19 Comments
User's avatar
Marisol Muñoz-Kiehne's avatar

Holding door practice,

humble welcoming gesture.

Keeps both hearts open.

Ann Bodling's avatar

Surely an antidote to becoming hardened in these days.

Nancy Sobanik's avatar

Thank you James. for so beautifully spreading this message of small blessings we can bestow on each other, so needed to counteract the incivility and carelessness that has pervaded the world.

James Crews's avatar

I am happy to do my small part--and if we each hold up the small blessings, imagine how the world will change...

Julie Roehm's avatar

Thank you, James, for such a lovely invitation/reminder/acknowledgement of the doors I see in my life. This tiny act can often enrich and support my day and you so it beautifully!

James Crews's avatar

You're very kind, Julie.

Julie Roehm's avatar

And I so appreciate your kindness in sharing your voice with us! Namaste

Angie Gascho's avatar

I love this sentiment...I've always been a big believer in holding doors open for people, both figuratively and literally. When you said, "this small acknowledgment affirms that we are not as invisible as we can sometimes feel," I couldn't agree more. Lovely post.

James Crews's avatar

Thank you so much for the kind words, Angie.

Breath of Freedom Poetry's avatar

Lovely!

Amy Secrist's avatar

Love this so much. Love all the immediate, accessible, applicable, real, ordinary, daily practices that spread into generous, wild, wise, tender, loving-kindness as ways of being in this world ✨️💓

Thank you for spreading your poems of loving kindness all over us. 💕💫

James Crews's avatar

I'm doing my best. I appreciate you receiving the poems, Amy!

Laura B.'s avatar

I am smiling now, imagining holding the door for someone. And, so true!--how it opens other doors inside of us. Thank you, James.

Maxine McCleery Bowden's avatar

My husband is in a wheelchair. Every time we go out people are so quick to open a door for us. Every time. It’s so heart warming that they even notice! They’ll jump up from a bench and open a door they weren’t even going through. And what a difference it makes to us, this old couple, making it through. ❤️❤️

Dwight Lee Wolter's avatar

And if the one for whom you hold the door open doesn’t say “thank you” - please don’t snark “you’re welcome!” thus blowing a special opportunity for grace.

- Dwight Lee Wolter

Nancy's avatar

Requires so little of us and yet has profound effect on the giver and receiver...imagine the ripple effect beyond and potential ripples on the larger world. Thank you

Julie Potiker's avatar

I’d love to be at another poetry retreat with you, but I need to wait until it’s on the west coast. It may seem ridiculous, but the time change is too tough for me. I’d miss the entire morning, and breakfast would be at lunchtime!

Julie Potiker's avatar

Other doors inside yourself. Ah, lovely, and so tender. Makes me think of the spilled oranges, or lemons, the neighbor patting your arm, the little mouse in his brown suit. I have a poem about walking this older lady to her car that I’m trying to wrangle into some sort of form, whether lyric or prose, but it’s not jelling yet. We had the most precious conversation. Really, one of those human interactions that get carefully folded and tucked into the heart.

Elizabeth Levin's avatar

Thank you! Such a simple act can give such powerful reassurance. I always carry lightness after a stranger has shared a kindness with me. We aren’t so strange anymore. We all belong. 💕