Dancing with Delight, Part 2: Ballroom as Classroom

In the last post, we explored what the Bible has to say about dancing and established that all dancing is not made alike. Now, we’re going to dive into two particular kinds of dancing and the ways in which they provide excellent opportunity for learning life lessons while on the dance floor.

The first kind, which I mentioned last time as the style that my friends and I gathered together for in middle and high school, is historical dancing, primarily from the nineteenth century. If you’re familiar with contra dancing/English country dancing or have seen Jane Austen movies or ball scenes from old westerns, then you’ve got the basic idea. This type of dancing primarily involves group dances in which partners interact not only with each other but also with the other couples in their set. Some early ballroom dances, such as the waltz and the polka, were thrown in as well. The second style is swing dancing, a high-energy, dizzying, exhilarating dance done by individual couples. So when the ballroom becomes classroom, what lessons can be learned or benefits gained?

Perhaps most obviously, these types of dancing are fantastic exercise. When I stopped swing dancing once a week, I could tell that I wasn’t in as good a shape as I was when I was dancing regularly. We were created with bodies that benefit from movement, and there is a distinct pleasure that comes from exerting ourselves physically in a purposeful way. I am reminded of Olympian Eric Liddell’s statement about feeling the pleasure of God when he ran; I feel a similar way when dancing. Movement and music are both gifts from God, and when the two are combined, we are able to delight in God’s good gifts in a particularly special way and in turn to praise our Creator. Music connects deeply with us, and when we move in time to the music, matching the expressiveness of its dynamics and the precision of its rhythm, we are physically experiencing a reflection of elements of God’s character, His expressiveness, His steadiness, His creativity, and His orderliness.

Another lesson that comes particularly from these two styles of dancing is the importance of the leading/following relationship. Part of the package of our historical dance events was abiding by (most of) the rules of etiquette from the time period, including the fact that the men do the asking before the dance and the leading during the dance. As such, our dancing was an excellent reflection of the pattern for marriage that God sets forth in Scripture, where the husband leads the wife as he follows Christ. In dancing, the man leads the woman as he follows the music and the prescribed steps or figures of the dance.

In ballroom and particularly in swing dancing, it can be disastrous when both partners try to lead or when the woman tries to do her own thing instead of following the leadership of her partner. When dancing the waltz or the polka, I often found myself partnered with guys who weren’t as experienced as I was or who weren’t totally in tune to the rhythm of the music. In these cases, it was often difficult to submit to my partner’s leading, but if I didn’t, even though I had the good intentions of trying to keep us in time to the music, we would be going nowhere all while tripping over each other in the process. Needless to say, this was not beneficial for either of us, and the enjoyment of the dance dropped significantly.

In a similar vein, dancing is a master class in trust. As someone who is so in tune to the beat of music and was used to dancing a style that involved moving strictly on the beat, I found swing dancing to be a whole new—challenging— ballgame. Remember what I just said about trying to keep in time with the music instead of following my partner? That was a surefire way to make learning swing incredibly difficult. The way you keep in time to swing music is completely different than in the nineteenth-century dances I had been used to, and I quickly had to learn to stop focusing on trying to be on the right beat and instead to feel where my partner was taking me. And this required an extreme amount of trust in my partners—especially when they were twirling and spinning me all over the place.

When I first started learning swing, I had a difficult time and didn’t think it was for me. What I didn’t realize until later is that I was partnered with someone whom I was having a difficult time trusting in general, i.e. off of the dance floor, and it wasn’t until I danced with other partners who were trusted friends that I was able to relax, let go, follow their lead, and in turn fall in love with swing. In other words, trust is important! Knowing who is trustworthy and who isn’t can make all the difference on the dance floor, and this lesson teaches us how vital it is to partner with those we can trust in life as well, whether in a romantic relationship, in friendship, or in business.

The next lesson is for the guys. Going back to the concept of following period rules of etiquette, gentlemen do the asking, and ladies always say yes (unless they are physically ill, already spoken for, or do not know the dance, the latter of which, as I always told people, didn’t fly in our group, because we taught the dances as we went). Now don’t worry, I’m not going to say that this mirrors how we should live our lives; women should not say yes to everything a man asks them to do. (And in case you were wondering, there was a way for a woman to legitimately avoid being asked if she didn’t want to be.)

