Let's Dance! (A Psalm of David ....Bowie??)

Over the past 2 weeks I have driven 24 hours, spread out over 5 days. That's a lot of time in the car and I have been listening to sermon podcasts but also a lot of music piped over the speakers from my phone.

Part of Sabbatical for me has been just being open for God to speak in unexpected ways, ears to the ground, eyes open in wonder. Eugene Peterson talks about cultivating wonder: "surprise, puzzlement, astonishment - GOD at work. and right here - in Jesus, in you, in me!" I would add: noticing God's creative image in those around me, joy at being alive, wonder at God's love lavished on me. . .

So anyway, I am driving along somewhere between Austin and the brown nothingness of Midland that makes the desert in Gao, Mali, look like a garden paradise, and I come across the David Bowie 80's classic "Let's Dance." I actually had this as my ringtone fairly recently because it just has such an awesome groove.

But the more I listened, I began to hear it as a song, a psalm perhaps, with God singing in joy and love over us and inviting us to join in. Wonder, in odd places. I doubt that is how David Bowie intended it so with apologies to him:

Let's Dance
Let's dance put on your red shoes and dance the blues

 Like most psalms, we start out with "the blues" - hard times. But there is intentionality to find joy (red shoes) and dance in spite of the blues.

Let's dance to the song
they're playin' on the radio

 God meets us where we are - with the song that is already playing on the radio.

Let's sway
while color lights up your face
Let's sway
sway through the crowd to an empty space

God invites us away to an empty space, alone with Him.

(Our response to God in submission and trust:)

If you say run, I'll run with you
If you say hide, we'll hide

 (God's declaration of overflowing love for us):

Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two
If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a flower

This last bit reminds me of Rich Mullin's line "Hold me, Jesus, cause I'm shaking like a leaf".

Let's dance for fear
your grace should fall
Let's dance for fear tonight is all ...

Let's dance put on your red shoes
and dance the blues

Let's dance to the song
they're playin' on the radio

Let's dance, Let's dance, Let's DANCE!

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Okay, sorry to anyone for whom I have ruined this most excellent song. I had doubts about posting this at all, but then last night I was reading the reading on Sacred Space devotional online and found this reflection of Jesus coming alongside us, as he did on the Emmaus road with downcast disciples:

Yet all at once there is someone, a seeming stranger, alongside … and what a change then takes place! And can it be the same with me, as I travel on my way, downcast and lifeless? Someone always alongside, who never gives up on me? Perhaps even he is my partner on what might be called ‘my dancing day’ – for, crazy as it may sound, he seems to dance, dance before me, so I find myself alive once more, and with vibrant movement coming back into my limbs. ‘He dances so that you may dance. He shows you what beauty is, his body awakens yours. He’s there to be your partner and everyone’s; sometimes you’ll see him opposite you, sometimes not … He gives you the fusion of his mind and imagination and flesh – his glorious body’ (Rowan Williams, Open to Judgement, p. 74).

 And then there is this verse, which is slightly more Baptist because God is just singing over us, not dancing :-)

Zephaniah 3:17 For the Lord your God is living among you.
He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”