Pastor’s Corner: We Do Not Dance Alone

September 15, 2021

Once upon a time, I planned a career as a professional actor – my bachelor’s degree, in fact, is in theater. My proudest moment on the stage, however, comes from a youth summer theater production when I was in high school, in which I had a dance solo, the first and only time I ever danced as the center of attention.

It wasn’t easy. I was enthusiastic but untrained. The choreographers showed me the steps and corrected my missteps. By the time we reached dress rehearsals, I was pretty confident. Now we had to assemble my lines, the music director’s score, the musicians’ performances, and the dance. There wasn’t enough rehearsal time. We struggled to get things together, and it was only on the final night that everything went right.

It took a lot of work on the part of a lot of people for me to click my heels on stage and find my balance when I came down.

Are you struggling with your balance? What we’re dealing with – a pandemic, a struggling economy, a quarrelsome politics, and our own family concerns – is a lot more complicated than a twenty-second dance solo. Things keep shifting. It would be strange if you weren’t having trouble finding your balance.

The dance goes on, however. There’s the dance we do so that others are blessed by our presence. It might be performance, but it’s more likely to be acts of love and care. There’s the dance we do so that our needs our met. We cook and clean and wash and learn and sleep. And there’s the dance we do because we rejoice in God and God’s creation: praising, singing, praying, and yes, even dancing.

We don’t dance alone. We dance guided by the lessons we’ve learned and the new things we’re taught. We dance with musicians who are, let’s be clear, not always well rehearsed on the score. We dance on a shifting stage, but we do so with others about – and with God right there – to help us find the steps.

Even in our dance solos, we’re never alone.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

Photo of Samoan dancers at General Synod worship in 2013 by Eric Anderson.