Your Beautiful Dance

September 13, 2009

I am a phenomenal dancer. I feel the music and shake it up like nobody’s business. When I’m home and the curtains are drawn, the lights are off, and the music is cranked up, I get my groove on.

In my imagination.

In the real world, I’m a pathetic dancer. So pathetic if you saw me on the dance floor you’d send me a condolence card. Because I’m graceful-challenged D and I took private lessons in preparation for the first dance at our wedding back in 2002 and Mr. I Can Help Anyone dance instructor at the nearby dance studio nearly ruptured his eyeballs from rolling them every time I twitched in the wrong direction. The whole process was painful and for no one more than D who for the first time in her feminine little life considered wearing steel-toed workman boots to our lessons as a form of self-protection. I don’t mean to suggest I stepped frequently on her feet but let’s just saying that accompanying the sound of the music playing over the studio loud speaker was me, counting out loud under my breath “1 – 2 – 3- sorry D, 1 – 2 – 3 – sorry D, 1 – 2 – ….”

By the time our wedding day came, the dance instructor had simplified our first dance down to the basic box step which is about one step over the sway and snap I’d mastered at Fargo’s birthday party in sixth grade. 180 guests were seated in the reception hall. The DJ started the music. I removed my shoes out of concern for my beloved’s piggies and we proceeded to the dance floor where we boxed our way in 4-4 time around and around and still, somehow, I managed in stocking feet and with the simplest dance step imaginable to land on my bride’s feet as often as the floor and to step forward when I was to step back, to the right when I was to go to the left. I wanted nothing more than to have this beautiful moment on the dance floor with my beloved on the most special day of our lives but there I was, busting up the dance floor in front of gathered friends and family like a clumsy circus clown in size 12 stilettos and I was three shades of red embarrassed by it all.

What I hadn’t known is that a circle of our friends had known about our dance lessons and anxiety about being alone on the dance floor and so during our dance, at my most uncoordinated moment they stood up from the tables and raising their arms over their heads held up numbered scoring cards.

You only need look at the photographs to see what a spontaneously delightful moment it was for everyone gathered, including the dancing buffoon and her beautiful bride. The photos show the very second when my lack of grace and style on the dance floor no longer mattered and where before our wedding I had hoped our first dance would be a spectacular moment we’d never forget, it turned out it always will be, but in a way I’d never anticipated.

We talk about life being like a journey but often times it feels more like a dance. A clumsy one. We so want everything to go smoothly. We want to move through the events of our life with grace and style and instead we clumsily stumble around, just hoping we can keep upright on our feet instead of landing on our rear.

We long to reconcile our faith and sexuality so we can move on to the next dance, but instead we keep spinning and spinning to the same song stuck on continual play.

We want to come out to family and friends just like we’ve imagined it would be. We’ll come out to them with the carefully chosen words we practiced in the mirror, the car, the shower.  They’ll listen, understand and reaffirm their love. We’ll embrace and then our life and relationships will continue on as they always have been. Step-2-3-4, slide-2-3-4, back-2-3-4, side- 2-3-4. Instead what we stagger our way through a dance we could have never prepared for because it has no regular rhythm and the dance steps are never the same.

We want to complete each dance outlined on our dance card.

✔ Get my family to understand and accept me.
✔ Find a church that will welcome me.
✔ Meet that special someone who will love me.
✔ End discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
✔ Gain marriage equality under the law.
✔ Secure adoption and immigration rights for gay couples.
✔ Enjoy full inclusion in the church.

But some of the dances are never completed and instead we’re left to dance them all. Different music, different steps. And dancing them all at the same time. No wonder there are times we feel too overwhelmed, exhausted, and dazed to go on.

But we do. You do.

You continue to dance for one reason. You dance for love. You stay in the dance to reconcile your faith and sexuality because of your undying love for a God who because of so great a love for you is committed to stay in the dance until the last note and then some. You stay in the dance with family and friends because of your love for each one of them and the cherished relationships that have grown over the years of your life. You stay in the dance with the church because of your love for all that the church of Christ and the people of God hold the promise to be at their best. You stay in the dance with your world because of love for justice and equality and fairness and your neighbor and yourself.

And so you dance on and dance on; at times clumsily and haltingly but you stay in the dance. There are times you move with the style and grace of Fred Astaire and the next you’re stumbling around like you have nothing but two left feet and a prayer. But it doesn’t matter how you dance; it only matters that you dance and that you dance on. It’s some kind of wonderful to see your devotion and resolve to keep dancing and that for every time you fall, you rise again.

I can’t help believe that as you dance on through your life, the One and the only One who has the right to judge you is declaring your dance a perfect 10; not because your dance is without flaw and not because you never falter; but because with every step of the dance you’re giving your all and doing your best and you continue to stay in the dance for love’s sake. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.

Dance on.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Posted in SnapShot Reflections