Dancing - Two Stepping to Community 1-31-10

Anderson, South Carolina

One of the greatest joys in life must be gazing into the china blue eyes of a dear friend while dancing, lost in the wondrous strands of melody carrying us to a shared musical epiphany. For many years contra dance has provided a magical form of community, hundreds of us gathering in the mountains to dance away the night, sometimes for days on end.

Some of my happiest memories are with a dancer, Elaine, who lived three hundred fifty seven miles from me in a distant city. Meeting at dance weekends, we were lost in the music and each other, enjoying our own secret fugue states. Our fugue states even led us to explore the mysteries of Norman castles and Cistercian abbeys in Wales. The contra dance community has always been a nexus of relational delights. People come from amazing distances for dance weekends - sometimes driving twenty hours one way to get lost in each other’s eyes.

Over the years I have had several long-distance romances, spawned in that magic space in front of a caller and a group of gifted musicians creating states of flow in our collective psyche. One of the ways Elaine and I coped with those three hundred fifty seven miles was to get on the phone while we were in our respective kitchens and pretend to be dancing with each other. Alas, the distance conspired against us and Elaine eventually found a dancer close to home who didn’t have to pretend and could be part of her daily world. I never have forgotten those images of dancing around the kitchen table.

My church struggles greatly with being user friendly. I have often observed when members are on any sort of mission, my attempts at conversation with them are often rebuffed or ignored. During the course of a fund-raising luncheon this past week I made the mistake of asking one of the church employees if I could use a computer for a couple minutes to print out some signs to put on some sale items. One would have thought I had made derogatory comments about her mother and genetic history. I received a profoundly acerbic uncivil response, and this was not the first time by a long shot. I thought about going home right then but did not want to have to pack up the 24 pots of flowers I had just put out on the tables. Others in the church would not return the Peace when I offered my hand. I dealt with the cockleburs of the day by staying out in the parking lot by myself, telling six hundred seekers where to put their cars and where to find good soup. I didn’t figure much relational risk would be incurred by them just eating soup so I kept a happy face in place.

Over the years I have struggled with how I can make the place more user friendly. One of the strategies I have found effective is to give people the idea that we actually want them to stick around after services and get to know each other. Amazingly, I have fought others vehemently over this issue. As recently as the past week it was suggested to me by several members that we ought to abandon our social hour and tell people to go home and eat. One of the things I do to give people the idea they are wanted is to feed them, anything, at precisely the right moment.

In my attempts at keeping the refrigerators and freezers unclogged and the archeological digs in good order, I harvest old ossified hamburger buns, hot dog buns, and other breads of uncertain vintage and slather them with cardio-protective butter, margarine, and whipped spread. Broiled in a convection oven they become irresistible. When presented to people about to head out the door at 8:55 AM, the impulse to evacuate the premises is suddenly oblated. People who used to be gone within seconds are now hanging around an hour or more, accreting at several tables in the parish hall where I ply them with juice, seconds and thirds on carbs, and coffee. On bonus days they get chunks of fresh fruit. Some days there will be fifteen or twenty there doing their carb loading and building a bit of community. I get my kitchen archeology done. We are all winners.

It has often been said the kitchen is the heart of the home. Some of my well-worn kitchen towels even have this sound byte printed on them. Perhaps the church kitchen could have a similar role in catalyzing community. Thinking that if dance works so well at maintaining long-distance affections, I thought it might work for local ones in the church. A couple weeks ago on a Wednesday night I grabbed a fellow parishioner and made the cardinal mistake of dancing with her in the kitchen. The parishioner thought this a rather grand idea but one of the newly emergent kitchen bosses thought it a decidedly bad one. I was amazed at the astringent flavor of the acerbic uncivil response that erupted.

As if to insure my negative experience was multi-faceted and complete, I was firmly admonished for even thinking about doing something useful with the left-over food from dinner. I found this succulent catered food in the trash the following day. While doing archeology for recyclables in the trash cans, next to the fine teriyaki chicken, vegetable medley, and russet potato casserole that would have fed twenty Haitians, I found ceramic dishes, stainless steel cutlery, and my enthusiasm for building ecclesiastical community.

The subject of my daring to dance in the kitchen came up again yesterday, more than two weeks after I committed this felony against efficiency and sensibility. I asked if it really was true that projects were more important than building relationship. In front of five witnesses I was told emphatically ‘yes!’ I was told several times, “There will be no dancing in my kitchen!” Stupid me. I thought that kitchen was built and given to the glory of God; at last that is what the plaque on the wall says.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Can someone give me a compelling reason why I shouldn’t just stay home and do e-church and go to the dance hall