But what following this rule did do, in our twenty-first century ballroom, was give our guys a safe practice ground for taking initiative. They could ask a girl to dance with full confidence that she would say yes. In a society that has increasingly stripped young men of their confidence when it comes to interacting with young women, our historical-etiquette-driven ballroom helped them cultivate a healthy self-esteem and gave them the opportunity to practice beginning what otherwise might be a very awkward conversation with a girl with style and grace.

Related to this, both girls and guys had the opportunity to learn how to interact with each other with mutual respect and all-around good manners. Beginning and ending each dance with a call to “honor your partner” (i.e. bow/curtsey) helped generate a mindfulness of demonstrating esteem for one another. The practice of gentlemen escorting their partners to and from the dance floor cultivated an attitude of care. The convention of the lady’s hand always being on top when hands are held communicated the importance of the man both supporting and honoring her.

Each of these lessons is one that the ballroom is perfectly suited to supply. Not only is the dance floor a place to delight in God’s good gifts, to get a glimpse into His nature, and to express the creativity He has given us, but also it is a training ground for healthy, mutually beneficial relationships between men and women. And I didn’t even go into the familial and communal benefits our historical ballroom provided by being a place where entire families and multiple generations could dance together and enjoy interacting with each other!

If you’ve never experienced a dance culture like this before, I hope you’ve gotten just a glimpse into what a thoroughly delightful and helpful thing dance can be. When used intentionally, there is no limit to the wholesome, positive effects it can have. So here’s to dancing with joy in the Lord and training ourselves to be as reflective of Him as we can be. 

Happy Dancing!

Dancing with Delight, Part 1: To Dance or Not to Dance

“Baptists don’t dance.” Ever heard that one? Growing up, it was a running joke among my friends in our Baptist congregation, thrown around more like an excuse when someone’s attempts to “dance” fell into the embarrassing category. I had heard of the days when that statement was true, when dancing was strictly prohibited for those in my particular denomination, but I didn’t think that strain of legalism still existed in the 21^st century, at least not in my church—that is until I heard an elderly church member make a comment that let me know it was still alive and well.

When some friends and I started our own dance group, I quickly learned that I had to be careful, given the fact that my dad was on the ministerial staff. People could get the wrong idea, and if Baptists don’t dance, Baptist pastors especially don’t. It didn’t matter that the type of dancing our group enjoyed was about the least scandalous type of dancing you could imagine—historical dances from the nineteenth century. For some reason I could sense that there were some who would raise a stink if they knew we got together to dance as our preferred pastime.

Even though we knew there was nothing wrong with what we were doing (and in fact there was a lot right), we still had to counter the negative perception, launching into a lengthy explanation whenever we talked about what we did once a month. And that frustrated me exceedingly. Why should I have to think twice about posting photos or videos of my family dancing together? Why couldn’t dancing be evaluated on its own merits, with the acknowledgement that not all dancing is made alike? Why was the wholesome and the unwholesome all lumped together into this single category that therefore became taboo? Why were outdated, now inaccurate mindsets so entrenched? Shouldn’t we see if the Bible has anything to say about dancing before we make it a shameful thing? I say we should. So let’s look.

There are 29 verses in the Bible that mention dance/dancing: 24 in the Old Testament and 5 in the New, in the books of Exodus, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Interestingly, only 2 of these verses are prescriptive, meaning they state what someone should or shouldn’t do. The rest are descriptive, meaning they simply describe something rather than instruct. Since the descriptive verses are the large majority, let’s look at those first.

