When you hear the name, Quincy Jones, a whole list of credits pour onto the screen of the musical mind: traveling as trumpeter and arranger with Dizzy Gillespie, song writing for the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa and his old friend Ray Charles, and composing film and television scores for such familiars as Walk, Don’t Run, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, The Getaway, The Color Purple, Sanford and Son and the Bill Cosby Show. Then, with the passing of Michael Jackson, we were reminded of that Jones’ song Thriller that only sold 50 million copies.

During his career Jones stretched out far beyond his plethora of musical projects to embrace benevolent ones as well. For example, in 2001 he sponsored 100 homes for Nelson Mandela’s foundation in South Africa.

So that’s the Quincy Jones we know, and what we love about him is his compelling artistry and how it has enriched so many aspects of artistic culture.

But let’s go back.

In his early years he grew up in Chicago and his family later moved out to Washington State. He was ten years old at the time, and it was a rough transition. His need for belonging was intense. He was a stranger in town, a new kid on the block. And before he knew it, he was attaching to a pretty rough and tumble crowd.

One day, young Quincy and his fellow hoodlums broke into a community center fairly near his home. The gang went about the business of vandalism that made them feel important, messing things up, breaking windows, creating chaos. In the midst of the pandemonium, Jones said he passed by a room with the door standing ajar, and as he pushed it open he discovered a piano. It must have been a kind of practice room in the center. And Jones said that opening that door and finding that piano instantly changed his life. From that moment forward all of his energies would be directed in a wholly new direction, and they were.

And I think that’s how it is. Along the way, a door swings open and there it is, the thing that has been waiting to find us. That’s why so many people that we tend to write off prematurely end up becoming remarkable people and doing incredible things. The door opened and they walked through.

I tend to think of faith in the same terms. Blessed are those who received a sustaining, life-giving foundation early in life, for they have received a gift to guide and sustain. But blessed, too, are those same ones, and others who did not have such a foundation, who stumble across the next open door, and the next, at just the right times in their lives.

Part of being an active Christian is searching out those doors, waiting for them, receiving them, and walking through them. Another part of being an active Christian is waiting patiently for others to walk through that door when the time is right. Sometimes, of course, we happen to be the one, at the right place and time, who is blessed to turn the doorknob, open the door and welcome them through. That’s a good day.

Quincy Jones was ready to receive the gift as he tore through that community center, he just didn’t know it before he found it. The room and the piano were already there, waiting to welcome him to a new life. And that’s how we find and are found, too, and at our best we help others to find that next open door in the hallway, a door that has our name on it and the name of every longing soul on this baffling planet.

The Gospel of John frequently describes Jesus in terms of a certain simile and in the New Testament Greek we hear Jesus saying,  ego eimi, which means … I am. I am this, that and the other. I am the bread of life; I am the way, the truth and the life; I am the vine and you are the branches. And then he says, to the delight of both Quincy and us, I am the door.

So when you stumble upon it, walk right on in. Really.