Two to Tango

Two tango on an open dance floor.

I sat in a golden brocade dining room as a waltz played, waiters cleared tables and set up for the milonga that followed dinner. This last year's been a difficult one, both personally and professionally.... it's been a year of loss. It's been a year of trying to trust, when trust has been difficult. It's hard to set your sights on what the future holds when everything you thought was going to be, isn't. 

I lost an important friendship because, to them, there were other priorities. I unexpectedly lost a family member. I lost a job through a restructure. Sure, I survived it and I'm still working for the same organization in a new role, but the team I worked with is gone, each dispersed to other areas. It was a team that had each other's back, we supported one another and genuinely cared for each other's well-being. That restructure has been the last three and a half months. Three and a half months of grieving. Three and a half months of working on a huge project without the security of knowing whether or not I would still be employed when all the pieces landed. Loss is hard. Grieving is hard.

I am, again away for another dance weekend, because - quite frankly - I need it. I am here because my heart and my mind can rest. I am here because my body can expel the pent-up energy and grief. I am here because I need a reset. I know when this weekend is over my body will ache. My muscles will be tense and tight from being worked in ways they are not used to. My heart will be content no matter how sore my feet are.

Humans were created to dance. It is an innate expression of creativity. I hear music and my body wants to move. Tap my feet, move my hips, spread my arms, adjust my posture, and point my toes. Miriam danced. David danced. In fact David danced so hard before the Lord that his garments fell off.

Across cultures dance has different purposes. Dance can be an act of war. It can be an act of love. It can be a conversation. It can be an exchange, or even a gift. Despite all of my loss, I have this gift of dance. God has been teaching me what it means to lead and follow in life, what a conversation is, and what a partnership looks like. He's taught me what grace and mercy mean through dance.

After dinner the first night I took an all levels class in Argentine Tango. Yes, that tango. It's beautiful to watch. When I mention it to those who only know tango as the "sexy dance", I am obligated to discuss the culture of social dancing across styles, where everyone dances with everyone else. I also point out that sensual bachata can ... um.... be far more "sexy" than a tango. In tango you don't hold a frame, you enter into an embrace, like you were meeting a very dear friend, and the embrace originates at the chest. Tango is very sensual, but so is taking a bite of your favorite pie. This dance is about connection, and that connection is at the heart not the hips.  It is meant to be a place of rest and a place of protection. It is a conversation, and at times, a playful one. 

My understanding of partner dancing just went to a whole new level ... and so did my faith. 

The dance communities that I am a part of are welcoming safe places to grow. I feel like I've become recognized fairly quickly. My dance heels have been called my "magic shoes." I put them on and I carry myself differently. I've learned to become comfortable in my skin, and confident in my own sense of being. So starkly different than the girl who only knew that safety meant silence and compliance, and to temper my heart and mind to handle whatever was thrown at me. I've been through hell. Silence and submission were modes of that survival, not a place of thriving in life. A couple of years ago, there was someone I traveled with to dance, and for a time he showed me what godly mutual submission looked like. What vulnerability, emotional intimacy and support looked like. What was missing was commitment, partnership in actually moving forward. That was a deep loss for me, but it was also a season for which I am grateful to learn that good men still exist. 

So when a man looks over, nods in my direction, I take his hand, and we walk to the floor and embrace, I sense that this is going to be different than everything else I've learned in ballroom and Latin dance. Tango was no longer intimidating. "There are no wrong steps, only new moves," I was told. Move within the phrasing of the music as you feel it. When the lead pauses, take time to move, extend, and play. It is beautiful. It is rebellious. It is unspoken communication. It is connection. Later that lead took me aside, and gave me every opportunity I wanted to practice in this new discipline. At times we tangoed in the center of a crowded dance floor while couples waltzed around us, or moved between traditional bachata and tango within the same song. I took what I knew of other social dances and ran with it. The hard work of balance, knowing what foot I am on, how to transfer weight, and picking up on the lead's cues all seemed to be paying off. Something was clicking for me. 

