The Dance (James 1)

It's no secret how much I love to dance. The picture is from our last trip to Guatemala - my sweet friend Tricia and I were a blur on more than one occasion.

This morning, I read some of my favorite passages of scripture from James. JB Phillips paraphrase, which encourages us to embrace trials as if they are friends, has always resonated with me. This time, the Lord revealed another precious picture of the beauty of hard times. He's good that way - to paint His own words in beautiful ways, using whatever medium He chooses to point us to His timeless truth. Today, He paints with dance.

------------

Be sure to dance just a little when trials come to court you. They are there for good purpose, and they shouldn't be anything you fear. Your faith will breathe in new life when you take their hand and begin to move in unison.

There's a rhythm to be found in the awkward stumbling, and with a little patience you'll soon discover it.

The dance is precious and tender, like sixth graders at Cotillion or a little girl in red velvet and shiny shoes following every step her dad makes just a bit smaller while they move to the band at a fancy restaurant.

And if you have two left feet, you simply need to ask the Lord of of the Dance. He knows the steps and the music and even the trials that have asked for your hand in the first place. He will cause those feet to move in time. He will place His hand under your chin to keep your eyes set on Him rather than the dance floor. And he will place a smile on your face - like a crown.

Ballerina Barbie & the Baby Chicken

"There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good."
~Edwin Denby

Psalm 31:8 You have not handed me over to the enemy. You have set my feet in a place where I can move freely.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 Fig trees may no longer bloom, or vineyards produce grapes; olive trees may be fruitless, and harvest time a failure; sheep pens may be empty, and cattle stalls vacant-- but I will still celebrate because the LORD God saves me. The LORD gives me strength. He makes my feet as sure as those of a deer, and he helps me stand on the mountains.

Last night, I longed again to be Ballerina Barbie.

If you know me at all, you know I love to dance in a "randomly move to the rhythm of the music" way. I do it often and without warning. But, in my mind there lives a person dressed in sparkling tulle and chiffon. She is dainty and delicate, and seems to float effortlessly through the air– like a Barbie doll but with a more realistic body type. She can twirl and spin and leap like a ballerina. Oh, she is my own tiara-wearing superhero - her grace transforming the most dark moment into a composition of beauty. From the time I was a little girl, all arms and legs and big feet, she has been with me. And if I close my eyes and feel the smooth cool floor beneath me, we are one.

Then I open my eyes – and I’m all arms and legs and big feet again.

I was all arms and legs and big feet on the special day I was a cat and a baby chicken. I hesitate to use the word “chick,” because, while I am a chick in the “she’s a pretty casual gal” sense, I don’t really consider myself cool enough to wear the badge all the time. And on that very special day, my yellow shiny sequin-adorned leotard with fluffy feathers shooting everywhere definitely classified this chick a baby chicken.

Now, the cats shuffle-ball-changed around the stage in a circle as I suppose cats would do if forced to wear patent-leather tap shoes. We held our hands up like little paws, and were careful not to smear the whiskers painted on our face with eyeliner. I tried to imagine myself a real cat, but since our family was a “dogs-only” clan, I had little inspiration for the moment. So I attempted a Cheshire Cat grin – the kind my mom said I used when I was guilty about something – and tried not to think about things like needing to use the restroom because I was scared.

Something magical happened, however, when the black ears and tap shoes were traded for yellow feathers and soft pink ballet slippers. For two short minutes, I was Ballerina Barbie. I batted my eyes and traded the grin for my best “pretty” look as I followed the rest of the baby chickens in pirouettes and plies. I felt the freedom and beauty rise. The stage was my playground – large and beautiful and crying out for my dance to grace it.

Last night, I wanted to be a baby chicken again. Yes, I longed to be Ballerina Barbie. The desire happened in the most unusual of places – while sitting with friends, discussing important things like church and food and art and work and movies and finances and earthquakes and Twitter and writer’s block and politics and song lyrics. I listened and chatted, all the while hungry to become one again with the smooth cool floor in some very different place – a place where I wasn’t hindered by arms and legs and big feet that fumble for balance and stumble so easily over the “here and now”. I pictured myself swept up in the songs of the Almighty, moving at the very whisper of His will to a dance carefully choreographed with the poor and the needy. There were no feathers or tulle, no shuffle-ball-changes or fear – just the stage and the transformation and the grace.


This morning, I’m still there, in that hungry place, longing to dance a dance of salvation and healing with those who are hurting. And this morning, I still feel all arms and legs and big feet. Oh, how thankful I am for the words of Habakkuk in moments like this: no matter what is happening around me, I can rejoice and dance for there is hope. I need only to step on that stage.



Let freedom and beauty rise in this baby chicken. Now and always.

Dance Revelation

I dance to the tune of Your revelation.” Psalm 119:70 (The Message)

Yesterday, my friend Courtney and I enjoyed an afternoon together. She is part of a rare breed who doesn’t find it unusual that I attribute stories to virtually everything in the stores where we shop (“oh look, that chair looks like it lived in a corner in a sweet old grandma’s house” or “this smell is our wedding ceremony” or “that ring is very Guido-glass feeling, as if it should live on the pinky of an artsy Mafia man.”) She understands my desire to purchase things that aren’t perfect, out of a concern that they will be sent to some real “land of misfit toys.” And she lets me dance.

I’m not sure when I first felt the rhythm, first had that need to move. I can remember always moving. I close my eyes and see my mom and me in the family room, dancing together to the tunes of Herb Alpert or Herman’s Hermits. One of the most precious moments tucked away in my mind is of my dad and me on the dance floor at a Christmas dinner. I had on red velvet and he was in a dark suit. We danced to big band music on the parquet dance floor as the restaurant revolved around us. And I was a princess, with buck teeth and glasses and stick-thin legs.

Dance is a natural response to me. A response of joy, of pain, of happiness, of sorrow, of freedom. It is quite spontaneous. It happens without much thought, without any planning. It just comes, starting ever-so-gently as a response to the revelation. That revelation could be song or spoken word, a gentle breeze or a powerful thunderstorm – or the beauty in complete and utter silence. All have a rhythm and a rhyme. All have harmony and dissonance. All are dear to me. Because the Lord uses all to reveal Himself to me.

I dance to the tune of Your revelation.

On March 15, 2000, I danced as the tears streamed down my face. Only 20 minutes earlier, I had gotten the call from my mother-in-law that my mom was drawing near death. Doctors said it would be a few hours. I rushed to get things together to drive to the hospital to spend those last moments with her. But the second phone call came. “She opened her eyes, looked up and smiled, and…” And I danced. Because at that moment, in an instant, she was changed. She was healed. She was perfect. No more cancer, no more pain, no more struggle. And as the tears fell, I could hear so clearly:

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and( this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

"Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory?O death, where is your sting?" – 1 Corinthians 15:53-55 ESV

The God who created the universe reveals Himself through it, through the good times and the bad. Through death and through Christmas dances. Through shopping and friends. And His revelation lets me dance.