The young women will dance for joy,
and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing.
I still wanna expand though. Partly because explaining the long way is my favourite and partly because I really like the story.
The last time I wrote about this I was sad that my dog Wendy had met an untimely end:
If you recall, she had turned vicious (would you believe it from the picture?) and had to be put down :-( I was angry and upset at the waste of life that it symbolised. It was strange, that night I mourned in a way I had not expected, at an intensity I'm not sure a dog deserves... and it felt like God was analogising my pain to His. I don't want to be flippant but I was incredibly aware, to some obviously limited degree, of all the terrible things in the world that He sees as a waste of life.The next day I was very sad. The weather was too - very dark, rainy, heavy and just generally nasty. I was battling this depressive mood and I just didn't understand how any of the trivially good things in this life that made God glad were a patch on all the darkness. You see, a day or two before I had this image of God smiling on us through a ray of sunshine... but what was one ray of sunshine in all the storm? This weather analogy was reinforced by the art show I had seen the previous day (as I left my very bad exam and was reminded of the important things in the world). It is called the Hard Rain Project and is a photo collection of images that were taken to accompany a song by Bob Dylan. Very powerful. It was printed on weather proof plastic and displayed open air (if you are in Bristol and reading this then tomorrow (Fri 1st May) is the last day and you can find it in the uni royal fort gardens - well worth it). The project calls the song prophetic and, since the artist managed to take tons of images from around the world that very clearly illustrate the lyrics, it is hard not to agree.
"Where the hunger is ugly where souls are forgotten"How is God not always crying?
Yet as I was in this place he pointed me towards one of my more ridiculous analogies. I rediscovered these in a drawer shortly after I became a Christian and was so delighted by the way I thought they had "prophecied over my life" that I framed them and put them up in my toilet. I call them the 'Pants of Power':
For those that can't see the writing, they say "imagine a brighter future" and there is a picture of a rainbow too!This day of mourning I suddenly felt like I was being told to once more imagine this brighter future, not just for me but for everything dark. What is with that? Everything is so sad, so utterly sad. Yet, well, two things. Firstly: a rainbow comes when sun shines through clouds and if I think God is sun and there are all these stormy clouds then the result should be that bright rainbow, right? Secondly: well, the bible promises a hope and a future (and rainbows symbolise promises) and it also says that all things are possible if we believe. So, what, imagine it and it can happen?!? OK, granted, the God stuff is less compelling if you ain't a Christian but who doesn't want the crap in this world to be improved? And the notion of belief making things better, well, positive thinking is touted all the time as a means to improve circumstance - this is just that to the nth degree.
Still. I wasn't at all sure how to do this. I was still sad for one... and it still rained. I went out to a jazz bar that night with some good friends and it was OK. Sort of. Nice to be with people that cared anyway. Then towards the end I decided I had to dance the last couple of songs, even though I felt blah. So I stepped out onto the floor... and the song, would you believe it, was "It's the end of the world as we know it" (they were one of those funky country style bands that do amazing remixes). Then the last one was a fabulous mashup of "Seven Nation Army" with "Livin' La Vida Loca". So: this broken world is gonna be different, nothing can stop it, living life in all it's fullness!
It was like I claimed that on the dance floor. I still felt like Shi*t but I said yes to it. I suppose, really, I chose life. I imagined. And then what happened...?
The next day I went to a dance event. Not a pokey bar but an actual, very fabulous, jive night just down the track in Exeter. I got on the train (as opposed to missing it!) and as I traveled further south the sun came through the clouds and I knew everything was gonna be OK. And it was. I caught up with one good friend in the day and then introduced her to another good friend that night and we both made a load more friends! The whole weekend was just great but the dancing, oh boy was the dancing somin' else.
I love to dance and hadn't had the chance to in a while so when the (most excellent) band played for the freestyle set I really just had to go for it. It truly was dancing for joy. Not just with joy but actually for it. Claiming it, walking in it, twirling in it... choosing it with every part of my body. The moment they played "Shine" (with the genius incorporation of (if I remember correctly...?) "Hey Jude" - sad song, make it better?!) I knew that the brighter future was not just possible but, in that moment, it was there. Call it heaven, perfection, life, fullness, joy, happiness, eudaimonia (if you're poncy or an ancient Greek), bliss or the Kingdom of God... It was there in me. Hurrah!
