SS - King of Pride Rock

Feast and Rememberance
(King of Pride Rock from the Lion King soundtrack)


A single note on the silver horn called the feasting crowd to silence. The Queen rose from her place and servants dimmed the lights on the rough rock walls. Three of the troupers rushed into the open ground encircled on four sides by the long tables. They laid out a shimmering length of grey fabric. A fourth trouper poured water upon the fabric. The music started, a mournful melody with the rhythm of marching feet behind it.


“Remember,” said the Queen. “Remember our lost.”


Water and fabric rippled as the troupers danced. Not a single drop escaped the entwining until they came to kneel before the Queen’s table and pour it out at her feet. A cascade of black lillies followed the small waterfall.


The troupers spun away and others came to join them, matching into pairs. Each trouper moved within a handsbreath of his partner without ever touching. It seemed impossible for them to leap and whirl and crouch so close and yet not embrace.


“Despite peace and prosperity, we built walls between ourselves and allowed hatred to flourish where there should have been fellowship.”


The music grew darker and ominous. Several of the troupers lit blue fire and danced with it, still without touching their partners.


“We tore ourselves apart in false pride with our derision, our gossip, our scorn.”


Here and there, blue light blazed as two partners met in sudden violence and one crumpled to the ground.


“There were those who dared another way.”


Red light flared as two more pairs embraced but the connection blended into their dancing and made it greater than before. One lifted the other high and then caught her when she fell. The four came together, whirling kaleidoscope of coloured fire and swift movement.


The other troupers halted their dancing to surround the four who dared to touch each other. The blue fire in their hands died, casting them as silhouettes between the watchers and the four who still danced.


“We could not bear their freedom, their joy, their abandonment of what we most prized.”


The shadowed troupers tore the dancers from each other. Fire flashed in brief spurts. One of the women was flung between several of the shadowed ones until she fell limp and motionless. One of the shadows flung up a hand of brightest blue fire and all the others froze. He knelt beside the fallen woman. Red fire licked up from her body to alight in his hand and merge with the blue.


“Only after blood had flowed like water through our land and every family had lost a sister or a brother, did we see truly what we had done. Too late. All life rebelled against our tyranny.”


One by one the frozen troupers dropped to their knees and covered their heads.


“The sun did not shine. The clouds held to their rain. Mines collapsed. Forest burned. Fields only grew thorns.”


The trouper with the hand of red and blue flames stood. He brought the fire to his lips and drank it. The hall grew brighter even as the fire vanished. Golden light ran across the tables more like water than fire. One by one, the gathered rose from their own seats. Each spoke a single name. The music had crescendoed but every name still rang clearly through the hall no matter how hushed the speaker’s voice.


“Annalise.” Said the last man as he stood at the Queen’s right hand.


“Avron.” Said the Queen. “We remember.”


“We remember.” The words echoed back not only from those at the tables but from the servants who stood behind them and from the troupers where they knelt or lay.


“We forgive,” said the Queen.


“We forgive!” Every hand in the Hall raised a cup with the cry. They drank a sip of the wine and then passed the cups, sharing with whomever was in reach. The troupers rolled to their feet and passed among the tables with their cups. Every light was relit. The feasting resumed.

FLA1 - Fabo Collabo

The very first Friday's Link to Awesomeness is an article on a collaborative dance concert in Rochester, NY.

Fabo Collabo!

A good friend of mine is a member of one of the participating dance companies. B-) I just wish I could be there to see it!

Dance! -NaNo2010

At first, the crowd only watched. Then one little girl began to bounce and clap her hands. Keary played his fiddle straight to her and she giggled in delight. When he moved back, she grabbed the hands of two other girls and the three spun in a wild circle. The dance spread from there until Keary had to dodge and weave in his own dancing to avoid hitting another of the spinning high-stepping stomping leaping dancers.

Story within a story from chapter 4 - NaNo2010

“Once near the beginning, there was a boy who couldn’t hear the music inherent. When his mother hummed or his father danced or his sister played counterpoint on her pipe, he only heard their half of the melody and rhythm. He couldn’t join in.



