doorkeeper

Beside the auditorium door, Adam sways, a reed gently tossed, rooted at the feet. For Adam, this represents an attempt at stillness, this planted shifting of weight from foot to foot. I glance at him and smile, and he bends a lengthy arm, touching his name tag with the tips of his fingers, moving a thumb over the plastic, tracing the solid black letters of his name. Something in that gesture tells me he feels good that someone has trusted him. Maybe it’s also the quality of his grin when he acknowledges my gaze, or the uptempo song in his heart, the one to which he now silently bobs his head. In any case, my son and I share a silent conversation in a just few seconds: He has a job to do, and it makes him happy.

The outer doors open and another family walks in on the way to worship. First they enter the doors where Riley and I now stand, brightening a little as we greet them, maybe shrugging off the hard press of time, the hurried breakfast, the stress in the car. I catch a woman’s eyes, am saying, “Hello, welcome,” when I hear Adam’s deep, careful “Good morning” just a few feet away. I had wondered what he’d do, if he’d say anything at all. I glance over in time to see him nod his head and drop the hand he’d lifted in greeting, just in time to see the flash of brightening recognition bloom on another person’s face.

Of course, at the training, Kevin and I had explained about Adam’s challenges. In fact, propelled by the potential for awkwardly unmet expectations, by that consequentially shut down, inconvenienced-by-autism expression we’ve seen so many times, we had over explained: Adam has autism; he can be blunt and grumpy. He might not handle questions well. Sometimes, he says what the rest of us are thinking. He might not say ‘hello.’ He can be difficult… Kenny, our group leader, listened carefully, eyes twinkling. Not a single shadow fell as we piled on all the reasons it might not work. And finally, Kenny said, “He can smile, though, right?”

We fumbled, “Well, yes, though sometimes…”

Kenny looked over at Adam, who pointedly lingered near the exit door, ready to go home. “Hey Adam, smile.”

Adam grinned on command, if impatiently.

“See? You’re hired.” Kenny laughed as he said this to Adam and then turned back to Kevin and me, his face showing only possibility. “We’ll start him off greeting at one of the doors and then see what he’d like to do next,” Kenny said. I looked, and in the place of the reluctance I expected, I recognized the heart of Christ.

So today, I watch Adam offering smiles at that door, waving his hand, generously giving the rich-voiced hard-won words we gather up at home like gold, and I remember a few lines from a favorite psalm: “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God…no good thing does He withhold (Psalm 84:10-11).” I rock forward on my feet, making eye contact now with the newly arriving, letting them see I’m truly glad. Because today, God’s Kingdom spills right out these doors; it beams through the glass; it glitters in the street, and those two words Adam says as people walk by really say much more. From Adam’s lips, those two careful words multiply significantly into six:

Welcome to the reign of Christ.

Here, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the awkward belong, and the disconnected, even the ones with Autism, stand at the door to welcome the world.