NO TIME TO TANGO! (From the Archive)
A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 3 Issue 7 originally published in September/October 1995
Yes. Life has been called "the dance." There are many reasons behind this terminology. I believe early Macedonians had referred to life as "the crawl," but decided that didn't have enough oomph. Of course, in the Macedonian period, life was only one of three existences: life, afterlife, and shopping. The post-impressionists melded life and shopping, therefore giving it enough verve to be associated with rapid movement, ie. "the dance."
The question remains: what kind of choreographed movement analogy is our specific and individual life as a Christian? Certainly we’d like, to associate the term with excitement, applause, and Aaron Vokoun ("Prince" in The Masterpiece) utilizing his feet as points A and B in a straight geometric line that makes all men go “ouch.” But there is an element of the dance that we tend to leave out: discipline.
The dance is rarely leaps and cheers. There are so many rehearsals, pratfalls, accidents, and lost lunges that a bystander might think that dancers are the most miserable people in the world. So, many of us cut to the chase and forget to stretch. We want to be finished with learning the dance so bad that we turn to the quickest possible way to be elegantly impressive. We Tango!
The Tango (coming from a Greek root word meaning “to dance with astronaut beverages”) originated from a group of Pre-Post-Impressionistic Anti-Meridians who felt that disciplined movement like the ballet or synchronized swimming just took too darn long to figure out. They opted for the quick and easy route.
It seems to me that I recall God telling us “in whatsoever (we) do, do it as unto the Lord.” He didn’t seem to specify that we only give this kind of effort to tasks that garner praise to ourselves. He didn’t tell us to praise Him just when it suited our mood. He didn’t tell us to give thanks occasionally. He didn’t tell us to study to show ourselves passable.
God has called us, the bearers of the Christian life, to something much higher than that which we are actually reaching. He has called us to a beautiful dance. A dance that begins by stretching and is continually filled with leaps and falls, with hurdles and wonderment. A life that evokes both applause and silence. A life that is willing to practice, exercise, and hurt in order to learn. A life that is willing to take the effort of a ballet over the instant gratification of a Tango.
That is the true movement of God in the world: when those He has created take on some of the responsibility given by the Creator to continually discipline ourselves past what will just pay our way into Heaven. It is at that point that we will see past the applause of the moment and into the discipline that will carry us much further than our motions, into a glimpse of the true heart of the Dancer.
Next: “The Wrong Green” A Dramatic Moment from TOTAL IMPACT Vol. 3 Issue 8 originally published in November/December 1995