“He asked them how they heard the music, what it was like, but their explanations didn’t make sense. His sister said it was like the smell of the ground rain, rising up from below, and she just had to keep her feet bare to hear it well.


His father said it was like the feel of the breezes, sometimes soft and sometimes wild. He heard it best when he closed his eyes.


His mother said it was like breathing, something always happening whether you noticed it or not.


The boy tried his hardest to find the music. He would go out alone and dig his toes in the ground. He’d close his eyes and feel the wind. He would breathe deep and shallow, fast and slow. But the music never came.


And the longer he waited and hoped and searched, the more lost he felt. He knew he was meant to dance and sing. His family pounded drums and sang for him but he knew it was only an echo of what they themselves heard.


So he left.


He left his family and his home and everything except the clothes on his back and the hope in his heart.”

I Will Rise

-May song story from Chris Tomlin's "I Will Rise"-





When I step through the veil, everything changes.


The incessant buzzing stops so suddenly, the silence is like music. I take a slow breath and the air tastes free. I want to open my eyes but then the anticipation will be over. I wait.


Softly, music does begin. An oboe beckons with a sound at once so far away that I take another step forward and yet so close that my spine tingles up to my ears. How can it be both at once? I don’t know.


Other instruments join, drums, piano, guitar. If I focus, I can hear the individual melodies in the harmony. Each tells a different story. All entwine into an epic so strange and familiar and romantic, I start to laugh.


A breeze, scented with lilac and cinnamon, swirls and spins around me. It teases my face. The grass tickles my toes.


Do I dare step in further? Do I open my eyes?


A low rumble moves through the music. The light against my eyelids remains as bright as ever but now gentle raindrops fall. The wind catches the rain and tosses it about so it falls up as well as down.


Already dizzy with laughter, I spin in the rain.


I don’t know how or when it happens but the ground disappears from beneath me. I am rising, flying.


It is nothing like swimming or falling or floating or anything else I ever imagined flying might be. I’m dancing and the centre of gravity has changed. I am not drawn up or down, I am drawn further in.


The rain ebbs. My feet touch down on warm mossy rock. Mixed in with the music, I hear the laughter and murmuring of other people but the place where I wait belongs only to me and one other.


When I open my eyes, my heart knows whom I will finally see.

A Place in My Heart for You and Me

Walk over the dusty floorboards, dust motes swirl in shafts of light.
Misty rain slips through a glassless window.
A stream of clear cool water winds from the surrounding wood and encircles the foundation.
It soaks over the underlying rock and rushes through the cracked walls.
Barefoot in the sun-sparkling puddles, knees smeared with dust.
The one will wash the other away.

Mehere! [sp]

Fast! That is what this post will have to be, I am nearly a week behind on the storytelling so I will give a brief summary and expand later. :)

Oct. 8
The Old City!
We visited the Davidson Centre and learned a LOT about the history of the Temple. Then we went to the old south wall.
Really cool: most people were to enter in the right gate and exit through the left gate. But those who were in mourning, had just been married or who had lost something were to enter through the left gate that way the people coming out would be able to comfort them, celebrate with them or help them find what was missing. Several members in the group were mourning the death of loved ones in the past year so they walked up to the blocked off entrance and we surrounded them with prayer and comforted them. They said it was really healing.

Then I kicked off a shoe so I could dance barefoot on the steps where Jesus had walked. :D I will post the short video to Facebook when I get home.

We also went to the Wailing Wall, Chain of Generations hall and finally the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is the most peaceful place I have been in Jerusalem, one of those places that you can just tell that people have gathered to pray and worship. We had a beautiful time of communion there.

Lannette and I dashed off to a Messianic worship service (wow, I loved being able to sing worship songs I knew in Hebrew as well as English!) and ended up staying really late visiting in a cafe.

Oct. 9
The day before my bday!
We went to Ein Gedi where David hid from Saul. We had not planned very well because we did not have our swimsuits but we jumped in clothes and all anyway. The waterfalls were lovely and I did a Daily Focus which will have to be one of the stories I expand on later.
Then Masada where our tour guide really brought history to life. I don't know what I think about the hard decision that was made there.
Then we hustled our way south to see the Fountain of Tears by Rick Wineke [sp]. Unfortunately he wasn't there, it would have been so amazing to hear him share about his work. But it was very moving just to see it.
It was a loooooong bus ride back but the last portion of it I spent worshipping with several of the ladies in the middle/back of the bus. So good.
Finally we had Shabbat dinner under a suka in the hotel and were able to testify about Yeshua to several curious people.

