Dancing in the Spirit

Many of us use the metaphor of "walking in the Spirit" to describe the kind of life we are to live as human beings -- of walking not according to our selfish ambitions, but to be led by the Spirit of God in all our encounters. Now I say "human" rather than "Christian" because I believe that to experience the fullness of what it means to be human we need to be connected to God -- we just cannot be human in the best sense without being in an engaging relationship with God -- because we have been created in God's image.

But I would like to offer another metaphor for our daily living -- the metaphor of "dancing in the Spirit." Dancing for me is more representative of life and the fullness we can experience in it. As human beings who identify and follow after Jesus Christ, we are more than metaphorically the Body of Christ -- rather we are the Body of Christ in that we are called to continue the ministry of Jesus in the world. The dance metaphor is one that I find more appropriate because walking can be done alone, dancing often requires an engagement with others. As the Body of Christ we are called to dance in the Spirit -- to the rhythm of the Spirit -- in all our encounters.

Often when we loose our focus as a community of Christ in the world, when we go about our own agendas, rather than God's purposes for the world, then our dancing becomes clumsy and we step on each others' feet, bumping into one another. But when we sense the rhythm of the Spirit, when we have ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing in the world and where God is doing it and we find the "groove" to get in step with God's actions, God's mission we begin to dance very differently as a witnessing, worshiping community.

So then as human beings we are called to not merely walk, but we are called to dance in step with God and with our neighbors -- whomever they are. Conversion, repentance -- ideas that seem to turn more people off than on, are indeed invitations not to stumble around but to become a partner with the Spirit of God through whom we learn how to dance to God's rhythm. Conversion, repentance -- or whatever terms we use to describe a change of attitude, direction, perspective in our lives -- is to have well up inside of us the passion to dance in the Spirit in step with the rhythm of God.

Shall we dance?