A Where One Door Shuts, Another Ope

There is a maximum quoted Don Quixote which says: “Where one door shuts, another opens, …” We come to an end, and find a beginning.

Often we worry about arriving at an end, with too little faith in what follows. In any year, in any day, we are given to worrying about much that has happened, much that hasn’t happened, much that doesn’t happen. With problems, with disappointments, and sometimes in sorrow, the question comes to troubled hearts: “What am I going to do now?” The answer inevitably is, continue to do what needs to be done, what can be done; to do the necessary things, and have the faith to know what life will unfold, as it always has, as it continues to do. “Where one door shuts, another opens…”—and we have to have the faith to move through the open door and face the facts.

If we have obligations, we must do our best to meet them; if debts, we must do our best to pay them. If we have duties, we must do them. If we have limitations and impairments, we must learn to live with them, or rise above them.

And as to old errors, we must lean from them, and repent from the errors of the past—but not waste life in brooding or wishing we have done differently. The fact is we didn’t do differently, and this is where we are, and this is where we must begin again—with a reaching out with reasonableness and righteousness, with willingness to try, with a willingness to work, with a willingness to leave the past with as little regret as possible; to repent and improve, with gratitude, with courage, with conviction, with dignity, with faith, and with a resolve to face facts, and to improve upon the past. This is where we are—”Where one door shuts, another opens…” We come to an end and find a beginning.

“To fight the unbeatable foe

And never to dreaming or fighting—

This is a man’s privilege

And the only life worth living.”