Have you ever lost yourself dancing? I don’t mean the uninhibited detachment of “dance as if no one is watching,” but the kind where the music beats inside you, coursing in rhythm to the blood in your veins. Your worry about your own steps melts away so you can focus on everyone else around you, bending in sync with their moves. Their energy plays off yours, and yours off theirs. All make space, giving and taking, dancing uniquely but as one.
The fourth-century Cappadocian Fathers saw the Trinity like this—a dance of Father, Son, and Spirit in perpetual motion, a reciprocal push and pull between partners expressing and sustaining their indwelling union. And into this dance we are drawn, united in intimacy not only to the Trinity but to one another. In this dance we find our truest selves to become one with God.
In the liturgy each of us practices the choreography of Trinitarian life that St. Paul gave to the Corinthians: Rejoice and mend, encourage and agree. Click To TweetNot all of us will have experienced the “dancer’s high” on a dance floor. But in the liturgy each of us practices the choreography of Trinitarian life that St. Paul gave to the Corinthians: Rejoice and mend, encourage and agree.
Live in peace and greet one another with a kiss. Therefore, dance as if the world is watching. Let us dance as if the world depends on it.
This post was first published in “GIA Quarterly: A Liturgical Music Journal.”
Image credit: Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash.
Leave a Reply