Opening the Side Door

It’s spring!

In a recent blog post where I wrote a remake of the e.e. Cummings poem in Just-, I mentioned my best friend from childhood, Rory Lowe. I’d like to continue painting that picture of friendship from my childhood for you...and for me. Granted, memory is a funny thing, so you’ll have to decide how much to trust the truth of my memories...but it’s truth to me. 

Picture a small, rural agricultural community of no more than a few thousand people. It’s the mid 1960’s, and the southern Idaho town of Meridian is still a good ten miles from Boise. My family had fairly recently relocated from the Silver Valley to a three bedroom house that sat on a dusty, dead end road with just one other small family home. That house was to be home to our family of seven until we returned to the Silver Valley about ten years later. But to a boy five years old, ten years is a long time, and the memories that develop are deep ones, meaningful ones.

The Roberts family with our 5 kids grew up next to the Lowe family with their four kids, and in both of our families the three oldest children were boys. We just happened to match up in age, with less than four years separating the six of us. That is a recipe for adventure. And if you stick around Grow Me a Story long enough, I’m sure you’ll hear some of those tales. There is just one sliver of time I want you to see for now, but it is a sliver of time that occurred over and over again.  

Imagine this five year old boy - and six years old, and seven years old, on up through my freshman year in high school - imagine me walking...or often running... to the house next door to knock and find out if now was a time when my friend Rory could come and be with me. There I am running next door -  and this is important -  I didn’t run to the front door. The front door was for unknown, unexpected visitors who rang the doorbell and waited patiently. Traveling salesmen and religious proselytizers use the front door. The front door was for more formal occasions, like dress-up dinner parties. I, however, ran to the side door, the glass sliding door, the entrance for friends. Here I could peer in first, before knocking, nose pressed to the glass, grimy hands leaving fingerprints. Many times, there was a wave from one of his parents, and a knock wasn’t even necessary. I would slide the door open enough to stick my head in and hear “Hey, bub” from either papa Wes or mama Carol, to which I would reply, “Can Rory come and play?”

Here at Grow Me a Story, Carol and I like to talk about the necessary relationship with both the Creator within each of us, and also the child-like artist in each of us. And one of the things I want to be able to work towards (play towards?) is having a side door relationship with…creativity. 

In the gospel of Matthew we can hear this story: 

"At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, 'Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?'

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, 'I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.' ”

Later in the New Testament, Jesus tells his listeners  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

As I read, write, and share my ideas and your ideas through our website and in our Sacred Garden Community, I think about my relationship with the Creator. With my inner “child artist.” And with creativity itself. I realize that part of what I have been doing of late is intentionally cultivating that “side door” relationship with each one of those concepts. Each time I slide open that side door - by reading, writing, Artist Dates, morning pages, awareness walks, or being in a creative community - I get more and more comfortable with who I was made to be.

And who knows? Since spring is here, and the weather is getting warmer, I might luck out one of these days and find that the side door is wide open.

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What intentional steps have you taken recently to open the door to your creativity and the Creator?

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