So how does any of this apply to my faith? I was willing to move out of what was comfortable into something I didn't know and just barely understood. On the drive home after the long weekend, I felt like there was something I was missing. I don't like not knowing. Knowing and anticipating is survival. Knowing, I could make informed decisions, but just like being a follower on the dance floor I don't always know where I am being taken. Following Jesus means my heart will follow the Holy Spirit wherever He leads, even if I don't understand it. It isn't always comfortable and the revelation that I had been lying to myself was a wake up call: a hypocrisy of not recognizing the image of God in every person I encountered, and it's parasitic. 

Matthew 25. Oh, Matthew ... the tax collector: an outcast, despised of society, who left everything, everything, to go and follow Jesus. When he recounts the prophetic moment Jesus talks about the separation of the sheep from the goats, he calls out how we treat those around us is the very way we treat Christ if he were physically standing in front of us. The sheep know the shepherd's voice and they follow. One is welcomed into a home that was prepared since the creation of time. They are the ones who clothed, fed, welcomed the stranger, and cared for those in prison. On the other hand, the goats went about their own way consuming what was in front of them. Instead of being welcomed, they were sent away ... to hell. They weren't sent away because they hadn't followed all of the religious and litigious rules, no they were sent away because they didn't recognize that the image of God was instilled in every human being. 

I wept. Lord, for years I've prayed for truth to be revealed. I've prayed for eyes to see the world, and everything in it, the way You do. In a covenant of grace, to God no sin that is worse than any other. Humanity is the one who says that one transgression is worse than another. In that moment, I was overwhelmed with the grief and the tremendous Love of Jesus. That He would not have only shed tears of blood, but take on every single sin, just for us to be welcomed, rather than sent away.  

It broke me. It broke my heart that I was walking in such profound God-given healing, and yet I was blind to the part of Himself that existed in another human. I still missed the mark. I wasn't fully following. I was mostly following. Ok, I was back leading. Alright, alright! I was participating in a disconnected solo, when all God wants is connection with each and every person. I missed key moments of conversation. I missed the connection. I missed the point: God created us to walk in relationship with Him and His creation, all of it, even the ones that the world has already written off. I missed the chance to talk about the healing. I missed the chance to talk about the connection, companionship, the grace, the mercy, and the tremendous Love that washes everything, changes everything, redeems everything. I did exactly what Jesus would not have done. 

Now what? I didn't feel condemned; I felt convicted. I wasn't coated in shame and fear, I was robed in grace and love. I felt Holy Spirit saying: I love you. I will never stop loving you. I may not agree with your choices and what you do, but I will never stop loving you. I wept. I acknowledged that I missed the mark. I apologized. God is in the business of restoration. The restoration God offers looks like healing and peace, a Shalom peace: a wholeness. 

If I am to live as someone healed by Christ, then I am to live as someone who see people as He sees them. I can walk in wholeness, and I can share that wholeness with a world that needs Him, simply by being present. All of humanity longs for a connection where they feel safe, heard, known, and valued - not for what they've done, but because they simply are. Walk through the pages of this blog and you will see that is all my heart has ever wanted. I am blessed to have friendships that demonstrate this love, His love, and hold me accountable to walking it out. 

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for God's love and an opportunity to change and grow to become more like Jesus. More like One who saw Himself in everyone He came in contact with. Even when Jesus turned tables, He called for accountability not punishment. He knew the bigger picture. He knew that morality can't be legislated. He knew those who defiled a place of worship would be back the next day profiting off religious obligation. Yet, Jesus died for them too and went further: He conquered death for them. He broke the curse, so we are free to choose relationship with Him without shame and guilt.

We are the hands and feet of Jesus. Be Jesus to someone, be Jesus to everyone. Life is messy; it's far from perfect. Knowing who God says I am, I can walk forward not controlled or coerced, not dominated, not degraded, but whole. In tango, there are no mistakes, only new moves. That's not shame, that's freedom. It's connection, and that's why it always takes two to tango.

Stirred,

Ruth