Pentecost dancing...

Pentecost... I listened to the scripture Sunday morning describing the mass confusion and milling about, the speaking in tongues and the loud crowds and preachers. It must have been a disturbing sight and sound. God’s Spirit, tongues of flame, setting the people of God afire with enthusiasm and energy. No wonder other folks thought they were drunk. I don’t think I have ever been that caught up in the experience of the Holy... so caught up that I threw caution and dignity to the winds and just got happy. I have danced around the edges now and then.
When we worked in Cherokee, we attended a small Baptist church that spoke in tongues, expressed themselves in physical action during worship. Once the pastor’s wife got so caught up she threw her grandchild in the air and my friend Mary Lynn snagged the baby on the way down. My experience at the Baptist Covenant was powerful partly because of sharing the charismatic expressions of faith by my African American brothers and sisters. Their ease in verbal and physical expressions of faith had me standing, speaking back to the preacher, laughing and clapping, singing with soul... or as much soul as a white bread Southern Baptist woman can muster. The sight and sound of the Holy Spirit working can be messy and untidy, loud and unruly. It can also be liberating and joyful, fun and funny.
I don’t know why I have such difficulty with letting go. Perhaps my early lessons in denominational differentiation...That is something Pentecostals or Holly Rollers do, not us...helped put my soul in a straightjacket. Or it could have been my natural tendency towards introversion and my need to be in control that kept me from throwing over the reins that have guided my spiritual life. Music and singing in worship are the one place where I can occasionally catch a glimpse of my soul running free, feel the glory of God and let go. My Southern Baptist hips have loosened up a little over the years and sometimes you can catch me moving to the music, a small mirror image of a body soul rising up in joyful abandon to the One who made me.
Many of our revered religious leaders have experienced the ecstasy of the Unexplainable, the God who lives deep within our feeling soul. Some have tried to describe the experience and words always fall short. How can you capture the ephemeral Holy Spirit in words? It is like trying to describe the experience of giving birth, or dying, or falling in love. No matter how hard you try, words fail to capture the fullness of the feeling.
I now understand and am grateful for the impact sacred dance has had on my soul. A minister of music in a Baptist church over thirty years ago called me out to be a part of a dance group for worship. Me... awkward, trip over my feet, embarrassed me was learning to dance. We took ballet, jazz, African, modern and folk dance lessons. We learned some of the rudiments of signing for the deaf. And there I was, running diagonally across the church dance studio... run, run, leap, run, run, leap. Each leap got lighter and I felt myself leaping up to God, body and soul. For over twenty years participation in sacred dance provided a physical expression of the inner workings of the Spirit in me. Even now I weep when I remember some of the times I felt so connected to God when I danced. Dancing Eagle Wings with my friend John Sims singing, dancing the Crescent Hill hymn written by friends Grady Nutt and Paul Duke, my first solo dance... To everything there is a season... from Ecclesiastes 3... My body and soul were one during those exceptional expressions of Spirit. It didn’t happen every time I danced but it happened enough to keep me dancing.
I don’t dance in worship any more but I dream dreams of dancing. Last week I dreamed a dance to Roberta Flack’s version of the hymn “Come Ye Disconsolate”. As I danced in my dreams, the Comforter came and danced with me. Grief and sadness gave way to sweet peace as I danced. My Pentecost, my tongue of flame, still lights the way for running and leaping to God. Today I will try to dance again, dance the movement of the Spirit within me and like a good ballroom dancer, stay connected to my Partner in life and love. Thanks be to God for bodies and souls that can dance in so many different ways.