The Blue Doors

Depressed people tend not to notice details; for us, the season is always deep winter; the hour groggily post-prandial. We don’t “see a world in a grain of sand,” as William Blake rhapsodized, but simply sand, about which—whether it contains mica or feldspar or bits of broken shells--we are incurious. Which brings me to confess something I noticed as I walked into the red brick Greek Revival Unitarian Church on Main Street in Northampton this past Sunday morning. I had just removed my bike helmet (when the weather is good, I ride my ten-speed to the services, which reduces my carbon footprint, and allows me to repair my body’s temple) and was hurrying up the stone steps when, perhaps because it was spring or maybe because I was uncharacteristically early, I looked up. Then I saw what I had never noticed before: The big double front doors are blue, each paneled door topped with a square window of leaded glass divided into eight, fan-like triangular sections. The blue is a lovely azure color, Virgin Mary blue, Saint-Denis Blue, Chartres Blue, the blue that for centuries--from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance to the Reformation and beyond--has been one of God’s favorite colors.

I have been going to UU services for over a year; I have sipped coffee in the parlor, praised the organist, shaken the hand of the interim minister, and used the transgender bathroom in the basement; I have belted out my favorite African-American hymn, “This Little Light of Mine,” with the other white, mostly gray-haired congregants, spaced out during readings of "Frog and Toad" for the children before they leave for their RE classes, brought visiting guests and friends to the services (though I have never been able to convince my husband or teenaged son to attend, as my husband contends that religion is a “crutch” and my son would prefer to sleep); I even have my own name tag, which hangs on a ribbon in the entryway, which I sometimes remember to pin to my jacket…I have faithfully performed all these acts, but I have never noticed that the front doors are blue.