Dance it Out
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
I have a great desire to be a creative person when I was young, I received art supplies for Christmases and birthdays the charcoal pencils that I used to draw thick black lines as I tried to sketch the light fur of my dog or the oil pastels that made the most vibrant colors that I didn’t know how to blend and ultimately just ended up all over my fingers and my face… and the carpeting.
Somewhere in my childhood, I learned there was a right way and a wrong way. I learned that there was a precise way, a perfect way. I learned that some people are good at some things, and others are not. And I decided that drawing was clearly not going to be my thing. I couldn’t figure out how to make what was in my head translate onto the paper. And if it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t worth the energy or the paper or the pastels. Such creative adventures ought to be left to those who could make the image come alive.
I think many of us, though not all of us, and to different degrees come to that moment in late childhood where we start to see the world less as all things are possible and more as, some are better than other. We learn logic, precise language, and our creativity takes back seat to more “useful tasks.”
I think that this often happens when we think and talk about God. What are the most precise words that we can use, the most clear descriptions for ourselves who believe, and yet we still find God occasionally confounding.
And we have so many theologians particularly the German ones, try to make clear who God is in volumes and volumes filled with the most systematic of theologies…
And the Bible give us poetry and Lady Wisdom.
Wisdom is personified as a woman and she is calling out to the people to hear her, to listen, to choose a way of life that she has to offer: A way of justice and mercy that leads to life abundant in communion with God and with all of creation.
She is the first born of creation. Before all that we know, there was wisdom. With every new blade of grass, every new ocean cap, with every rainbow fish, every mallard and lion, every mighty cedar, and microscopic mite, wisdom was there.
She was co-creator. She was support staff. She was the painter’s assistant making sure all the colors were mixed. She the muralist’s assistant, painting in splashes of green in the forest over yonder, the brown of the wheat, the purple of the lilac.
She assured that not one lady bug was missing it’s spots, no zebra it’s stripes, no daisy it’s yellow.
Lady Wisdom was there.
And she celebrates creation: the sparkle in every star, the frolic of every deer, the breath in every human. What joy when life burst forth in the oceans, when fields teamed with creatures, and when people took their first step to discovering it all.
The first time humans saw dandelions and watched their seeds dance in on a breeze, the joy of seeing new babies whether human, or puppies, or racoons. The amazement of seeing a hawk ride the wind without moving at all.
The first time the birds sang together to make a symphony of music with the tree and the bullfrogs.
Lady Wisdom was there delighting, celebrating, overwhelmed by the good creation of God, dare I say that she danced in creation.
Dancing in Creation
For 15 years, one of the shows I have continued to watch, and, for better or for worse, make time for is Grey’s Anatomy. One of the things that Merideth Grey does with her family and her friends who are her family, is dance it out. Whether a good day or a bad day, there is something visceral about dancing, moving, getting lost in the feeling, the music, the movement.
I imagine that the joy Lady Wisdom speaks of lead her to such feelings
Have you ever found yourself in a field spread open your arms and just spin?
Have you been on a path and had the desire to run or skip?
My sister is 8 years older than I and she tells the story that on the day I was born. She was in school and was called to the office to get the news of her beautiful, delightful, kind, wonderful little sister. She was so excited to receive this news that she skipped back down the hallway to class.
And when she had her second daughter, her oldest, my niece, was so excited about her baby sister, and I’m going to say to see me, that she ran down the hallway and threw herself into my arms and in that hallway we spun.
Such excitement can be visceral, tactical, and, it turns out, communal.
The Divine Dance
Which brings up back to today, a service on the Trinity, an often confusing doctrine of the church. We declare monotheism while proclaiming God has multiple “modes” of being. Tradition taught us Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Parent, Child, Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Divine, Logos, Wisdom.
And no matter what we do in naming God, we are only seeing part, either a way God is in relationship with God’s self, or one aspect of how we experience each of the modes.
That is to say, it’s going to be imperfect.
If you would like the academic words you would find in those large volumes written: it’s the Economic trinity and the Ontological Trinity. How we experience the trinity in the world around us, and how God is in relationship with God’s self. For a moment I’d like to talk about the second, the Ontological Trinity.
Some theologians and pastors will talk about the Trinity in big words and logical terms but when we were given the scriptures when we were given these writings of the ancient’s understanding of God we were given story and poetry. What if we started there? What if, like how Wisdom moves in the world, the Triune God moves in poetry and song and dance.
I’m not sure what you know about dancing. I don’t as much as I wish I did. I have some experience with Salsa, but not much.
The first time I tried it, I was in High School and the band had an annual review in December where we did skits, sang songs, and of course played music as we prepared for the Christmas season. One of my classmates was participating in some amateur salsa dance competitions and he taught a dozen of us to do a short dance. He was fantastic. We were ok. What I learned from that experience though, and every attempt to try and dance without a choreographed routine, is that every movement tells you something. A head nod tells you it’s time to start. A slight push on the hand might be telling you to take a step back. A pull tells you the next move is a spin. You need to know your partner, know each other’s subtle movements and steps and face. You need to spend time together, practice. You need to trust one another.
My small niece who jumped into my arms, she’s all grown and she participated in a fundraising dance competition. She’s tall and skinny and the professional dancer who was her partner was excited about the possibility of lifts. They had to trust each other. She had to trust him not to drop her, and he had to trust that she wouldn’t freak out and cause him to drop her.
In dancing, no dancer moves without the other moving in response.
Our God is in the midst of a Divine dance. When Jesus says “I am in the father and the father and the father is in me. If you have seen me, you have seen God, I will not leave you or forsake you, for I will send an advocate ho is the spirit, who comes from the father,” they aren’t separate, they are intimately connected. One does not move without the other, each participating in the dance.
And Lady Wisdom stands at the crossroads and invites us to join in the dance. She reminds us of the joy of creation, the beauty that is all around us: The butterflies and the day lilies; Kittens and bunnies and calves; The laughter of children; And the smile of old friends.
There is so much to celebrate. We can join in the dance of creation that is already happening around every day when the birds sing, the squirrels play, and sunflowers as they chase the sun across the sky.
We participate as we learn to sense its rhythms and shifts as it tells us what it needs, and about its creator.
We answer the call to participate in the dance by learning about our creator, by being in relationship, by reading the stories and poems of the people of God. Somme found in the Bible and some not. We spend time in prayer, speaking, listening, connecting with the Divine. We learn to see the movements of the Divine in the world around us so we can participate in the work that is already happening all around us.
We participate in the dance by sharing in the role that Lady Wisdom had assisting in creating the kin-dom of God that Jesus spoke of. We participate in the Divine dance by being curious our neighbor while not being nosey and curious about the world around us. By rising children and grandchildren and learning how to anticipate their needs when they are crying for food, or time with you, when hearts beat in rhythm together. By loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
We participate in the Divine dance when we clothe the naked, feed the hungry, offer water to the thirsty, visit those sick or in prison, welcome the stranger.
We participate in the Divine dance when we offer forgiveness, mercy, justice. When we live with kindness, goodness, joy, and abundance.
We participate in the Divine Dance when our hearts learn the rhythm of the creator until our hearts beat in time with God’s and then with each other.
Lady Wisdom invites us into a way of being, of learning and growing, of discovering and coming, of resilience and discernment, of awareness of the world around us and the world within us.
Lady wisdom invites us to join her in her work and in her celebration to live life, and live it abundantly.
May we answer the call and live the dance.
