by Albert Holtz
Can you picture yourself among the onlookers? Where are you in the crowd? In the back? Right up front? Why did you choose this particular spot to stand? Make yourself look up at Jesus hanging on the cross. Do you want to get any closer? How do you feel? Are you “in the market for a suffering Christ”? Think of a share of the cross that you’ve been given lately. Have you embraced it or have you tried to escape it? How have you felt about it—Bitter? Sad? Serene? Consider how this cross might be a source of life and blessing for you and others.
WISDOM OF THE DESERT
“I was sitting one day with abba Poemen and I saw him in ecstasy and, as I was on terms of great freedom with him, I begged him saying, ‘Tell me where you were.’ He was forced to answer and he said, ‘My thoughts were with Saint Mary, the Mother of God, as she wept by the cross of the Savior; I would that I would always weep like that.’” (Benedicta Ward ed., The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers [London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1988], 52.)
DROPPING YOUR SHIELD: THE HONOR CODE
Folks in the city live imprisoned behind window bars, deadbolts, and roll-down doors. It isn’t surprising, then, that the idea of not locking your locker sounds crazier each year.
“I don’t leave nothin’ in my locker no more, I just carry all my stuff around with me.” The teenager sounds apologetic, but convinced. He adds, as if we need an explanation, “I don’t trust nobody!”
“Yeah. If they won’t let us lock our lockers,” adds a classmate, “nobody’s gonna leave anything in them.”
My homeroom group, twenty boys ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, is discussing the problem of stealing in school. As usual, a couple of students jump right away on what they see as the cause of the problem: the school’s Honor Code. One of the most challenging parts of the “Covenant” that each of the students signs is the agreement that there will be no locks on lockers.
“It’s a nice idea, and all, but it’s old-fashioned. Things aren’t like that anymore, man. This is the nineties.”
In our culture, and especially in the city, “security” has become an obsession: you have to sign in at the security desk when visiting an office building downtown, you get buzzed in to retail shops, you get your Chinese take-out food through a Plexiglas barrier, and you smile up at the surveillance cameras at the local printer. We have even had to hire a security service to keep thieves from walking off with all of our school’s equipment during the night.
“It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just dumb,” continues one frustrated sophomore. From the normal city-dweller point of view, maybe he’s right. But for our school family, not putting a lock on your locker is a statement to the world, a flesh-and-blood parable about a central truth in human life: there are times when it is more important to take a risk than to protect yourself from being hurt. Our attempts to shield ourselves can end up doing us more harm than good. A mindless “security-first” philosophy insidiously undermines the central Christian values of community and trust.
During the week-long freshman orientation at the start of each school year, a hand-lettered sign gets taped to the cafeteria wall: “When two African warriors meet to make peace, they don’t drop their spears—they drop their shields.” It’s meant to get the students to think, and to forewarn the newcomers that they’re going to be challenged here to a new and difficult way of looking at the world.
“There’s people around here stealing,” a senior complains, “and nobody does anything about it.”
The Honor Code works remarkably well most of the time. Unfortunately, now and then some student starts taking advantage of his brothers, stealing money and valuables from unlocked lockers. This gets depressing for the rest of us. While students and adults are working to find the culprit, we also have to sit down in homeroom groups and encourage one another to stick with the Honor Code. Every so often we need to renew our commitment to the vision: trust is the heart of true community, and sometimes you have to leave yourself vulnerable for the sake of something more important. This is not an easy sell, especially when someone in the community is dishonest.
But, I think, I don’t have the same excuse for not trusting God! Often I know that God’s inviting me to let down my guard at prayer, but I don’t want to leave myself open like that—least of all to God! It would mean running the risk of being surprised, hurt, or maybe changed for ever. My instinct for self-preservation wins out and I refuse to let the Spirit come in and take over my life.
This is the same issue that’s at stake with putting locks on lockers: There comes a point at which I have to stop protecting myself and decide to take a chance. Jesus keeps inviting me to intimacy, but I show up for our encounters carrying so many shields that it would be comical if it were not so sad. One way I keep the Divine Lover at a safe distance is by doing nice things for God: I stay so busy doing the Lord’s work that there’s no time left for intimate, serious, self-revealing moments together. A second way I defend myself is to monopolize the conversation when I pray, filling the time with my own words, my own concerns, my own agenda. That way God never gets a word in edgewise: No challenges, no demands, no corrections.
“They should have seniors as monitors in the locker rooms.”
“Yeah, or T.V. cameras!”
The “vision” is getting obscured by layers of Plexiglas and metal. The group’s elected student leader sees where the discussion is going and tries to put in a word in defense of the Honor Code:
“No, man!” he objects, “This is our school! We can’t make it like a prison! We don’t want people looking over our shoulder every second!”
“It’s better than having your stuff taken, isn’t it?” someone challenges.
Several heads nod in agreement. In the face of the “security at any price” onslaught, the young leader backs off.
