I Danced And Now I Stand At The Back

There is a word you use about this and the word is sensible.

At the wedding you said you were being sensible. At the church thing where everybody got up you said you would just watch this time, sensibly, from where the coats were. At your niece's birthday you were the one taking the photographs, which is the most sensible position in any room.

And nobody has questioned it once, because a woman of your age standing at the back with a drink is the least remarkable sight in the world.

Here is what is underneath the word, and you know it, and you have never said it.

You danced from the age of six. You were the one people watched. Your body knew things it was never taught and did them without being asked, and there was a period of about fifteen years where being in a room with music in it was the best thing that happened all week.

And what your body does now is not that.

So you have made a decision, which you have never once framed as a decision, that if it cannot be what it was then it will be nothing, and you will stand at the back and be sensible.

That is not caution. That is a form of grief with a respectable name on it.

David danced with all his might

There is a moment in Samuel that most people know for the argument that comes after it, and the description itself is the part to look at.

And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. (2 Samuel 6:14, King James Version)

David danced before the LORD with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod.

With all his might. Not with all his skill. Not beautifully. Not at a standard.

You have a description here of a body doing what it could do with everything it had, and 2 Samuel 6:14 has never once measured it against anybody's technique. The verse says with all his might, and the Holy Spirit is the one who receives what a body actually offers rather than what it used to be able to offer.

You are able to hear how different that is from the standard you have been holding yourself to, which is not might but quality.

And the argument that follows is worth reading closely. Michal watches from a window and despises him for it, and the thing she says is essentially that he looked ridiculous, and that a man in his position should have more sense.

More sense. Which is your word.

You have been standing at a window in your own life, and the written word has never once sided with the person at the window. Second Samuel 6:14 leaves David dancing with all his might, and the Spirit of God is the one who is in the middle of a room rather than at the back of it.

I am not going to tell you that you can dance the way you danced at twenty two. I do not know that. What I know is that the reason you are at the back is not that your body cannot do anything. It is that your body cannot do that.

Might is not skill

Here is the distinction, and once you see it you cannot unsee it.

David is not described as a good dancer anywhere in that passage. He is described as a whole hearted one.

You are able to give something everything you have without it being any good, and 2 Samuel 6:14 has never once made those two the same measure. It is written that he danced before the LORD with all his might, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in an offering that would not have passed an audition.

Might is about how much of yourself is in it. Skill is about the result. They are different axes entirely, and you have spent eleven years scoring yourself on the one that has gone and forgetting the one that has not.

Your whole heartedness has not left. It is the thing that made you good in the first place and it has nowhere to go, which is why standing at the back makes you feel worse rather than safer.

And your children have noticed. Not the technique, which they never saw. They have noticed that their mother is always the one holding the coats, and they have drawn a conclusion about what women do as they get older, and they will carry it.

You have somebody watching you decide what a body is for, and every time you stand at the back that lesson has never once failed to be delivered. The Spirit of God is the one who teaches a household through what it sees rather than what it hears, and 2 Samuel 6:14 puts a king in the middle of the street with everything he had.

One whole song, in your own kitchen

So here is the assignment, and the setting is deliberately private, because the wedding is too big a first step and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

Put music on in your own kitchen and move to one whole song, with whoever is in the house.

You are able to give one song everything you have got today, and what that looks like now has never once been the measure of what it is. It is written that David danced before the LORD with all his might, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a kitchen with the radio on.

One song. Three or four minutes. That is the whole assignment and it is on purpose that it is not ten.

And the second half: together with whoever is in the house. Not alone. Your daughter, your son, your husband, whoever is there when the music goes on.

Because the thing that has to be broken is not your reluctance to move. You could move alone tomorrow. The thing that has to be broken is the being watched, and that is why a kitchen with one person in it is exactly the right size of hard.

You have a family that has never once seen you at your best, and to them what you do in a kitchen today has never once been a diminished version of anything. Second Samuel 6:14 has David dancing in public with all his might, and the Spirit of God is the one who gives a woman back a room she has been standing at the edge of.

Do not apologize while you are doing it. Do not say I used to be able to. That sentence is the whole of the problem in seven words and it will come up your throat about ninety seconds in.