April 15 - Dare to Dance Week 1

Dare to Dance: Moving towards Healing

Anchor: Judy Emerson’s drawing with one additional image

Thread: Dance, Song - Healed Healthy and Whole

Other Thread ideas:

prayer beads, with additional beads for each week added

Frames: April 15 -             Wk#1 – Internal/wounded

Image:  Child in fetal position, naked

Wounded, defended, holding back

2 Samuel 15:32-33

The king said to the Cushite, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ The Cushite answered, ‘May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up to do you harm, be like that young man.’ The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’

                Our dance toward healing begins with the acknowledgement that we are wounded. Every one of us experiences some kind of wounding in life, none of escapes unscathed. In “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Becket expresses this human condition: "The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops.” To acknowledge that we are wounded does not deny the hope for healing, but it is often a grueling, painful admission.

                David is one of the more wounded individuals in the bible. Wresting the kingdom from Saul costs the life of his best friend (David says of Jonathan, Saul’s son, “greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”) When David takes the throne, he garners the hatred of his wife, Michal, Saul’s daughter. His best known failure is his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. The text above is the culmination of his own son’s treasonous campaign to take the kingdom from David. Absalom’s treachery notwithstanding, David still loves his son and grieves deeply over his death. And yet for all his woundedness, David is still heralded as the greatest king of Israel. His imperfections and wounds do not prevent him from being of use and available to God.

                While woundedness is seen in common wisdom as a punishment from God, that is not always the biblical witness. Rather, it isi the midst of woundedness that God draws near to tend, to comfort, and to heal. The resurrection of Jesus can be seen as a cosmological parable in which God heals the world’s deepest wound: death itself.

                It must be difficult to dance when wounded. And yet, this may be one of the most important times to dance. Dance is an art form, a form of expression. To not dance is to repress one’s wounds. To dance is to give the pain back to the world, to release it into the ether. Some of the world’s greatest art has come from anger and pain (see Picasso’s Guernica). So dancing itself is an act healing and freedom.

                The image for this week begins with a person drawn into a fetal position. How do our wounds make us withdraw, pull in? Can healing begin when we are so contorted?

                It seems to me that we need to give people a chance to acknowledge, if not name, their woundedness. Maybe the church lost sight of the idea that confession is not about listing sins but rather about naming our wounds and calling for healing. What are ways we can do this in the Studio?

                A song ide might be REM’s Everybody Hurts:

When your day is long and the night

The night is yours alone

When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on

Don't let yourself go

Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong

Now it's time to sing along

When your day is night alone (hold on, hold on)

If you feel like letting go (hold on)

When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on

Everybody hurts

Take comfort in your friends.

Everybody hurts

Don't throw your hand. Oh, no

Don't throw your hand

If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life

The days and nights are long

When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes

Everybody cries

And everybody hurts sometimes

And everybody hurts sometimes

So, hold on, hold on

Hold on, hold on

Hold on, hold on

(Hold on, hold on)

Everybody hurts

You are not alone

                The good news in acknowledging woundedness is that healing is indeed available. Dancing not only names our wounds, but opens us to that healing.

                I am still waiting to hear back from Tsahai about her availability to be with us. We may want to be looking for an alternative. I think it is important to have actual dancing in the house, but this video may also be of use to us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTrb6i7gJAk&feature=related