Twelve of the verses contain a historical account of someone actually dancing. These include Miriam and the Israelite women when God brought them out of Egypt (Ex. 15:20), the Israelites at the Golden Calf incident (Ex. 32:19), Jephthah’s daughter upon his return from battle (Judg. 11:34), the women of Shiloh at an annual feast of the Lord (Judg. 21:21, 23), Israelite women celebrating David’s victory over Goliath (1 Sam. 18:6), Amalekites celebrating a military victory (1 Sam. 30:16), King David when he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:14, 16; 1 Chron. 15:29), and Herod’s daughter at his birthday feast (Matt. 14:6, Mark 6:22). Only the Israelites at the Golden Calf and Herod’s daughter, who ended up using her body to gain favor and to manipulate, fall into the less-than-savory category of dance. The rest were dancing in pure celebration and joy, and some were even directly praising God with their dancing.

Three other verses allude to actual dancing: 1 Samuel 21:11 and 29:5 speak of dances that the Israelites used in celebrating David’s victories, and Psalm 87:7 refers to “singers and dancers” who praise the Lord. Three more are found in parables or teachings of Jesus: the characters in the prodigal son scene dance upon his return (Luke 15:25), and figurative people do not dance in the simile Jesus uses to describe what the people of his day were like (Matt. 11:17; Luke 7:32). In Job 41:22, dancing is used in an anthropomorphic way to describe how terror reacts to the Leviathan. And Jeremiah 31 contains two verses that tie dancing to a promise of future blessing where the people will “go forth in the dance of the merrymakers” (v.4) and young women will “rejoice in the dance” (v.13).

Finally, six verses reference dancing to paint a picture or make a point: Job argues that the wicked prosper in spite of their wickedness and points to their children dancing as evidence of their prosperity (Job 21:11); Solomon asks why others should look at his beloved as they would at “a dance before two armies” (Song of Sol. 6:13); and Isaiah prophesies that “wild goats will dance” in a ruined Babylon (Is. 13:21). Others contrast mourning and dancing, with Solomon stating there is a time for each of them (Ecc. 3:4), Jeremiah bemoaning that dancing has been turned into mourning (Lam. 5:15), and David rejoicing that mourning has been turned into dancing (Ps. 30:11).

Overall, most of the descriptions suggest that dancing is a positive, or at least neutral, thing. But there are still two verses remaining, and these are the ones which use “dance” as an imperative, i.e. a command. Psalm 149 begins, “Praise the LORD! Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly!” (v. 1) It goes on, “Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre!” (v. 3). Similarly and more blatantly imperative, Psalm 150:4a reads, “Praise him with tambourine and dance.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if God commands something, we can be pretty certain that it’s not wrong.

Of course, these commands are directly tied to using dance as a means to praise God, so just as these verses do not condemn dancing neither do they say that all dancing is therefore good and right. Dancing is like money—it’s not inherently good or evil in and of itself; it all depends on how you use it. Certainly there are types of dancing that are engaged in out of a motive to stir up misdirected desires in someone else (or ourselves), to draw attention to oneself in pride or self-centeredness, or to manipulate others for our own gain, and followers of Christ are rightfully opposed to such uses of dancing. But there are other ways dancing can be used as well, ways which uplift, strengthen community, and bring a pure delight in the Lord and in His good gifts of music and movement.

When the Church blacklists all dancing, it does so without any Scriptural backing and falls into the trap of legalism. Instead, prudence can and should rule the day, whereby reason helps us see that it is abundantly possible to dance and not to sin. With this foundation laid, I’m excited to share some of the beauties I have found in dancing, how it brings delight to my life and to my relationship with the Lord.

But for that, you’ll have to stay tuned for Part 2!

Lessons from Literature: Relationships that Last (The Last Battle)

This past weekend, I had the joy of reuniting with a dear friend from childhood. We’ve known each other since we were about four years old and were pretty much inseparable until I moved away at age ten. Since then we’ve kept in contact off and on, though not as much as either of us would like, and when we see each other, we can step right back into our old familiarity. As someone who is given to fierce loyalty and hates to experience lost relationship, I treasure this friendship that has survived over two decades, multiple moves, and different stages of life. It may look different than it did when we were in elementary school, but it still exists and is a reminder of the strength of true friendship.

Someone once told me that we shouldn’t try to hold on to early relationships our entire lives. As we enter different stages of life, he said, we can’t expect friendships from one season to move into the next, and we shouldn’t be disappointed when they don’t. In some ways, I could see his point, and I have come to see the blessing of season-specific encounters. But in other ways, I find it difficult to acknowledge that friendships are not meant to last.

