Sermon: Doorman

Doorman

Ana Levy-Lyons

January 25, 2014

First Unitarian, Brooklyn

A few weeks ago my family and I moved into a doorman apartment for the first time. I’ve become fascinated by the idea of the doorman – someone, a guy, who stands there and opens the door over and over again for people who are generally perfectly capable of opening the door for themselves. Why? What does it mean? What is he really doing there? Sometimes as I approach the door, he’s busy doing something at the desk, but he’ll look up, see me coming and race over to open the door for me. I feel the impulse to apologize – to tell him he really didn’t need to do that – he was busy! But then I stop myself. Tell the doorman he doesn’t need to open the door? Isn’t that his raison d’etre? Wouldn’t that be insulting? Tantamount to telling him that his job has no value? But what is the value of his job?

I consulted with my 4-year-old kids on this question and asked them what they think the doorman is for. One of them explained that if a person goes through the door by themselves and then they just let go of the doorknob, the door could make a loud bang. This makes some sense to me as an explanation. The door on our particular building might not bang, but it’s true that sometimes going through a doorway alone can be jarring. You were in one space and then – bang! – you’re in a new space. Transitions can be hard. So maybe the doorman is like a midwife, easing your transition.

Then I think about how opening a door for someone in some contexts is an assertion of strength. So much so that at some point in the 70’s it became anti-feminist for a man to open a door for a woman, simply because she’s a woman, as if she’s too weak and fragile to do it herself. And when you think of someone opening a door to some opportunity for you, they’re the one bestowing something upon you. Thinking metaphorically, the one who opens the door — the doorman — has great power.

In ancient Rome there was a god for that: Janus — the god of doors, doorways, transitions, beginnings and endings. Pictures and sculptures of Janus show him with two faces, facing in opposite directions — on facing forward to where he’s going, one facing backwards to where he’s been. He represents the perfect integration of that rich moment of transition. He is the perfect doorman, holding the past while ushering in the future, and making sure that the door doesn’t bang. He was called the “Porter of Heaven.” The ancient Romans would pray to him when starting something new and make offerings to him at the beginning of the year. His name, Janus, gives us the name of this month, January. The beginning of the new year, the end of the old year. The coming and the going.

Do we humans today need such a Cosmic Doorman? I’d say yes. When we are leaving one job and starting another, leaving a relationship and starting singledom, leaving one place and moving to another, leaving one religion and joining another, we need the Doorman to help guide us and ease the way. I’m thinking of three kinds of transitions we face: 1. The Kicking and Screaming Transition – the kind that is thrust upon us against our will, that we would never choose or want; 2. The Ambivalent Transition – the kind that we’re uncertain about and know that we’re giving up something as well as getting something; and 3. The Happy Transition – the kind that we make happen on purpose, fully embracing the future, and saying good riddance to the past (don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out).

I believe, as the ancient Romans believed, that a doorman is available at all times, regardless of whether you think you need one or want one or not. Janus is there with his two faces, never too busy to help balance you as you move into a new space.

Imagine a man who loses his wife tragically in a car accident. She had just run out one evening after the kids were in bed to get some ice cream for the two of them to eat while watching Netflix. This is the ultimate Kicking and Screaming Transition. He loved her, she was the mother of his children, he can’t imagine life without her. He can’t imagine himself without her. It seems impossible that this is even real. How could this trip to get ice cream have cost her her life and him his? He is drowning in regret. All he can do is look back through the doorway, remembering the life they had together. He doesn’t want a doorman; he didn’t want that door.

And yet, somehow, Janus is there with this man, joining him in his looking back and also offering a view forward. It will take time – lots of time – before the man is able to see what Janus is showing him in the future. But the Doorman is there, when he’s ready, to slowly turn him around and show him a life that, while it will include grief and sadness, will also someday include joy. He will become a different parent – a better parent – than he was when his wife was still alive. His career will take a direction that he might never have imagined. And someday he will partner again, and find a different kind of love, not better, but different and beautiful in its own way. When he is ready, the Doorman is there to help him turn and step fully into the future, and then close the door gently behind him.

Imagine a woman in her 60’s, a graphic designer, who works for a dog accessories catalog. She likes most of the people she works with and she loves dogs, so she enjoys being able to direct the photo shoots with various photogenic dogs lounging on expensive dog beds. But she’s been working there forever, the pay is bad, the hours are long, and she’s not given much creative license. She feels like she’s stagnating as a designer. She wants to find something else, but she feels like the job market is much easier for young designers who know the newest software. She could never compete. She faces the second kind of transition: the Ambivalent Transition.

In this case, she doesn’t even know there is a Doorman because she doesn’t know there’s a door. The Doorman’s role here is to say, “Yoohoo! Over here! Here’s a door! Look, I’ll open it for you! Come on over.”

The transitions we are forced to make, the transitions we want to make, and the transitions we don’t even know we can make.

Is it beneath us as Unitarian Universalists to pray to an ancient Roman god?

Gods for different things is common in many religions. Aspects of the divine. Don’t need to be pagan or superstitious to call forth different dimensions of life when you need them. God of doorways and transitions? God of love? God of courage?