| Sunday | High: 68 | Low: 45 | |
| Day 147 | 10,763 | 5.4 | |
| Total since June 24 | 1,237,823 | 618.9 |
Today, I enjoyed worship. Upon arriving at church (First Christian Church of Las Cruces) today, as I do every Sunday, I looked through the bulletin which always contains our order of worship. One reason for doing this is that FCC has a tendency to do things differently from one week to the next. This can be both good and bad, and generally I consider it a good thing. Because unlike many, I see change as a normal part of life, and so worship should have a healthy dollop of change as well. Without digging into that too much, I’ll add that yes, sometimes stability in worship styles can be good, too.
Western Civilization has lost something, I think, that is very important. We’ve lost a sense of what dance is. Maybe I’m wrong. This is, after all, just my opinion.
What brought this to my attention was today’s worship service at my church. Instead of a traditional sermon or reflection by the pastor, we were treated to a group of tradition drummers and dancers who performed a selection of songs that were, I think, primarily of African derivation. Two songs, however, I think were of some Asian derivation.
I was struck, first of all, by how clearly each dance was telling a story. I did not comprehend the stories (save for one) because we no longer dance as a means of story telling. Instead we dance to, well, to feel good. According to at least one article in Scientific American, we dance because doing so stimulates parts of our brain that produce a feeling of pleasure.
And I am hardly one to denigrate pleasure. I celebrate pleasure. But when I watch most western dance (not talking ballet here) I perceive motion designed to express and in return enhance our “feeling good”.
But when one watches traditional native dance, whether Native American, or African or Asian, or whatever, there is meaning associated with the movements, and the dance generally tells a very distinct story.
One of today’s dances had what I counted to be seven distinct phases. It told the story of the food/growth cycle.
In the first movement the dancer processed from the back of the church to the front, acting out coming to the field and, at least to me, praying. The second was very clearly plowing the field. The third she planted her seeds. In the fourth, I saw the action of rain and sunlight coming down to nurture the crop. In the fifth, she harvested.
So far, this is clearly a story of the crop cycle. And in it, I think if we look good and hard, especially through this dance, we can extrapolate from the crop cycle to all our growth cycles. I can see the growth and nurturance of human life in it.
But here it gets truly interesting. There was another one or two cycles… I am pretty sure there were two (wish I’d thought to ask afterwards!) In the sixth movement, the dancer invited all to gather around. And in the final movement, the dancer gave away all the produce of the harvest.
Okay, now… truly. Think about that.
These two movements brought me to tears, and I can’t fully say why. Is it because all of our life is the process of growth and nurturance, whether of food crops or our own personality and gifts?
Whatever the cause, this I know: Invitation and gifting are powerful, powerful experiences.
In fact, as I sit here attempting to put into my own poor words the impact of today’s worship service, I come back to the one dance.
I think, that for me, and perhaps me alone, it is not, after all, a song about the crop cycle. It is about eucharist. In fact, the more I dwell on this, I know this to be true.
The dance was a parable of Christ. He plowed/worked the field… not in a farming sense, perhaps, but nonetheless, his years walking with his disciples prepared their hearts and souls.
He planted the seeds. His words throughout those years were the seeds of love sent by our Creator God, in the person of the Christ, God’s Child.
Those seeds are nurtured, like the sun and the rain nurture the crop… by Jesus’ patient teaching… and by indeed Jesus death and resurrection.
And, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, with the birth of the Church, the fruit of Jesus’s time on earth was harvested.
In the Eucharist, is both invitation and giving away. (Yes, a little bit out of order, but no parable is perfect.)
And that, I suspect, is perhaps why today’s drummers and dancers moved me to tears.
DAILY GRATITUDE
I am grateful, today, that the beat of a drum, a difference in outlook, a new way of seeing has the power to move my heart.
And I’m grateful today that God has given me a gift I so often fail to recognize in action. I pray that God will help me to understand it more deeply.
That gift is the gift of tears.
PRAYER INTENTIONS
“God seeks shalom at every level of life, from cells to community and nations. Our unique calling is to bring God’s shalom to our relationships and the world.” — Bruce G. Epperly
This week’s theme, drawn from the tiles, is “Care.”
Fortunately, the description for “Care” fits in with my primary prayer request this week. My middle brother is still in need of prayer, as he recovers from heart surgery. Thank you!
On The Road II 