Author: Joanne Buchanan-Brown
As I write this, it is Friday, June 21st and the Summer Solstice. I just returned from an afternoon of spiritually renewing friendship with four other women, all members of FCC. We had lunch, yes, but the nourishment was just being together and being just who we are, telling summer stories and sharing confidences that, frankly, can count as spiritual confessions, raw truth-telling that doesn’t happen in too many other places. There is a beautiful and flowing freedom in the times we are together, a respite from the stressors of daily life in the world these days, a letting go of any masks or images we may have had to put on and maintain at other times in other places. Do you have a group like this in your life? I sincerely hope you do.
One of the best things about this gathering is how God comes to me in a unique way. Like the poem by Sufi mystic Hafiz:
Every child has known God.
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird.
But the God who only knows four words.
And He (She) keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come dance with me.”
Come.
Dance.
On this first day of Summer, I want to encourage us that summer is a good time to let go into the God who invites us to just dance. Watch the green leaves dance with God. Smell the flowers dancing. Hear the birds dancing their little hearts out to and with and for God. Can we emulate nature that is green and blossoming and singing, dancing, with God? If we forget, just go to the words in the book Song of Solomon (also Song of Songs). Though the rains don’t seem to be over and gone these days (!) hear these words as if God is speaking just to you, and really drink them in for yourself. You might want to read them aloud and put your name own name in there somewhere…
My Beloved speaks and says to me;
“Arise my love, my fair one, and come away;
for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.
and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise my love, my fair one,
and come away.”Song of Solomon 2:10-13
Make this summer a spiritual feast and dance, dance, dance with God. I’ll try to do the same.
