And So I Dance

May/June 2017

“Except ye become as a little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,”
said Jesus to his grown up followers.

Looking back over my shoulder at that room of Pride, I can now see it better from the outside. Does God kick us for not measuring up? Would we think of scolding a babe for falling when trying to walk? A flower doesn’t open by being told it’s not tall enough or vivid enough in color, and a fruit tree doesn’t bear fruit by trying. A flower opens in the warmth of the sun; a tree bears good fruit when the soil is rich, water is plentiful, and sunshine abundant. It’s not about measuring up. It’s about growing upward, growing strong, growing wise, growing toward the light. At the end we will be judged more by what direction we grew, where we ended up, what fruit we bore, and what we let ourselves become.

Now with the birds fluttering and singing around me I walked away from the Room of Pride and back up and down the Hall of Memories. One picture I had passed multiple times over the months was of myself dancing.  Lots of snippet pictures were on the border of this picture, and I could see the times when I danced to the Nutcracker when I was little, or made up a dance with my sister, or spent a deal of time learning a complicated step to a Jewish dance at a camp out, and, Oh! The joy when I got to learn a proper English Country dance!

As I gazed at it, I realized I have always loved to dance, yet opportunities to do it have been so few and far between, and the most recent was long ago… so long ago the desire has died. Yet as I looked at the memory I began to wish I could dance again. The desire is still in me, not dead at all, but re-awakening…

I became aware of a song floating through the room. The rhythm ran tingling through my blood and down to my toes. I could feel all of me perk up and sway with the music. The colors of the picture before me became vibrant, sparkling, swirling. The bird on my shoulder chirped an invitation. Why not! As an adult woman, now I choose that which I wanted years ago but was too afraid to do. I will respond to the music, and dance with my heart and soul. Soon I was skipping and dancing up and down the hall. Such exhilaration! I was made for this!

And so I dance. In the Hall of Memories, the memory of dancing becomes no longer only a memory. Sometimes I dance, sometimes I just sit down against a wall and think. There are more birds which fly in and join me. They sing, they join my dance, they make me laugh. One of them makes me want to throw care to the wind and relax as if on a lazy summer day. Another reminds me how facts and measures are not all necessarily tied up with pride, but are yet in themselves good and necessary, and thinking critically can be a good thing. I need both perspectives. On the one hand, it’s not about rules; on the other, structure and focused attention is a good thing.

On the walls I see other memories of myself when I studied or did projects diligently. I want to think deeply again. I hear a faint call of my name from far away…”Diligence.” Yet I sense that another aspect of my name is currently in the making…”Winning One.”

That was a delightful season. I felt like a child, free to dance up and down the length of the hall, and laugh and chatter with the birds.

Amidst all the learning, and interaction, and activity, sometimes I feel an unsettledness in my soul. On the surface I laugh, I dance, I live! I feel like such a child for the way I act and see things. But underneath, my soul realizes that it has been a long time since I’ve seen my Lord… I glance up and around at these underground ceiling and walls, and I recall that I am still underground—that HE sent me down here, oh, so long ago it seems… “Where are you, Lord? When can I see you face to face and talk with you again?”  I told my cares to one of the birds who perched on my shoulder as I sat against the wall, and she was a comfort.

More than once, one or other of my bird friends has given me a message from Him, but they didn’t know that what they had to say was a message to me. They were simply bearers of testimony, and the testimony spoke to me of Him, and I was heartened to hear it, yet each new message filled me with fresh yearning. He is at work, working away, doing amazing things. But I’m still here, underground, learning from my memories, learning who I was and am and am meant to be. Waiting.

There have been times when I lay on my back, gazing at the ceiling, which sparkles with pseudo stars. In those times words will take no form but in song. A longing song, a calling out, a wondering. With a sharp intake of breath I remember another question I asked Him a while ago: “When will you give me a song?”  Did I have to learn to dance again before a song could come? Or is it that I had to have a reason to sing, and the music that always spoke to me most was the longing kind? At any rate, it’s not a full song, only a few scattered notes.

Then came a day when I boldly did something I normally would have been too scared to do. Close on the heels of that action was a gift that arrived with such perfect timing that I recognized it—there’s only one Person who times things so perfectly! I knew it was a Gift God had sent down, and as soon as I knew, my heart cried out, “That does it! I need you! I want you! Where are you? Why am I still here? I mean, I know why I’m still here—I’ve got things to learn…but…” And I ran into the Chamber of Tomorrow and pressed my face into the crack in the wall, trying to catch a glimpse of Him—with my own two eyes and not another’s! But it was night outside. Only the warm summer air breathed gently in.

I felt a weight in my soul, and felt a twinge of real fear, of what awful things are out there in the world. I had an urgent sense that I needed to get ready—ready for what I didn’t know…but, “What God may hereafter require of you, you must not give yourself the least trouble about. Everything He gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can. That is the best possible preparation for what He may want you to do next. If people would but do what they have to do, they would always find themselves ready for what came next.” (George MacDonald)

Yet I still fear. Oh, the fear that would tighten my throat at times. I don’t want to make a mistake! Yet that joyous air from the garden still wafts through the crack in the wall, and I push the fears to the back of my mind and continue to dance again anyway. And the birds—more and more of them— come and go from the outer garden, and they do make me laugh so! I am learning so much from them.