And I think that actually "jiving for joy", or rather "living for joy", might just be what this is all about. I don't mean that it's never gonna be hard, or that we aren't on occasion in a time to grieve rather than dance, but in general we should not be at a place of mourning. The world is not dead yet. We ourselves are not dead yet. There is a hope for us all to escape a mediocre life and, if we imagine hard enough, for them out there to escape their proper actual suffering too. Everything, literally everything, can be changed for the better. So bring on the joy and let's get optimistic!
Since then it has more or less sun-shined non-stop. I have felt pretty chirpy these past two weeks too and it's the kind that don't get beaten by fluctuating dissertations or foxes. I think it might be His plan and it certainly feels like what life is supposed to be... but more on that another time because this is actually only half the post I was gonna write and it's already pretty long. The next installment is about what this brighter future, or "heaven on earth" looks like. It takes the form of a carrot at one point and, handily, there is also a formula for making it happen.
Oooh, just one more thing though. I recall something I said that Thursday night (before the sadness hit) about what I thought heaven would be like. It was one of those jokey this-is-what-I-like-now-so-I think-it's-that-all-the-time convos and I said that for me it would be dancing... Then the next two days with their little revelations happened... Then, as I got the bus home from the train station on Sunday in Brizzle, I got chatting to some girl and jiving came up. Randomly she goes every week and told me about her class on Monday nights! So I got home, saw Becca (my friend with whom I tried jiving (also in Exeter, I haven't analogised the dancing in Devon yet but it is curious!) two months ago and have since wanted to find a class together) almost straight away, and now we're excited to go just as soon as we can...!
So, well, if heaven is dancing then it seems I should be getting on with it asap. More generally, if life is about having heaven (or "heaven") now and dancing means joy, then maybe everyone should be getting on with it. After all, I think that living life in all its fullness might just be the point. Incidentally so did Jesus, but that's another story...
P.S. I'm not saying just switch on joy but rather to decide to actively look for it and then, if you find it, choose it. God helps if you've got Him. If not, well, you tell me...?!
3 comments:
You'll be pleased to know Hey Jude was the genius idea of one Mr. Williams. He's a good lad, that one.
Is this a reply to the one above? If so, I meant to leave an independent comment and got muddled by the buttons. I'd hate for anyone else to be unwillingly associated with my flippancy.
As far as living life in all its fullness goes, I'm leaving you some Joyce on Jesus: "He was a bachelor, and never lived with a woman. Surely living with a woman is one of the most difficult things a man has to do, and he never did it."
At first I just thought you'd think it was funny. I love how, even though he's (at most) half-serious, it tells you v little about Jesus but loads about Joyce's relationship with his own long-term partner: the implicit tolerance, sense of duty, and ultimately the love that makes you stick it out. That kind of intimacy is so crucial to being human, it seems like a life without it would have such a hole in it. Ah, I get the 'marriage is an analogy of Jesus and his Church' thing, but I bet Jesus never had to pick the Church's suspenders off the floor for the nth time in a row, and bite his lip to keep from saying anything, as if he did, it would deliberately flirt with St. Peter to try and piss him off.
...please don't take anything I say seriously. :)
Nathan: Indeed Mr W is v cool... and it turns out v prophetic too! :-P
Don't worry Becca, here on blogspot commenting is linear and well-ordered. That is: you don't have an option who to respond to, you just talk...
Thing is, though. I want to take what you say a bit seriously 'cause I think it is a very interesting point. Not least that I was thinkin' only yesterday about how relevant the issue of sexuality is in spirituality. (Perhaps that's why Joyce makes... ummmm...!). Who knows, maybe spring is neither holy nor horny but both?!
But you say so much more, I just can't answer here... there will have to be a blog response! :-D
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