At the same event where I reunited with my first friend, I had a conversation with someone else about the loss of friends’ presence, whether through their moving to another state or passing away. “But we’ll all be together again in Heaven,” she said. What a beautiful thought that is. It got me thinking about Heaven and about a book I just recently finished reading, The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis. Until the last few chapters, I had decided it wasn’t my favorite installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series, but I loved the last two chapters so much that they singlehandedly catapulted the book into my top three.  

**SPOILER ALERT**

In the last two chapters, Lewis paints a captivating picture of what he thinks Heaven and eternity will be like. When I finished the book, I didn’t spend much time analyzing why I felt so stirred by these chapters, but the experiences of this past weekend led me to identify one of the elements that connected so powerfully with me—the reunions. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy reunite with friends from every season of their Narnian adventures and with their family from Earth as well; other characters reunite with their own friends and family; and all meet those whom they had heard of but had never known. It’s beautiful.

For some reason, I often sense that we tend to minimize the relational aspect of Heaven. Of course, it’s all about being united with God and meeting Jesus face to face, but it seems that in the Church we often dismiss the human element that will be present in Heaven. It’s as if we think of Heaven solely in an individualistic way, as if it’s going to be just “me and God.” But it’s not. Everyone who is in Christ will be there. And what basis do we have for thinking that we will not know each other or that if we do we won’t be cognizant of any prior relationship with anyone?

The only thing I can think of that perhaps feeds this idea is the statement Jesus gave in response to a question from the Sadducees about whose wife a woman would be in the resurrection, since she had been married and widowed multiple times. He replied, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:29b-30, ESV). So we know that those who are married here on earth will not be married in the afterlife, but sometimes it seems as if we have expanded this idea to the point that we think people won’t even remember that they were married. I’m not so sure that’s going to be the case.

We know that God is a relational God. Relationship is woven into the very fabric of His nature as a triune Being. We also know that He created us to be in relationship with Him and with each other. He created Eve for Adam so that Adam would not be alone. He sacrificed His own Son so that we could be restored into relationship with Him. So why wouldn’t relationships still be important once we all reach Heaven? True, they will not look just like they did when we were on earth. For starters, we won’t have our fallen natures to deal with! But I tend to think that we will remember our earthly experiences and that our joy in reuniting with those we know will bring glory to God, the One who created us and gave us each of those relationships to begin with.

Ultimately, apart from what Scripture tells us, anything we imagine Heaven to be is purely speculation at this point. We have no way of knowing how close Lewis’s conception of the land to which we are called is to reality. But the lesson of Lewis’s description is still powerful because it is based in the very relational character of God: friendships are gifts, and they are worth cultivating and celebrating. Our sovereign God has brought people into our lives, and, whether He has them there for only a brief season or the remainder of our earthly existence, He has put them there for a reason, and it behooves us not to regard them flippantly, even if we cannot ascertain what the reason is. And who knows, maybe Lewis isn’t that far off base after all.

I’ll close with a few of my favorite passages from the final chapter of The Last Battle, because, as usual, Lewis says it best.

Then Tirian saw King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Lucy rush forward to kneel down and greet the Mouse and they all cried out “Reepicheep!” And Tirian breathed fast with the sheer wonder of it, for now he knew that he was looking at one of the great heroes of Narnia [...] (p. 203).

Everyone you had ever heard of (if you knew the history of those countries) seemed to be there. […] And there was greeting and kissing and hand-shaking and old jokes revived, (you’ve no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it out again after a rest of five or six hundred years) and the whole company moved forward to the center of the orchard […] (p. 205-206).

About half an hour later—or it might have been half a hundred years later, for time there is not like time here—Lucy stood with her dear friend, her oldest Narnian friend, the Faun Tumnus, looking down over the wall of that garden, and seeing all Narnia spread out below (p. 206).    

And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before (p. 210-211).

Lewis, C. S. “Farewell to Shadowlands.” In The Last Battle. New York: Scholastic, 1995.