Blog 784 – 10.04.2017
Song And Dance

Two of the best ways spirit expresses itself in us are with song and dance. Music is such a great part of all of our lives. Like great movies most of our lives are accompanied by a tremendous sound track. Many have a few favorite songs but most of us have quite a long play list of songs that speak to us.

Several songs speak to the importance of dance. I am thinking of two as I type this, Garth Brooks’, The Dance, and another country song where the lady sings, “If you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.” I grew up in a very narrow fundamentalist tradition that taught that dancing was evil and sinful – hog wash – dancing is as natural as breathing and walking. I am not a trained or an all that accomplished dancer even as my singing consists mainly of a lot of spirit, emotion, and practice. Some seem to have a great gift for song and dance but I believe that we all have it in us to sing and to dance.

You do not have to be named David, as I am, to channel the spirit of the Psalmist David, the boy who killed the giant Goliath with a single stone from his sling, and became the second and most beloved (that is what David means by the way – beloved) king of Israel. David accompanied himself on the harp as he sang the tunes he composed and many of which he sang to soothe the mad king Saul when fits of anger came upon him.

But David was also a dancer in the truest sense. Once, perhaps many times, only one is recorded, he was so happy and elated before his God that he danced naked. His first wife saw him and tried to shame him about it later and he quite literally told her to shut the (blank) up because she did not know what she was talking about. Often people do not have a real awareness of how music and dance give us wings to soar high above this often troubled and otherwise mundane existence. We were not created to just exist or to be barely alive or to just survive but to thrive and to soar.

The old addage is, “It is hard to soar with the eagles when you are working with a bunch of turkeys.” I say if that seems your case try the turkey trot, a dance step I do not know but am willing to learn with you. Years ago I enjoyed long early morning walks and would sometimes listen to tunes as I walked. More than once my feet got happy and my saunter turned into a sway and a stroll – rock and roll. And, no, unlike my namesake, I did not dance naked before the LORD. But He/She has known us since before our birth into this particular body and has seen us often in the buff and enjoys seeing our happy dance. I post the picture of Snoopy doing his happy dance again today. That dog can dance but so can you and like Kevin Bacon in Footloose, all us dancers now and again feel like cutting loose.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
Sometime song and dance man,
David White