I read once that the world was born with a dance, when God moved over the face of the waters. And since then, all of nature has responded in movement to God's creative love.
I have danced since I was 5. From first grade until college I logged many after-school hours before the glaring mirrors of fluorescent-lit studios, urging my flagging body through the leaps and turns of dance variations. As I learned its silent vocabulary, dance became a means of self-expression. Often, when alone, I would put music on the stereo and dance. At those times the melody would catch me up, and I would let my body write in space my emotions and fantasies.
After high school, I found less time and fewer opportunities for dance. And as I plunged into the new lifestyle and relationships at Sojourners four years ago, I reflected little on how dance might mesh with my new environment.
Months passed without my doing even a single pirouette. In worship I was learning to express myself in other ways: songs, spoken prayer, personal sharing. But as time went on, I realized that a spring of creativity within me had frozen. As I felt a fundamental part of myself slide into obscurity, I began to have qualms about being swallowed up in a tide of other community personalities and priorities.
My uneasiness was sharpened by the nagging fear that the elitist origins and history of classical dance were incompatible with my desire to identify with the poor. The longing to express an essential part of my person and an apprehension that such revelation would be unacceptable to a community like Sojourners--and even to God--did battle within me. But as time passed and I absorbed daily the steadiness of my sisters' and brothers' love and of God's care, I felt my self-imposed censorship subside.
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