As I think of all the ways I’ve been protecting myself from God lately, I squirm guiltily in my seat. Giving up “security at any price” requires some courage—for all of us.
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. (Hosea 2:16)
Imagine that God has called you to go out into the desert. Can you picture yourself there, surrounded by vast stretches of barren rock? Feel the scorching sun, and the arid air parching your throat. You have no water, no food, no protection from the elements or from wild animals. You feel completely helpless. Does it bother you to be so completely dependent on God? Do you trust that God will provide you what you need to survive?
Are there times when you take a “security-first” attitude with God? Think of one of the “shields” you use to keep God at a distance (busyness, monopolizing the conversation, distractions, and so on). Can you pray without that shield? Imagine placing that shield on the ground and going to God in prayer defenseless, empty hands at your sides.
RULE OF BENEDICT
“The fifth step of humility is that a man does not conceal from his abbot any sinful thoughts entering his heart, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confesses them humbly. Concerning this, Scripture exhorts us: Make known your way to the Lord and hope in him.” (Chapter 7, “Humility,” vv. 44–45)
SPONTANEITY: MARY’S DANCE
Nye onyinye chineke, nye onyinye di mma!
From the back of the church, a woman’s voice intones the offertory song in the rich liquid sound of the Ibo language, and the Nigerian refrain is quickly picked up by fifty other voices:
Nye onyinye chineke, nye onyinye di mma! “Give thanks to God; give good thanks!”
The women of St. Mary’s Parish, Newark, are moving two-by-two up the center aisle in the offertory procession for Mother’s Day. Not walking, exactly, but “stepping” in a stylized impromptu shuffle.
The congregation picks up the refrain, and, with the big drum marking time, the church pulses with the soul of west Africa. A woman who has stepped up to a microphone gives the “call”:
Chineke kechar’any
i si ka anyi yie Ya. “After God created us, he told us to give thanks.”
And everyone joins in the “response”:
Nye onyinye chineke, nye onyinye di mma! “Give thanks to God; give good thanks!”
The brilliant colors of their dresses add to the joyful mood: long narrow skirts of deep blue, orange, purple, some heavy with silver thread brocade. Many of the married women are wearing high head-wraps of stiff cloth. The procession starts to look more and more like a dance, with each woman doing her own little step as she sings her way toward the altar.
I once saw a video of an ordination in Nigeria. At one point the mother of the new priest simply stands up in her place in church and begins to dance for sheer happiness. Sometimes, an African will tell you, you just have to dance. In spite of yourself, your arms and hips and feet just start moving and you’re dancing. You don’t even think about what you’re doing.
I’ve always envied people who can express themselves that way. I never really could—at least not very well. I was always self-conscious. Even as a teenager my dancing was the result of a painful thought process, my reluctant limbs struggling to keep up with the torrent of instructions rushing from my brain.
Nye onyinye chineke, nye onyinye di mma, the call and response continues, “Give thanks to God; give good thanks!”
The procession wends its way toward the altar in the center of the church, where each woman places her envelope in the basket, is sprinkled with holy water by Fr. Philip, the pastor, and, with fingers still drawing little figures in the air, joins her sisters in the flowing, growing circle around the altar.
In the back of my mind, a thought takes hold: maybe there is a reason I can’t dance. It’s because I prefer things planned, controlled, and calculated.
Recently I was at a wedding reception. When the bride’s elderly aunt asked me to dance with her, I smiled my usual apology,
“I’m sorry, I don’t dance.”
“You don’t dance? What do you mean you don’t dance? That’s ridiculous!” The woman is half-baffled and half-incensed. “My rabbi dances,” she continues, “and you can’t? Why not?” Seeing that her onslaught has rocked me back on my heels for the moment, Auntie presses the attack, “So maybe you think you’re too good to dance with the rest of us?”
“Well, no, ma’am. It’s just that I don’t—I mean I’m not—”
“Listen!” Now she’s getting genuinely upset at me. “You’ve got no business telling people you don’t dance! Just get up and dance with me, already! Come!” This is no longer an invitation or even a request—it’s a showdown. Our eyes meet. We stand motionless for a few moments staring each other down. Then I blink.
“Good!” she crows. With a heavy, silent sigh I stand up and follow her onto the dance floor.
After the dance I sit down with nervous sweat soaking the small of my back, but admitting that in fact it hadn’t really been all that bad. And it made her happy. A moment later, of course, the bride’s mother is striding purposefully in my direction. I can guess what she wants.
Now our Mother’s Day celebration continues, fifty or sixty women standing in a circle around the big, square, stone altar, stepping and waving hands in the air to celebrate God’s goodness, the gift of life, and Mother’s Day.
It’s okay not to dance, I reassure myself, as I sit stiffly in my concelebrant’s chair off in a corner of the sanctuary. The Blessed Mother never danced, right? At least I’ve never heard of her doing it. Neither did her son. And God the Father certainly doesn’t dance, either. God is pure intellect, pure spirit—I remember that from the seminary. That’s why I can have this nice, calm, cool relationship with the Lord. Both of us are reasonable, deliberate, and dignified.
