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'Sunset over a River'
Breathing is dancing. Movement is the basic nature of this we call life. To say "I am" is to say "I dance." Life sways freely over Earth and Sky. To be alive fully is to join in. And there is potentially an infinite number of ways to dance, each and all the way Life moves us and among us.
A joyful moment during my mother's dying process was sharing a song with her. She was a devout Christian and enjoyed old-time gospel hymns. With eyes closed - now, they were always shut - she began singing an old hymn we often sang in the little Baptist church. I joined her. Amid death, we were celebrating life. This celebration is of the playfulness I write of today.
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March 2018 Florida -
Just finished, now driving from the cemetery in Savannah, GA. See, I work in dying and death - some would say. In some sense, they are right. Today, already two of my patients dead. Another, they said expired a few days ago, so we stood in this lovely death yard to honor her. Ashes of the mother rested in an urn, nearby remains underground of two sons that went before - one age eight from falling off a horse.
I speak of love and life - about living before death, rather than being one of the walking dead. I mean, she is dead, so we remain to live or not before we die - and we will die, each of us on this spinning planet. We already are dying - life and death are a unity - and all talk of an afterlife will not save us from death. So, why not live now?
Anyway, back to the beginning... Now driving away, two visits still today, they say about death... yes, in some sense. Suddenly, a felt-wish arises to let go of all this seriousness, this dying and death. And - do what? - turn on some music, music playful, music fun. I rarely do this on the road, so the arising of such inspiration surprises. - Why do I still get surprised at what Grace surprises me with, after all the surprising surprises?
What to listen to? I think. Why not Sheryl Crow, "My Favorite Mistake"? A song about a romantic breakup, but I find it playfully presented, kind of whimsical holiness. I have been through breakups. I find them, in looking back, at least some of them, humorous as to how they played out: then, not so.
I find the song on my phone, turn it on, turn it up, and enjoy - I really mean that enjoy, as in-Joy. I listen for about an hour. I turn it off on driving into the next patient and family's driveway. I can be present-with again, here. Loved ones are staring into the face of death. I can stare with them and, thereby, love them.
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I ponder this... Spirit has no problem moving from one apparent extreme to another apparent extreme.
Life is too serious not to be playful, and religion can be playful, too. Not like the Catholic priest who got into trouble with the church hierarchy, for he danced gladly, thankfully around the Altar and Eucharist. Anyway, the Greek word used for the Trinity, by the Eastern churches, is from "to dance ." That hints at the Divine playfulness. Possibly, children remind us who are adults of the playfulness we have replaced with cheap entertainment, with looking at a computer or tv screen, passive. In contrast, children naturally want to move about, laugh, scream, and dance.
I am much more playful than earlier in life: I was raised on serious, deadly religion. And I am more comfortable with the extremes than earlier in life and holding them together at the same time. The more I have been drawn into the heart, the deeper the Yes to Life, the more playful the Yes.
At times, I have appeared to shock some of my colleagues, seeing they image a chaplain being so-serious-minded and not kind-of crazy-at-times. Yet, we who work with the dying need a lot of comic relief, so why not a chaplain to provide some? After getting over the surprise of an ordained clergyperson having for-no-purpose-really fun, I find persons relax with this.
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Another lesson I am learning was confirmed this day. This truth might make living more joyful - death is Spirit's playfulness, too. I know that may sound weird, even uncaring, but I mean it. I do not mean the details of dying are fun or to be treated lightly - they can be painful, sometimes horrible. But death is not merely the details of dying, is it? I have been inspired by the Hindu teaching that all life is the Divine's dance, all of it.
Anyway, I have shared a lot of fun around death, with families of dying patients and with the one dying. We have shared many smiles and much laughter. I have oft been loved and inspired by their sharing humorously. Maybe, they have something to teach us about death and, yes, living before death. Could it be it is all the dance, and we called to dance with the dance? Maybe, in life and death, the dance is the normal, and we are danced, also. If so, that leaves us with a choice, does it not? What do you think?
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2020
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
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