THE DANCE

New Life, Overland Park, KS

I confess that I’m not always paying attention in church. I suspect that I’m not alone based on my vantage point at the back of the sanctuary when I operate the PowerPoint presentation. I never actually plan to be inattentive. Sometimes it just happens. I like to learn and process what I’m hearing in church. Part of the reason I show up is to understand my very existence in the dance of life. We humans have always used the dance to connect with the life forces around us. We dance for joy, for rain, for war, for worship, for expression, for celebration, and we generally dance with others as a community. St. Augustine defined community as “members united by a common love of something other than themselves.” We are all participants in the larger circle of the dance of life.

Our service this Sunday celebrated the sacrament of communion, symbolically remembering the ultimate sacrifice and presence of our Savior. I was struck with the realization that we were all here worshiping a Divine Being with a faith that has been described as an attitude of the heart to trust in the mystery of the dance. And I was reminded of the nagging questions of why I’m here, who I am and where am I?

I was jolted out of my thoughts by the soft cry of a newborn baby that a young mother had quietly brought to the back of the sanctuary. Then an echo of something I had read years ago entered my consciousness to remind me that the answer to the mystery of the dance lies somewhere between a baby’s cry and a distant star. And the very real miracle of new life was laid at my feet to assure me that this community dance was real and meaningful. It was a message not conveyed by words, but an image of new creation orchestrated by a power beyond total comprehension, revealed in the eyes of a newborn baby and a young mother’s loving smile.