Standing outside the Door
A few weeks ago I stood in spring sunshine looking at this door of an old stone dovecote in Monks Risborough. As you see it was padlocked shut. I was mildly disappointed not to be able to look inside. I was taking part in a Quiet Day for Vocations Advisers - mostly a day of silence when we were free to just sit or wander about the neighbourhood. I wandered and stood and stared and noticed things. As I studied this closed door I found myself thinking about someone who felt a door had been slammed in their face. I remembered similar experiences that I'd been through in the past. One was really painful to deal with because I had pinned so much hope in the expectation that a door would open. It didn't. With the hindsight of many years I'm grateful, but at the time it was agony. Trite cliches like "when one door closes, another opens" don't help when you're standing outside the locked door trying to deal with the disappointment and hurt. You simply don...