So I go up to this door and I’m a man canvassing the neighborhood for public office.
I wear a hat. It’s a white Stetson. I have a shoulder bag full of handouts and door hangers and a pedometer on my belt to tell me how far I’ve gone and up I go to this door and I ring the bell.
Then I step back, because no one inside wants to answer the door with a stranger standing too close.
I wait.
And I’m just about to leave my information hanging on the door knob when I hear a rustling and rattling of someone on the inside at the lock.
This goes on and the door does not open.
I see a face briefly at a pane of glass in the door, just a flicker of movement on the other side of the tiny window. Then nothing and more mechanical sounds then nothing again and finally nothing at all.
A thought crossed my mind.
“They’re afraid,” I thought. “Someone has come to the door and seen me and thought, “Oh no,” and decided to double lock the door against whoever this unknown man might be.”
Why do I think that? Because I’m a grown man and I watch the news. Because I live in a world where terrible things happen and just when I think they can’t get any worse they do.
As I turned away I met someone.
I looked down and came face to face with a ten or eleven year old boy who must have come out of the house from all the way around back with his tousled hair and striped socks without bothering to put on his shoes and he said,
“I’m sorry, sir. Can I help you? I couldn’t get the door open.”
I laughed. How can I explain? So I said, “Would you please give this to anyone in the house old enough to vote?” and the boy said, “Sure. I will.” I thanked him. He disappeared back around the house. I walked away, shook my head, laughed again and thought:
“It’s the kids. It’s them more than all the cares, concerns, platform politics or issues I can carry around in my head or pull out of this satchel. It’s the kids who come outside to see if they can help. Maybe I can be like that. Maybe I can do this for children like the one I just met or the ones too scared to venture out because the world has treated them so rough.
I realized it’s about the children.
That’s the lesson I learned today going door to door.
I learned how important it is to not be scared and get out there and help.