Oct. 10th
My birthday!!!
And Simchat Torah! :D I danced to every song but one and felt like one of the Jewish people. ;)

Oct. 11th and 12th
Hung out in Jerusalem, stayed up WAY WAY late every night but at least didn't have to get up early because the tour was over.

Oct. 13th
In Tel Aviv!
Swam in the Dead Sea and now I must go!

Shalom Shalom!

A Story of Dance (part IV)

For a full song, my new Aussie friend dances over me with her shimmering fabric. I rest and rejoice and heal, delighting in His delight over me. When the song comes to an end and the next starts, I dance again on my knees. Behind me, she follows my lead and we worship together.

I have not danced worship WITH another dancer since the end of [dance team] over four years ago. Somehow, even though we are strangers to each other, without any rehearsal or speech between us, we move in beautiful synchronization. I am leading but, at times, I follow her movements. We dance, not as a person and a shadow with one doing exactly as the other, but as two hands might, moving separately from each other but always in complement.

I'm not really sure whether our dance is a gift from us to Him or from Him to us.

Maybe it is both. . .

A Story of Dance (part III)

. . .even after admitting surrender and hearing the encouragement of my friends, can you believe I still struggled with dancing at that evening service? My feet itched to dance and my heart ached but I stood swaying with doubt, fear as the worship team played.

But God is very persistent. And abounding in mercy. :)

I stepped into an open area in the middle of the sanctuary and I danced. I danced in adoration, praise, surrender and brokenness. He danced with me! My feelings of awkwardness and clumsiness faded in the wonder of His delight. As a new song began, I was kneeling on the ground and I felt very strongly that this song was meant to be danced with fabric. "Oh Abba," I thought, "too bad I don't have any fabric."

But before I could determine how I would dance, a shimmering veil of white dropped over my head. It was a swath of beautiful transparent fabric held in the hands of an Aussie who had flown into Canada the night before to learn and work at my friends' base. Gracefully, she danced over me with the material.

I was overwhelmed.
NO WAY, God, no way! You did this?
Wow.

. . . :)

Knowing God

On the Circle, TC posted this question:

"What do you really know personally about God? Not from Sunday School, not from 3rd grade sermons from countless sleepy Sunday mornings, not from Bible Studies, or small groups, not from your Dad or Mom, brother or sister, not from friends, movies, books, and stories, not even from the Holy Scriptures… but from your personal intimate interaction alone with…..Him."

The full thread is here , and I recommend reading through it and considering the question yourself.

Yo conozco Dios. What has he spoken to me personally?
He loves me more
(more than anyone else who loves me, more than I can conceive, more than I love Him)

He loves His bride and longs deeply for those in rebellion against Him.

He loves Anna.

He is trustworthy.

What I hear most frequently:

*silence*

"I love you"

"Trust me"

*laughter*

"Wait"

"Dance with me"

Rejoice

Rejoice, my soul, in the Lord!
Praise Him in all He does
Laugh with the wonder of the heavens
Cry with the newness of the rain
Dance with the life of the Spirit

Rejoice!

A Story of Dance (part II)

Back to the Sunday morning church service. . .

    I knew God was calling me to dance with Him but I rebelled. "God, what if I am a distraction to the church? What if I draw their eyes away from you? You are a God of order, right? How can dance here be right? WHY am I so confused about this?!" As I knelt there sobbing I realized that I believed a terrible lie, somehow over the course of time I had let the enemy deceive me into believing that dance had no place in the church, in corporate worship.

If you had asked me about this before that morning, I would have denied it, "Of course dance does! I have lived it!". But the lie had gone far deeper than I knew. And even recognizing it as a lie, I struggled to let it go.

 

    The music came to a close and the pastor read from a passage from on the New Testament letters, stopping to repeat one phrase in particular. I don't remember what the passage was or even the phrase but God spoke to me through it of His promise to me, of the great things He would bring forth. And I cried even harder that He would speak so to me when I was fighting against Him. Again, He asked me to dance when they did music with the offering. Again, I said no.

