Vachon Imagined

When I was living in Germany and touring Europe, I saw many things from medieval times. Castles were among my favorite places to visit. I would walk through each doorway and imagine all that had happened within those now hallowed walls. Before the castle stood there was nothing but open ground. Before the stone was laid, someone imagined it.

And so I imagined too.

I imagined the people who once occupied those spaces. The kings and servants. The wealthy and the poor. The celebrations, the fears, the wars. Though centuries separated us, so much of their lives remained relevant today.

Within many of those castles were something called posterns—small side doors hidden within the walls. They allowed people, supplies, messages, and sometimes entire escape routes to move in and out of the castle unnoticed. Tucked away from the main gates, they existed to protect both the fortress and the people living within it.

Even then, I found myself fascinated by these hidden entrances.

I wondered if human beings possessed their own posterns.

Little doorways hidden within us.

Places where thoughts enter quietly.

Places where fears arrive unnoticed.

Places where inspiration slips through before we have words for it.

Places where old beliefs leave without ceremony.

Like children lost in play, we wander through these doorways every day. With a single thought, a memory, a dream, or an act of imagination, we step into entirely different worlds. We travel backward and forward through time. We visit people who are gone. We create futures that do not yet exist.

I have come to believe that love is one of these hidden gates.

Love is the postern.

It allows things to enter quietly.

It allows things to leave quietly.

It knows what to welcome and what to release.

So much of what we say and do becomes unnecessary when we learn faith, trust, obedience, and surrender. We stop guarding every entrance. We stop forcing every outcome. We become less concerned with controlling what passes through us and more attentive to discerning what belongs.

Nothing alive is separate from this process. Every living thing is shaped by what it allows in and what it lets go.

Yet humans possess a unique capacity.

We dream.

We imagine.

We build castles where none existed before.

And somewhere within each of us is a hidden vestibule, a private doorway through which creation itself enters. Through that doorway come dreams, possibilities, and the quiet voice that calls us home to ourselves.

The same force that built castles from empty fields continues its work within us.

Patiently.

Secretly.

Through the postern of love.