[Preliminary comments by Dick B.: My son recently pointed out to me how many popular sayings, verses, slogans, and articles have been changed, corrupted, and misunderstood by those who wouldn’t take the time to check out the original source. This prompted me to do some work on a much quoted phrase attributed to Sam Shoemaker–"I Stand By the Door." Bill Wilson phrased it that way. Sam’s wife Helen wrote Sam’s biography and phrased it that way. And many have asked me for copies of the inspirational poem. Fortunately, my son and I found what seems to be an original which contains an "Author’s Preface" by Sam Shoemaker, written at Calvary Rectory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Christmas, 1958. The pamphlet came from the Episcopal Church Archives in Austin, Texas. Not only is the title different, but it differs from the language in the Bible from which some may assume it came:

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Revelation 3:20).

Bill Wilson said that Shoemaker was the well-spring from which A.A. ideas had come and told Sam he regarded him as a "co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous." A director of The Pittsburgh Experiment, which Sam founded, told me he looked at Sam as a "stand by the door" man who cared deeply about bringing people to God. The fact seems verified by the following in Sam’s early writings:

Now the thing which is striking about much of the misery one sees is that it is spiritual misery. . . It is the sadness of maladjustment to the eternal things, and this throws out the whole focus of life. Rest cures and exercise and motor drives will not help. The only thing that will help is religion. For the root of the malady is estrangement from God–estrangement from Him in people that were made to be his companions (Realizing Religion, pp. 4-5).

Everyone is hungry for God, and most people know it (The Way to Find God, 1935).

What you want is simply a vital religious experience. You need to find God. You need Jesus Christ (Realizing Religion, p. 9).

The impact on A.A. appears in the following words in Alcoholics Anonymous, 1^st ed., 1939:

Remember that we deal with alcohol–cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power–That One is God. May you find Him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a Program of Recovery (pp. 70-71).

Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs (p. 72).

Now, whether Sam wrote, "I stand at the door," or "I stand by the door," or "I stay near the door," here is what he himself had published about helping people to find God:

I stay near the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,

The door is the most important door in the world–

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,

When so many are still outside, and they, as much as I,

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is only the wall where a door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands,

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,

Yet they never find it - - -

So I stay near the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world

Is for men to find that door–the door to God.

The most important thing any man can do

Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,

And put it on the latch–the latch that only clicks

And opens to the man’s own touch.

Men die outside that door, as starving beggars die

On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter–

Die for want of what is within their grasp.

They live, on the other side of it–because they have found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,

And open it, and walk in, and find Him - - -

So I stay near the door.

Go in, great saints, go all the way in–

Go way down into the cavernous cellars,

And way up into the spacious attics–

It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.

Go into the deepest of hidden casements,

Of withdrawal, of silence, or sainthood.

Some must inhabit those inner rooms,

And know the depths and heights of God,

And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.

Sometimes I take a deeper look in,

Sometimes venture a little farther;

But my place seems closer to the opening - - -

So I stay near the door.

There is another reason why I stay there.

Some people get part way in and become afraid

Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;

For God is so very great, and asks all of us.

And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia.

And want to get out. "Let me out!" they cry.

And the people way inside only terrify them more.

Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled

For the old life, they have seen too much;

Once taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.

Somebody must be watching for the frightened

Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,

To tell them how much better it is inside.

The people too far in do not see how near these are

To leaving–preoccupied with the wonder of it all.

Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,

But would like to run away. So for them too,

I stay near the door.

I admire the people who go way in.

But I wish they would not forget how it was

Before they got in. Then they would be able to help

The people who have not yet even found the door,

Or the people who want to run away again from God.

You can go in too deeply, and stay too long,

And forget the people outside the door.

As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,

Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,

But not so far from men as not to hear them,

And remember they are there, too.

Where? Outside the door–

Thousands of them, millions of them.

But–more important for me–

One of them, two of them, ten of them,

Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.

For those I shall stay by the door and wait

For those who seek it.

"I had rather be a door-keeper . . . "

So I stay near the door

End