When is the last time you felt alive? When is the last time you felt inspired?
For me, meeting new people with wisdom is always enlivens me (even if I meet these new people through books)!
So today, I want to tell you about a book of wisdom that I've come back to again and again: Awareness: the Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony De Mello. I loved it from the first words when De Mello says:
“My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it, fine; if you don’t too bad! As the Arabs say, ‘The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.'”
My eyes stopped here because how often are we all guilty of moving in the direction of someone else’s life path and not our own. We get bound by cultural blueprint of acceptability rather than what might be our new course to blaze. We get bound by ego. We get bound by how our choices will hurt somebody else.
But, when we do this, DeMello writes we aren’t awake to our own lives. We're sleepwalking.
Maybe I'm thinking about DeMello again because I'm at unique juncture in my professional and vocational life. I'm in the process of moving.
And, I've learned all over again that "dancing" for me is preaching, leading others, and communicating about deeper stirrings of soul through writing. So whatever I do in the future, I must do all of these things.
The picture in this post was taken at one such moment. I felt alive and so grateful to be leading with words of blessing for a gathered community. I was in the "zone" as they say.
But, in mid-June, I'll be full-time to a familiar city but without a job yet. And while so many people have an opinion about what I should be doing or what kinds of BIG jobs I should have (oh, this big pulpit is open, oh, I know you could work there, etc)-- the calling of God, I believe is to stay close to the dance that is mine to dance alone. What others people think I should be doing is simply rubbish!
It's that deep sense of knowing that will guide me, and the encouragement of those who know my heart the best.
DeMello says that when begin to make choices out of that quiet place within, we'll dance! And our dancing will be like rain on the parched ground for some whohave forgotten what joy looks like. Seeing us dance might remind them how to dance again too right where they are.
DeMello warns that others who are walking in the dark (and very much liking the way things are) will look at our dancing and point their fingers in exclamation of our insanity. "Stop living this way! Stop being so happy! You can’t live like this. You’re exposing our anxiety and loneliness. You’re exposing our fear."
They’ll say these things because they are jealous of our freedom. They’ll wish they could cut loose too. They haven’t yet learned to dance.
But no matter what, De Mello says, our invitation to dance is prepared.
When is the last time you felt alive? When is the last time you felt free with passion bringing light to your eyes that you thought was long past? When is the last time you danced?
For me, being connected to new ideas and meaningful conversations always enlivens.
In this matter, if you've followed my blog for long you know that reading and being introduced to quality books is one of my favorite things. So, how grateful I was to be given some new texts to check out via conversations with the regional director of Feed the Children East Africa, Seintje who I met over the course of our recent travels. Seintje, being a native of Holland and seminary trained in the UK, shared with me several of her favorites that were new finds for my collection.
And I didn't have to wait long to find them. After a stop at a Catholic bookstore in downtown Nairobi a couple of days ago, I was able to pick up a copy of one of her recommendations called Awareness: the Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony De Mello.
I was immediately drawn in to this book of insightful spiritual wisdom from the very first pages. Especially as I read these words of exhortation by Mello: "My business is to do my thing, to dance my dance. If you profit from it, fine; if you don't too bad! As the Arabs say, 'The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens.'"
What I love about this particular quote is the clarity of the idea shared. It's direct and to the point: how often are we all guilty of moving in the direction of someone else's life path and not our own. We so easily make the moves of our lives based on a cultural blueprint rather than what might be our new course to blaze. When we do this, we aren't awake to our own lives, as Mello writes. We are sleep walking instead.
I met several large groups of women this week who greeted our Feed the Children delegation with dancing and singing. No sleep walking for them, literally. As we got out of the car on several occasions, the welcome started cheering loudly and dancing with hands raised! These women could have had easily shied away from being themselves, we were strangers after all. But no matter what excuses they could have given-- they danced. They danced in their own way at their own pace with joy on their faces to be able to share their lives with us.
So too, this must be our way, says Mello. We all have our dance and we must get to it. Our dancing will be like rain on the parched ground for some who have forgotten what joy looks like. Seeing us dance might remind them how to dance again too right where they are.
Yet, others, who are walking in the dark (and very much liking the way things are) will look at our dancing and point their fingers in exclamation of our insanity. Stop living this way! Stop being so happy! You can't live like this. You're exposing our anxiety and loneliness. You're exposing our fear.
They'll say these things because they are jealous of our freedom. They'll wish they could cut loose too. They haven't yet learned to dance.
But no matter what, our invitation to dance by our God remains. We all get this invitation. Our dance card is ready. Time will tell where we will go. We just have to get to it: dancing our dance. It's ours to dance alone.
