The Pen of a Ready Writer

What metaphors do you think of to illustrate a teacher’s job? I recently came to see my teacher-self as a doorkeeper.

A doorkeeper gives entrance, opens doors, to what lies inside. What lies inside is desirable, even splendid, enough that there is a door in front of it. All splendid objects lie behind doors. One does not wander in and handle a relic like produce at an open market. There’s a door. And there’s a keeper.

Students then are knockers. As such they must themselves knock and walk through the door. Whether they know to value what’s inside or not, they have to summon the courage to knock and the resolve to walk in and take up the values of those already inside. The keeper does not do any of this for them. Perhaps the keeper models by her very presence at the door the abiding preciousness of what is inside. But the keeper only opens. And then perhaps takes the knocker’s hand and says, “Look!”

Maybe a doorkeeper does a little more than this. There is the word ‘overqualified,’ and perhaps an experienced teacher might be called overqualified to be a mere doorkeeper. But who better than a master of the treasures inside could so deftly make a door attractive? Who better than a friend of the owner could convince busy people, young or old, to pause and consider that what’s inside is worth their time?

Have you ever made a list of desirable attributes in a doorkeeper? I haven’t. If I were hiring a doorkeeper, what adjectives would I look for? Alert. Eager. Sensitive. Unprejudiced. Listening. Glad. Strong. Passionate. Prompt. Expert. Active. And attributes I would avoid in a doorkeeper? Pushy. Selective. Wheedling. Bribable. Arrogant. Lazy. Nonchalant. Unaware that though he is a keeper of this particular door, he is a knocker himself at many others. If I am applying to be a doorkeeper, this list is an interesting self-analysis. And if I want to be a teacher, a good teacher, then this list is a thought-provoking twist on the usual items on a resumé. *As an English teacher, I cannot help picturing, and laughing at, the bawdy, hungover doorkeeper in Macbeth 🙂

This morning, I ran across this verse, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Psalm 84: 10.

I would rather be a doorkeeper.

Discussion Questions: (I would love to hear your thoughts!)

How, or would, you tweak this metaphor for elementary, middle, high school, college, or adult students? Special needs students?

As phrased above, the doorkeeper gives entrance, that is, the doorkeeper does not block entrance or select who enters. The job is opening, not guarding. Do you agree? Disagree?

Ponder the phrase from above: ‘ . . .and take up the values of those already inside.’ What are some of those universal values? Specific values? Unifying values?

What attributes would you add to the lists of desirable and undesirable doorkeeper qualities?

Explore the idea that every doorkeeper is also a knocker.

How broadly can this metaphor be stretched? Could it apply to anything from children’s Sunday school to workplace meetings to lectures and even to instructional writing?

Is a doorkeeper still necessary in this day of ‘everything at our fingertips’ internet access? If so, what exactly does a doorkeeper do that the knocker can’t do on his or her own?

Is there really a door? If so, what constitutes the door? How does this idea of a door resonate in our current era?

Glorify the Lord with me! Weddings are a blur of color and emotion. Occasionally, the blur lends up a still shot. Here are a few still shots, all out of order.

Zinnias. Filling garden and vases, zinnias from Don and Judie did their thing all over the place.

Christ Covenant Presbyterian youth on the dance floor. Close to heaven is the sight of young ones celebrating music and summer and God’s good plan for a man and a woman and the sweet knowing that their turn will come.

The groom’s father, Roger, ended the rehearsal dinner with the doxology, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!” Someone write this down in the ‘wedding traditions’ book. It was a profound benediction.

Sandy Jurgensen’s smiling face. She doesn’t know how many times in my life her smile has buoyed me for the task ahead. Deep lesson here. A friend doesn’t even have to do anything but be there and smile. It steadies the feet and anchors the ship. *Note to self.

Post-wedding laundry. Andrew’s cousins lived in Zaire during their childhood and tell of the ‘washjack,’ or the laundress. I felt for the washjack as I washed, dried, and folded every towel and sheet for two whole residences – ours and the house where the groom’s party stayed. Thank you, Brad and Sue, for use of your little slice of heaven on Smith Lake. On that note, our favorite part of the whole wedding event was two days later, swimming in the lake and falling sound asleep on the dock, no towel, hot decking beneath our backs as the final laundry tossed in the dryer. Bliss.

The wedding dress, all lush and white and laced with girlhood, hanging ready in that girl’s room in the dreamy calm before the first arrivals.

The obligatory ER visit on wedding day. I woke that morning to find Andrew gone. Two hours later he was still AWOL. Finally he wobbled in, covered in blood, six stitches in his right middle finger, and a circus balloon for a hand. He had pitched forward on a downhill part of his run, split and bent backward his finger, crept into the house to get his keys without waking the bridesmaids slumbering on pallets wall to wall, and taken himself to the ER.

Doing the Electric Slide at the reception with Peaches. Peaches is the groom’s aunt, or ‘auntie’ pronounced ahn-tee, his mother’s baby sister. She patiently tried to teach me her smooth, fluid, yes, even elegant, dance moves. The spirit is willing but the flesh is white.

Carter James, the three year old ring-bearer, in a tiny blue suit. Seeing that little man walk head-up and unafraid, downright interested, through a sea of happy faces, made the solemn groom smile big.

Two young girls I raised alongside their mothers, my daughter’s best friends. Callie and Leah. Callie, artistic and lovely; Leah, loyal and 5 weeks from delivering Cindy’s second granddaughter. These girls are women now and how they stepped in to do women’s work! One of the unexpected blessings of growing older is to watch that sacred baton pass and to see how ready the next runners are and to know God did it and will continue to do it.

My sibs! Walking out of the bride’s room a half hour before the ceremony, nerves and adrenaline like cicadas at twilight, I see my fam and I know, Ahhhh, I can do this because they are here.

Grant Mallard, Baby G, a mere 8 weeks old, with his sweet restlessness and his little perfection managed to distract me from the nerve song and to lend a measure of life perspective as I awaited Denise’s direction to seat the mothers.

Instagram. Thank goodness for Instagram. I love social media. Without intruding on the tender early days of them establishing their marriedness, I got glimpses of the groom singing love songs to his bride on a Miami night. Goal-post hands!

No one will ever hire me as an event planner. I ran out of water at last year’s wedding and seating at this year’s. Oh well, let them eat cake.

And my daughter, in ivory lace, coming in to How Great Thou Art, going from my child to a man’s wife in a blink. No gradual processing when your child gets married. Nope. You basically get the length of the church aisle to let her go. Later at the reception someone said, ‘Wow, your son-in-law can dance!’ My son-in-law. I have another son. No wonder it has taken me all week for my brain to relax. This is no small thing.

The wedding folder has run its course and is as retired from duty as this Mother of the Bride. Next wedding for us will be the smile-and-be-quiet kind.
Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!