Dance. Just for Today

I’m tired of significant and meaningful and reflective.  I’m tired of seriousness and sin.  I’m weary of North Korea, and Congo and terror in Boston.  I want someone else to be responsible for today.  And I feel like a terrible human being admitting that.

Just for today I want to dance in the kitchen and hug my kids, and write a thank you note and eat fresh berries.

A friend of mine who works tirelessly for justice in the ugliest parts of the world was, at one time, on a sailboat in a lovely tropical port.  She said she wrestled with the incongruity, the unfairness of the situation.  Why should she get to enjoy such a lovely respite while so many are fighting for survival, enduring violence, and oppression?  How could she accept the gift that is her relatively privileged life?

As she prayed and journaled, what she felt God impressed on her has stuck with me.  She said she felt like the Lord was saying “Take this gift.  Soak up the refreshment I give you, but don’t stay here.  Use this beauty to fuel your efforts to transform ugliness elsewhere.”

So today, soak up good.

Listen to music that makes your soul soar.  (Like Hallelujahs by Chris Rice)

Watch movies that inspire (Like “42”).

Read good books (Like Undaunted and Bread and Wine).

Choose kind words.  Celebrate beauty.

And maybe dance in the kitchen.  Just for today.

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive.  There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”  George Eliot