be passed through — the doors that exist in that gray area between what follows universal principles and what doesn't. When I see more clearly what doors are not to be opened, I also see more clearly how to open the other doors that are there because of fear. This is a task done only with lots and lots of practice.
Our life here on earth, and how we live it, is the time to practice opening the doorways of life. What is on the other side of the door is determined by our very thoughts, speech and behavior in each moment. Will we remain captive behind the same old doors that separate and divide us? Are we building walls with our religion, culture, nationality, race or even our assumptions? Or are we opening doors with our connections built on understanding, encouragement, acceptance and openness?
Connectivity is the key to expansion and harmony in the world around us. Many businesses are learning from nature and are encouraging an "open door" policy inviting individuals to collaborate, building trust and exchanging ideas. Networking is the key to success these days, and it often opens doors to that job or interview that we've been waiting for. Closed doors imply secrets, lack of willingness to communicate or insecurity.
Our experiences with opening doors is like climbing mountains or digging wells — in the end it's about truly knowing one's self, the truth of one's self, which is at the heart of the matter, in other words, the Heart of the Universe.
Scott Russell Sanders, in his book "Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World," says, "The experience is not a glimpsing of realms beyond, nor of becoming someone new, but of acknowledging, briefly and utterly, who I am." We journey to the ends of the earth in search of a new Self only to find that we have never been anyone else!
Together, through a renewed consciousness, we can create that pathway through the golden door through which the lamp's light will shine to bless those less fortunate. "I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut" (Rev. 3:8).
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her master's in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions
of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any.
All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are
not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.