Tag Archives: dance

On the Risk of Anticipation…

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

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Photo Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/tango–761882461966749050/

So, what does a Dancing with the Williamsburg Stars competitor do after the competition?  Well, in my case, you get back in the studio!  Before the competition even began, I already knew I wanted to keep dancing.  I was having such a great time stretching my mind and body learning new things that I knew it was a good physical, and spiritual, discipline I wanted to maintain. 

Now, you may be wondering how in the world ballroom dancing can be categorized as a spiritual discipline.  The truth is, I encounter the sacred in ballroom dance all the time.  I talked about it once before HERE.  This week, as I started my first post-competition class, we went back to basics, learning the rumba and cha-cha.  There’s a certain humbling that comes with learning a new dance that I had forgotten from when I started months ago.  As we progressed through the class, I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of the technicalities – that is, until we started turns.  At one point, my instructor said, “Stop anticipating!”  He reminded me that he would show me where to go, but if I anticipated what he was going to do next, I would mess up our unique dance.

Those two words have been rattling around in my head.  Stop anticipating.  You see, I am a planner by nature.  Anticipation is my jam.  I am constantly thinking ahead, wondering about decision trees and the potential impact of each branch.  I like thinking about the larger system and strategically guiding my parish in our next steps.  So, the idea of stopping anticipation seems anathema. 

But the more I thought about it, every good thing that has come about in my ministry was nothing I actually anticipated.  In my current parish, I might have conducted a needs assessment with the community, listened to my parish’s desires, and researched a particular new ministry.  But what I didn’t anticipate was an outside group needing space to do the exact ministry we were contemplating.  I might have envied other parishes with digital ministries, but what I never anticipated was a worldwide pandemic that would launch my church’s own digital ministry.  I might be dreaming with my parish about alternative revenue streams and the repurposing of our spaces, but what I didn’t anticipate was three conversations that fell into my lap in the course of three weeks about potential partnerships.  When I finished the planning and stop anticipating, God happened each time.

I wonder in what ways your anticipation is blocking the movement of the Holy Spirit.  In what ways are you anticipating a left-hand turn, only to discover, God is over the to right, ready for you, if you can just stop anticipating?  For those of you who are lifetime planners, I know this is hard spiritual work.  Perhaps this Lent, you can join me in my prayer, “Lord, help me stop anticipating.” 

On the Dance of Trust…

12 Wednesday Feb 2025

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Photo credit: World Class Ballroom

In a little over a week, I will be competing in my town’s version of Dancing with the Stars – where 12 of us local “stars” are paired with professional dancers and perform our routines in a ticketed show.  The event is for charity, hoping to raise about $60,000 for our local Big Brothers Big Sisters affiliate and Literacy for Life.  When I was asked to be a star this year, I was excited.  I loved the idea of supporting local ministries, of a clergy person doing something so outside the box, and the fun of dancing.

Naively, I thought years of dancing in childhood and adolescence would be a big help.  I took ballet, tap, and jazz all through my school years – even taking a little ballet in college.  I was on dance teams in high school and college, doing hip hop style dancing.  And I even took a “Social Dance” class in college meant to teach you the basics of ballroom dance.  Consequently, I was fully expecting to learn and execute my routine with relative ease.

What I hadn’t accounted for in my mental preparation was what dancing with a partner would mean.  Of course, I knew that, as a female, I would need to let the male lead – and I also knew that would be hard based on previous experiences.  It can be hard to trust someone who also doesn’t know what they are doing.  But I had assumed dancing with a professional would make the trust part easier.  That was until a lesson recently where my teacher basically told me that I needed to fall forward in a particular position – with the promise he would catch me.  When I gave him an incredulous look, he explained that if I tried to catch myself, I would make him fall.  But if I just fell, he would catch me and the move would look dramatically graceful.

I have loved getting to know my teacher and have no reason not to trust him – he’s incredibly talented and has been doing this for ages.  But my resistance to trusting my teacher has given me a lot of insight on how deeply demanding trusting God is.  God has proven to us time and again how God is holding us, caring for us, bringing us to the right places at the right time.  And yet, every time something gets scary or unfamiliar, we yank that trust right back.  I suppose that is why we hear that refrain in Scripture, “Do not be afraid,” so often – because being unafraid is really hard.

I wonder in what ways you are holding back your trust in God these days.  I wonder how often you are unwilling to “fall,” expecting something dramatically graceful, and instead limiting God’s grace by your resistance to giving up control.  Letting go will not be easy – God wouldn’t have to tell us to not be afraid so much if letting go were easy.  But imagine the beautiful dance you could produce if you could reach out your hand and instead say, “Here I am.  Send me.” 

You can help me “let go” by making a donation to the amazing charities we are supporting.  Click HERE to donate today and make a difference in the lives of others.