 

-Interlude-

    At this point, I was a terrible mess of tears and snot, not to mention emotional turmoil: "Abba, I am such a mess!" But, in tender love, God gave me the impression that if He were to be standing there in flesh in front of me, I could wipe the snot off on Him. Gross, maybe, but again I was overwhelmed but how much and how steadfastly He loved me.

-end Interlude-

 

    I stopped bawling long enough to listen to the pastor's message. She spoke about the firstfruits sacrifice and celebration in the Old Testament. In particular, she emphasized God's call for us to thank Him and rejoice before we have seen a full harvest, to praise Him while the seed is still in the ground and anything might happen to it. I listened and was reminded that I am to rejoice and thank God for the ministry of dance even though I can't see it. The harvest is His.

    The morning service ended and I had an eagerly attentive audience in my friend's family who wanted to know what I had thought of the service (her dad pretty much interrogated me, lol). I summarized what I had happened and they encouraged me that I could most definitely dance in their services, that normally there were people dancing. I received their words with mixed feelings: joy, relief, guilt, hope.

 

    That evening, most of my friend's family tromped back into the van to go to the evening church service. Honestly, I did not want to go. I hadn't slept enough in the last few days, I was spiritually/emotionally drained, I was grouchy. But I went and walking through the front doors, I told God that He would have all of me. I was here to worship Him.

(..more coming…)

A Story of Dance (part I)

This is a story, a testimony, a revelation of dance but it is also a beautiful demonstration of God's mercy and grace. On June 1^st, during a Sunday morning church service, He asked me to dance with Him. I buried my face in my hands and I cried because I wouldn't.

 

To give you a better understanding of what happened, I will give you some background. God has given me dance as a gift. I first began to grow in this gift through the Jesus Dance School and a dance ministry during my teen years. I discovered how dance could be a form of intercession but my deepest passion at the time was worship dancing with the church. My experiences over the short life of the dance ministry have impacted me greatly. In time, the ministry died. It happened slowly as members in the church (I never knew who) prompted the dancing to move away from the front to the sides, then to the back.

It was never said directly to me but I was left with the strong impression that dancing was a distraction during worship, that this gift was negatively impacting people and drawing them away from God rather than to Him.

I remember very well the last worship dance practice. I felt that strange peace that surpasses all understanding when the dance leader told us that it was ending. I knelt before God during the dancing and told Him that the gift was His. If I ever danced again, it was to be His choice.

 

That summer, I went with a dance/drama team to perform on the streets during the Olympics in Athens, Greece (which is another strange and beautiful story). God opening up this opportunity for me to dance spoke to me that He would resurrect the gift in His time.

For the next three years, I hardly danced. And often when I did in worship, it felt awkward, out of step, very different from what I had experienced in the dance ministry team.

 

In the fall of 2007, God brought dance to life again. I spent every night during the month of October in intercessory dance, learning from Him. It was profoundly freeing and humbling. But with this re-birth came a terrible ache. A painful longing for something more that still needed to be born and soon a wrenching realization that I had wounds that needed healing.

I heard from many around this time about their own gifting of dance and what God had taught them. It was encouraging and exhilarating but a woman I respect and cherish spoke against dancing. And her words ripped open wounds I hadn't know existed.

And it was good, because God began to heal these wounds.

 

(to be continued)

wounded

(copied from "a place for dance in the church" on the Ted Dekker forum)

I knew that what happened with the church dance team I was part of a few years ago had hurt.
But the recent dance threads and dance-praying I have been doing have made me realize that what I thought was a stage I wound is really a stage V. The scab came off the top, now I'm bleeding all over the place and I don't even know how deep the undermining of this wound goes.

I'm not sure if that was overly personal to post in here but I really feel at a loss. I'm so thankful to have this gift of dance just between me and God. But the deeper I go in that, the more painful the longing to use this gift within the body of Christ becomes.

And how does one do that when one isn't even a part of the institutional church?

-------

Am I just emotionally overwrought right now? Why does this hurt so much?

Abba?