VIA CP I had never danced before my junior year prom. Never. Not even alone in my room. I may have tried to wiggle an ankle or twitch a hip, but immediately all the worst of my evil-Santa-meets-vengeful-Lord theology would rear its ugly head within my faithful soul and say, God is watching you, Stephen. Its not that I believed that God was outright anti-dancing. Sure, there were people that certainly thought that, and taught that, in the religious community of my youth, but I had a moderately Pentecostal upbringing. Tongues were uttered. On a good night people fell down backwards, but the sanctuary aisles were mostly clear enough to make a fire marshal proud. No, my fearful theology came from this simple fact about my dancing: Im amazingly bad at it. So when I made my way onto the dance floor in the spring of 2000, I remembered every bit of confident encouragement I ever received, all of it varying versions of, Everyone can do it! You just have to move with the music! Its easy! Relax! The relax part turns out to be particularly haunting. I saw the dawning look of doom upon their faces each as they realized what I was working with and began to less-and-less-subconsciously plot their dance floor escape. To make the tragedy worse, I was a competent musician with a thorough love of Bill Withers et al. Over a decade after this first party trauma, my moves have not improved, but my idea of what dancing is for probably has. And its a relief. Heres a handful of verses that will help explain things. 1. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. (Psalm 30) Dancing is a release. It is an overflowing that has little to do with a predisposition towards joy. In a strange way, it ought to recall the weathered hope in the words of Carrie Fisher: If my life wasnt funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable. We become acquainted with heartache and despair. Even small children elevate their longing for a certain toy or treat to the level of high Greek Tragedy with style and aplomb worthy of the Academy. The thing thats novel, or life-giving, about the Godly way is that this sadness will sometimes bubble up to a point of overflow that just miraculously starts looking more like joy than sorrow. The sackcloth is loosed. Maybe not taken off entirely – not yet. But the collar of it gets tugged and unbuttoned just the right amount for a little movement. The mourning turns to dancing, because why else would it make sense to dance. The hardest Ive ever laughed in my life was probably at my friends funeral wake, with other friends gathered, and it made nothing but sense. 2. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3) Author John Banville recounted years ago, I once read an account of a Black Forties parting between a young man setting out for America and his father. The two men stood face to face and, instead of speaking, danced their farewell, their stony gazes locked, while the womenfolk wept. The odd thing about this verse is, though there might well be a certain time for each, it can be ridiculously difficult to understand which is which. So go with your God-given gut and give others some slack on this. There are many uses for dancing. And if they or you weep while laughing or mourn while dancing, well, its a very holy day. As playwright John Patrick Shanley wrote, Life holds its miracles, good erupting from darkness chief among them. 3. In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him. (Job 41) Honestly, I have no idea what this is about, except I think that I ought to be terrified of the Leviathan. But I was already terrified of the Leviathan. So, alright. 4. A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! (Psalm 100) Theres nothing in here about the level of polish or money-making potential for this noise. Its not limited to pros and semi-pros and amateurs with serious promise. The psalm nowhere posts an exhortation to dance with a call for auditions back behind the temple on Tuesday, call-backs on Wednesday, and dont forget a resumé with your video reel. Just make a noise. I find that when I grow resentful of the noisiness of joyful people (and I grow resentful with a troubling frequency, if Im honest), its usually a good enough alarm about some spiritual problems Ive been harboring. It turns out, every time, to be my clarion call to examine my heart. Because singing is in order. Sad song, happy song, on key, screeching owl – just sing. Its Biblical, it turns out. 5. And David danced before the Lord with all his might. (2 Samuel 6) David was overwhelmingly glad. Embarrassingly joyful. He was the sweaty guy on the dance floor who looks like hes running a marathon in place. You just cant figure out where all the energy is coming from, but the joy of it is endless. You feel it, even standing along the sides, getting glad and swaying a little, even if you still cant figure how to negotiate your limbs and hips. But seeing as how the precise moves were never mentioned, I can only imagine and really hope that it may have looked something like this:
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 07:42:12 +0000
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