In 2006, Evanescence lead singer Amy Lee found herself at a personal and professional crossroads. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend, lead singer for the band Seether, while he struggled with alcohol abuse, and had found herself abandoned by her songwriting partner Ben Moody, who left with the original bandmates for the group in order to form a group called WE ARE THE FALLEN with a less talented but less mercurial lead singer Carly Smithson, who had previously been an unsuccessful contestant for American Idol and before that been a spectacularly unsuccessful teen pop princess under her maiden name Carly Hennessey [1]. The songwriting partner she had found to replace Ben Moody was in the process of recovering from a stroke, which had threatened both his life and his career. In short, it was not an ideal time for Amy Lee’s personal or professional life.

At least in terms of her music career for herself and her band, The Open Door was a successful album. It spawned at least one big hit in the ferocious “You Never Call Me When You’re Sober,” about her ex. Other songs that garnered a lot of positive attention included “Lithium,” where Lee opened up about her own struggle with mental health, and “Like You,” where she seemed to yearn for death to be reunited with her late sister. If not as successful as debut “Fallen,” the album has still sold more than six million copies worldwide and was certified double platinum in the United States, so it was successful enough to avoid being considered a flop despite the personal and professional drama involved in the album’s creation. The one area of the album that seems to have been misguided is the fact that Amy Lee still imagined herself as having the poor to close the supposedly open door with her ex-boyfriend as well as her ex-bandmates. In both cases, that door was closed, locked, and bolted shut by others who refused to heed Lee’s calls for respect in their dealings with her.

In order for us to be able to have friendly conversation or any kind of intimacy with other people, there needs to be an open door between us. We may often think of there being only one door, but there are at least two doors to this, which each person involved has the power to shut. Even if we leave our portion of the door open to others, if others close and lock their side of the door and bar our entry, it does not matter that our hearts are open to reconciliation or that our minds are open to be persuaded to think well of someone we are estranged from, for the way is not open to us. We can will that the door to our hearts or to our country be closed to others, no matter what their situation or their appeals to us, and come hell or high water, that door will still be closed, serving as a wall against those who would seek entry. It can be difficult to open the door or close the door in a proper fashion, no matter what sort of literal or metaphorical door we are speaking of.

As a student of the Bible, the complexity of open and closed doors is an immensely interesting but also complicated subject. In the Song of Solomon, a young woman with an open door, leaving herself open to being taken advantage of by men, is to be boarded shut by her brothers seeking to protect her virtue, while a young woman who is a wall against sexual immorality is praised and honored. Here an open door is definitely viewed as a bad thing. In other areas, it is far less clear. Revelation 3 contrasts the open door that is left to the church in Philadelphia which no man can shut with the knocking of the closed door to the church in Laodicea which must be opened so that Christ could dine with brethren facing the painful process of refinement and improvement from their lukewarm ways. The letters of 2 John and 3 John, on the other hand, contrast the closing of the door against those who wish to spread heretical teachings about God with the opening of the door to show hospitality to traveling godly ministers, even against the will of power-hungry local church authorities. Open and closed doors are not straightforward manners in either life or in scripture.

How do we know when to open a door to someone where it is closed, to leave it open if it is already so, or to close an open door or secure a closed door to make it even more secure? It is one thing to say that we should be generous and open to those who deserve our kindness and hospitality and make it clear that those who wish to bring us harm are to be denied entry, but how do we distinguish between those who are worthy of hospitality and those who are not? This is not always easy to determine. Similarly, how do we know when the door has been shut against us or if there is an open door or at least a door that would be opened if we knock? It is not always straightforward to understand when a door has merely been closed that will be opened to us if we ask or a door that has become a wall to block any chance that we enter where we are not wanted and will never be allowed entry? Sometimes these things become clear with time, but are certainly not obvious when we are knocking at a door that has been bolted against us to deny us entry.

[1] That story is itself worth telling at some point.