“Break on through to the other side”

A few weeks ago, my youngest son started Kindergarten. He’s doing well and seems to be enjoying the experience on the whole. He’s attending a Catholic school (long story) and, though the classroom part is fairly familiar (he attended a very academic preschool), there are other things about school and its structures he yet finds quite foreign.

His first day of class, my wife (who had taken off work for the occasion) and I walked him into the room, helped him find where to put his lunch pail, backpack, supplies, etc., and walked him to his seat. The next few days, I said goodbye just inside the door. However, for the last couple of weeks, I have only walked him across the parking lot and to his building. I stop just outside the door, kiss him on the head, and send him inside. He usually has much to say as we walk toward the class. He moves at a steady pace, full of energy. But, when we arrive at the door and exchange our goodbyes, a curious thing happens. He freezes at the threshold. He walks right up to the entrance and stops, silent.

Now, the classroom is decorated with kid friendly shapes, letters, images, and games of all sorts. Everything is low and mostly well within his reach. His friends are waiting for him just inside. The whole thing is designed for him—a place where he can thrive.

The exterior of the building is unimpressive and stark. There are no windows. It’s surrounded by other uninteresting structures, black-top, and concrete. Yet, there he stands. It’s not so much that he’d rather be standing on the sidewalk than that he just can’t bring himself to cross the threshold and enter the room.

So, I wondered to myself today, “what is he afraid of? He seems to really like school. His teacher is friendly, mostly disarming, and very complimentary of his performance and behavior thus far. He has already made friends, he enjoys the learning and activities… what’s the big deal? Just walk on in and start your day.”

Then, I realized on how many fronts, in my own life, I am standing outside, staring in the door, speechless, hesitant to cross the threshold. What’s the big deal? For the most part, I’m a risk taker. (Alright… so I am a “manageable” risk taker, but still...) Why do I just stand here, when the promise of what may be much better lies just over a metal plate between the sidewalk and the room ahead?

Curiously, later today, a thoughtful acquaintance (another friend of a friend) wrote to me about life after death and the mysterious way in which we cannot know with any scientific or academic certainty what lies beyond until we cross into it; on this side of the threshold, there's only speculation, faith… hope.

I see a theme developing. I hate that.

I don’t walk my son into the room everyday anymore— not because I don’t love him, or want to ease his trepidation, but because I know at some point, even in the smallest of ways, he must learn that crossing thresholds is an important personal step. Though others may walk you to the door, no one can enter for you. Sometimes, they can’t even do it with you. That's what makes it so powerful.

I don’t need to go to Kindergarten. This is his threshold to cross. I have my own. It seems at ages five and thirty-s i .. . (well, let’s just say I’m older than five), we have a lot in common. Who knew?

So, the question of the day is: “What’s holding you back from crossing the important thresholds in your life?”