Beautiful Dance

My 11-year-old daughter has been dancing for several years now. Over time, that has engendered in me an appreciation and enjoyment of dancing that, honestly, would not otherwise exist. Watching her dance I am the father in awe, fiercely afraid (for her), full of hope, and of tears. Yes I admit: I am that Dad who cannot manage to watch his kids perform without crying...wasn't there a guy like that on American Idol some time back? I can identify.

Beyond that, I've also come to enjoy dance as a whole. Moreso than I otherwise would have, at least. I will watch, "So You Think You Can Dance," not just as something I can love WITH my wife and daughter but, in a growing sense, as something I can simply, well, love.

Two things I have realized, particularly when watching some of the Junior and Senior dancers during my daughter's recitals: the mark of really good dancing seems to be a combination of (1) a full use of time and (2) good form.

I know nothing of form. Beyond liking it when I see it, I suppose.

But by "full use of time" I mean simply that a good dancer somehow takes all of the time allotted to move from one position to the next. No more and no less. An arm moves from one side, over the head, to the other in exactly three beats. The bend of a waist, perhaps, takes one. A complete turn, two. All of this movement coalesces into smooth and consistent motion. The transition from one position to the next avails itself of precisely the amount of available time (with proper form). And that unabridged use of time to complete each motion catches my eye, secures my interest and becomes beautiful. Start to finish.

In other words, the beginning anticipates the end.

Younger dancers will sometimes show moments of this beauty, but they all too often arrive at or begin a movement too soon or too late. Or their movement is stilted and interrupted somehow between beginning and ending. The seasoned dancer projects effortlessness while the novice is both hurried (or tardy...or both) and self conscious. As if there is a constant and tenuous balance between time and the movement desired...and the less studied dancers are constantly working to make up for or anticipate it.

I struggle with a similar balance in my walk with God.

Romans 8 tells us that our God will "work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose." The verse implies redemption and restoration of our circumstance (past, present, future) and is mirrored by worldly sayings like "it will all work out for the best" or even "whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger." And I think it is those cultural near-misses that erode our faith in the real work that God is doing in our lives; perhaps even more they obscure, through miss-application, our understanding of how He really works...

Often when I apply that verse to my life, it is borne out through a fierce, white-knuckled approach to things...grinning and bearing it and holding on as I hope and pray for the Lord to change and redeem whatever I am going through. I am not fully consumed by my "lows" but I am fast to cast about for any path out. I become self-focused, self-conscious, self-ish. Absent good timing and anything that resembles fluidity of motion or purpose, I resort, perhaps, to looking far, far into the future with an attitude like, "this will all make sense someday." And ultimately, of course, this last is true.

But God is a better dancer than that.

When I apply the truth of "all things" being worked together for the good of me, who believes, I can't make the mistake of thinking that "things" happen in my life and only then become subjugated to the idea that God will work them together for the good. As if I am proceeding along with the plan until, oops!, it all gets changed...and now God has work to do to weave the "oops" back into "the good." Do you see the fault line in this? As if we are constantly forcing Him to alter His course -- to recover somehow?

No. His "good" is and has always been consistent.

And, by the way, from God's perspective I have always been called according to his purpose.

The movement of my life, from beginning to end, is precise and without waste and perfectly beautiful. The sin or mistakes of my life, the pain of them and the loss, are redeemed...not as something that happens and then must be recovered...but as something that is being recovered even in the midst of the loss. Restoration is a seed that God plants even in the collapse of ruin...it is a full movement that anticipates the ending even as it begins.

In the middle of this we find mystery. Unable to perceive the entirety of this movement or of the dance, we can only anticipate with hope the fulfillment of redemption. But our broken and limited point of view does not tell the story - we are only able to see what we can because we are inside the movement of the story; this dance.

In Donald Miller's Jan 2nd blog post he encourages his readers to approach the new year as if they were "living it for the second time." Its a wonderful way to pull ourselves out of the moment (inspired by some guy named "Frankl") and think of our circumstances from a different perspective. Presuming we have already made mistakes (or are doing things differently than we might have liked), we might consider "now" how we can do life better, "now." I like that idea...

But I also wonder if there isn't a chance for me to live today as though the mistakes I'm sure to make are, even in the midst of making them, already fully redeemed. Not granting me license, but assuring my rescue. Not rescue as a future hope, but as an immediate path to restoration. Restoration assured in the middle of my failure. Holding that thought captive, every day of this new year just might reflect the perfect motion of healing that results in my own beautiful dance.