Then, as I watch the women spontaneously singing and swaying, I realize with a start that maybe I am dead wrong; maybe God is dancing all the time!
That first “Let there be light!” may just have been sung out in the midst of an impulsive, whirling jig, as the Almighty cavorted with hands waving high in the air. As the days of creation went on, the Creator only grew more flamboyant: “Let there be galaxies and quasars and black holes! Let the Crab Nebula spew itself across the emptiness!” “Let there be whales and sailfish and sea otters!” “Let there be kelp and coconuts. Let there be anteaters and zebras—and camels!” And today, the Lord of Life must still be dancing in time to the blood that pulses through our arteries and the neutrinos that dart straight through our planet to come out the other side without even slowing down. God doesn’t dance? The whole universe is one big dance!
The saints in the stained glass windows are glowing in the cheerful morning sunlight. It seems to me that St. Frances of Rome back there in the corner may even be swaying slightly with the drum beat as she watches the bright-colored procession.
Now, the truth has really sunk in: God is spontaneous and extravagant all the time. If I’m made in God’s image, then I’ve buried this part of the divine likeness under protective layers of decorum and reserve.
The music stops, and Fr. Philip says a short blessing from in front of the altar. As he begins to give each woman a little gift, a voice inside the circle intones a new song, a Nigerian version of Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat:
Tobe dinwenu, mkpuru-obi nkem.
“Praise the Lord, my soul,” it begins, and everyone picks up the familiar refrain:
O meere m I-he, O meere m I-he, O meere nnu-kwu ihe ebe m no. “He has done something for me, he has done something great for me.”
I love this lilting little melody; it’s the kind that gets in your head and sings itself for the rest of the day.
Muo m anurigo na chineke onye nzoputa m, the women chant in a haunting harmony, “My spirit rejoices in God, my savior.”
They start dancing and stepping their way, a river of vivid colors, back to their seats. I join in the words to the chorus,
O meere m I-he, O meere m I-he, O meere nnu-kwu ihe ebe m no. “He has done something for me, he has done something great for me!” Some people begin a simple clap in rhythm with the words. I join in as the big drum starts to rumble in time as well. I begin to tap my left foot.
A voice from somewhere inside me asks, “Say! Would you like to dance?”
“No,” I smile my usual apology, “I don’t dance.”
“You don’t dance! That’s ridiculous! I’ve been dancing for eternity. Out of sheer love I romanced you into existence. Now you can’t loosen up and celebrate a little with me?”
O meere m I-he, O meere m I-he … , the mothers continue Mary’s dancing song, “He has done great things for me. …” I picture Mary, a teenage girl, joyfully twirling and lifting her hands heavenward as she abandons herself to the divine will, her spirit rejoicing in God her Savior.
The gospel calls us all to live life as a beautiful, spontaneous dance, making it up as we go along and responding freely to every movement of the Spirit. Am I willing to live my life that way, like the young virgin mother dancing her “Yes!” to her Lord? Can I let go of my grim, preoccupied attempts at controlling everything, my fears about making a mistake, my worries about what others might think?
The chanting finally comes to an end after the last women arrive back at their seats.
During a moment of stillness before the mass continues, I smile ruefully at my own tightness, my guarded and sober way of coming to God.
I swallow hard as I realize that my African sisters have put me on notice this morning: some time soon, the Lord is going to come up to me and invite me once again, “Say! Wanna dance?” The two of us will stand motionless for a moment, staring each other down. Will I blink?
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing; and when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the a
rk of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. (2 Samuel 6:12–15)
First imagine the “dance of the universe.” Start with something you can see, maybe the leaves rustling in a tree, or some clouds moving across the sky. Picture the dance of the birds wheeling through the air, or the constant whirling of the clouds as they encircle the globe, all in time to the same music. Then the moon spinning around the earth and the earth and her sister planets around the sun. Then our solar system wheeling in a circle around the center point of the Milky Way galaxy.
Now try going the other direction, imagining the dance of the blood coursing through your arteries, its corpuscles and red cells and white cells, all dancing in time with the music. Then picture the molecules, and the atoms that make up the molecules. Then the electrons racing around the nuclei of these atoms in your body, all following the music of the same dance as the galaxies.
Now imagine yourself walking in the procession beside David. Suddenly he holds his arms over his head and starts to twirl around, dancing before the ark. Try to join him. The Lord of the Dance is inviting you to take part in the dance of the universe. How do you respond?
Go to your room, close the door, turn on some music, and dance for the Lord—if you dare!
WISDOM OF SAINT BASIL
“We shall endeavor with the help of God and the support of your prayers, and as power is given us by the spirit, to enkindle the spark of divine love latent within you.” (Monica Wagner C.S.C. Trans., Saint Basil: The Long Rules 1 [Boston, St Paul Editions, 1950], 19.)
“That’s the Andromeda galaxy.” (Page 135)
