Prayer Life is Dance Life

A song was shared to me the other day entitled "O Life Is Like A Sacred Circle". Here is the first verse and chorus:

Verse: I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road. We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance.

Chorus: We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance. I life is like a Sacred Circle when we walk the Good Red Road.

The person who shared this song with the group I was in then asked us to reflect on the lyric "we dance to pray" and what it could mean for each of us.

It was quickly pointed out that both dancing and praying are acts of vulnerability. That is, for many of us, dancing is not something we are trained in and as such we tend to shy away from. For as many people as I have heard say,  "I can't dance" I have heard that many people say "I can't pray." Dancing in public and praying in public each take a level of trust and vulnerability that our time does not encourage. 

It has also been my experience that there is a deep draw that dancing has on many of us. That is so many of us want to know how to dance. We want to be able to have the confidence and the moves, the rhythm and the smoothness of body to dance on the floor. The dance desire is also echoed in the prayer desire. That is many of us desire the words and speech, the poetry and prose to pray, and since we feel like we don't have those things - we don't pray. 

Prayer life is dance life. That is to say, the ones who I know have a vibrant prayer life are the same ones who are comfortable dancing. Through prayer, these individuals are accustom to being vulnerable and so the act of dancing is just another expression of the vulnerability they have practiced in prayer. 

Rev. John Thornburg, who was leading the discussion, said that the US is the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't dance". I would add that we may be the only place and time that has a culture of "I can't pray." 

I ask you to consider the mantra:

"We dance to pray. We pray to heal. We heal to live. We live to dance." 

How being naked enhanced worship

Image taken from here

There is a story in the Bible that conveys King David dancing before the arc of the covenant. And in the middle of this worship and joyful expression of a king dancing, many pay attention to the interpretation that King David may be wearing nothing more than an apron and his backside exposed. It is also understood that in this “surgical gown dance” David does is so full of joy that he literally throws his inhibition to the wind and dances near naked.

That is a sermon that I have heard more than one time and it is not a bad sermon, perhaps one that needs to be heard our “joy desert” culture.

However, I want to submit that David dancing near naked is actually enhancing worship and a form of social disobedience.

We have to remember that in the time of David, and even Jesus, it was shameful to see someone naked. It was more shameful to see someone else naked than to be naked. This is why Noah curses one son that sees him naked while blessing his other sons who were not exposed to this shame. It is also why it is political protest when Jesus says that if someone takes your clothes you should give them your cloak as well. Your nakedness will heap shame upon those who forced you into unjust nakedness.

David uses this naked/shame system as a form of social disobedience in order to enhance worship. When the King comes back into the city and everyone wants to hear the great story of the armies of David, David comes up with an idea to force people to literally turn their gaze to something else. By being naked (and one can imagine also that his whole staff might be dresses as the King) the people have a choice to make – make King David and his military the center of their worship celebration or look upon the arc of the covenant and make God the center of their worship celebration.

We do not have this same system of shame like David had. In fact today there is more shame to be naked than to see another naked, so it is difficult to imagine David’s culture. But if we can move beyond the puritanical impulses of our Puritan past, we can see a King who used a system of shame and his own nakedness to draw attention to God.

Sort of a genius move if you ask me.