I work at a place where the college president loves to dance and expects everyone to dance when he has a get together. One of my greatest compliments came from him. At one of those functions, there was some great 70’s music playing and I did indeed dance. And the president said, “Dr. Farmer, you got moves”. That little compliment meant a lot to the white professor at a historically Black college. It means I am learning how to fit in and be a part of the culture. That means a lot to me in a current world that seems to only see differences.
Dancing is one of the most culturally defined things one can experience. From ballroom dancing, to hip hop, to the gumboot dancing of South Africa, each is a personal expression of the culture it developed from. In a recent blog by the speaker/writer Terry Hershey, he mentions the idea that what we all ought to do is dance amid the chaos of life. I find this quote very powerful, “When we look for what should be, we miss the music in the chaos of what is”.
I personally need this at a time when the country seems so chaotic and the Christmas rush is on and my sweet wife just got out of the hospital after a bout with asthma. It is so very easy to be angry or feel hurt and betrayed by life because it is not the way it should be. This on the heals of finals week and turning in grades. All of this is chaotic. And, until today, I missed the music.
I am bad about that, about being in the whirlwind and not listening for that “still small voice” speaking out of the whirlwind. I need to not avoid the chaos but listen for the music. This is what it means to live in the moment, to not shy away or deny it. There is music there, but we have to learn to listen, to find the rhythm. To quote my favorite monk, Thomas Merton:
Dance in this sun you tepid idiot. Wake up and dance in the clarity of perfect contradiction. You fool, it is life that makes you dance: have you forgotten?
It seems I have forgotten. That is going to change. I am going to listen for the music and then dance. Can you hear it now? Softly, in this very moment of your life, can you hear it? It is there, that is the promise of the Creator. And when you hear it……… Dance!
TMM