Too Many Doors

Several years ago, I had gone to church early one Sunday morning, needing to get things ready before kids arrived for Sunday School. As I walked up the hallway, I met another church member, standing at the top of a staircase that lead down to the basement level Fellowship Hall. He looked a little pensive.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I was on my way downstairs,” he said. “But, I can’t remember why I was going down there.”

“That happens to me, too,” I said. “Sometimes it helps me to go back to where I was when I decided to go get something. Where were you when you thought about going down there?”

“In the front foyer,” he said. And, somewhat skeptically, off he went. When I saw him later that morning, he said that, yes, going back had reminded him why he’d meant to go downstairs. Ta-Dah! Sometimes it’s that simple.

That strategy often works for me, too. If I’m standing in the kitchen with no idea why I went there, I try to remember where I was, when I’d decided to set off for the kitchen. I was in the bathroom. Why was I in the bathroom? I was taking the little plastic trash bag out of the trash basket. Ah-ha!! I needed to get a larger bag to empty out the rest of the trash cans at that end of the house! Sometimes that works. Sometimes I just have to go all the way back to the bathroom, where I will see that the bathroom trash basket is sitting on the toilet lid, all ready to be emptied out. Into the larger trash bag. Which I have not brought with me to the bathroom. So, I have to go back to the kitchen, while muttering to myself “Trash bag, trash bag, trash bag,” all the way to the kitchen, so I will not again forget or be distracted by, for example, remembering that I need to empty the dishwasher. Or get out something to thaw out for dinner. Or thirteen other more pressing issues. And three hours later, I’ll go into the bathroom and remember that I need to get another trash bag.

There are some studies that suggest that the physical act of walking through a doorway can cause our brain to, well, not actually forget, but to file away information, so that, when we enter a different room, our brain seems to think “Okay, we’re done with the trash-related issue, let’s plow on to something new, and, maybe at least a little bit more interesting than trash.” A Scientific American article  refers to it as the “doorway effect.”  Some of their research showed that memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.

So, if I’ve noticed that the tissue holder on the kitchen bar (and I’d need to be on the dining room side of the bar) is empty, I could walk around the dining room, with empty tissue boxes on my mind, and be all right, until I walked through the doorway into the hall, and possibly forget about the tissues. Even though the door to the closet where I keep the tissues is THREE INCHES away from the door!. Let’s pretend, shall we, that that has never happened.

Another article refers to doors as an “event boundary,” meaning that walking through the door is the boundary that prevents me from remembering that THERE AREN’T ANY TISSUES ON THE BAR BETWEEN THE KITCHEN AND DINING ROOM, and enables me to walk right by that closet door, and walk through another door or two, and be fortunate if I can remember what my name is. But at least there might be tissues in those spaces.

This is my very favorite biblical “door” story. Peter has been in jail and been released by an angel in the middle of the night. He goes to a house where other believers are praying for his safety.

When he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, “It is his angel.” But Peter continued knocking; and when they had opened the door, they saw him and were amazed.

Acts 12:13-16 (New American Standard Bible)

I like all the descriptions of how those believers felt.

New International Version says: they were astonished.

Contemporary English Version says: They . . . were completely amazed.

The Living Bible says: their surprise knew no bounds.

God’s Word Translation says: they were shocked to see him.

The Message says: they… saw him—and went wild!

New Life Version says: they were surprised and wondered about it.

The Voice Version says: the disciples were stunned.

Worldwide English Version says: they were very much surprised

My favorite–Hawai’i Pidgin says: dea jaws wen drop. (Their jaws dropped.)