“At our most primitive we are storytellers and dancers.” – Anne Lamont

I had a good friend tell me once that if we could see our best attempts to communicate truths that are eternal, through the eyes of Him who is eternal, the greatest thoughts grasped, would in our feeble attempts to express and convey them, be as a child scribbling with crayons. It’s a humbling thing to come to grips with the profound limitations of our human self, and to realize that although everything within our flesh wants to deny such limits, we are here by grace, getting through this by grace, and therefore must communicate what we have received not “thought”, only from a posture of such grace.

I was exposed to the above quote by another good friend. She is someone who is clearly on the journey of not just cognitively knowing, but experientially understanding, what I stated in the above paragraph. So what exactly is a storyteller and a dancer? Why would I compare that with a child scribbling with crayons? A child only attempts to draw what he or she has seen, and often struggles to recreate on paper what is so clearly in their minds.

I have often times tried to guess what my son has drawn on a piece of paper. Due to the limits of his two-year-old vocabulary and ability to string words together, this can lead to a great deal of frustration for both if us. He becomes quite annoyed when he is trying his best to help me understand what he has drawn and I’m not getting it. It’s easy in the moment to forget that it is not just me, but in fact he, that is having the communication problem. Every part of my adult self is far further developed and capable to that of my toddler son. Consequently, in that moment, seeing him suffer, to help me know what He is trying to communicate, I rarely feel it is my fault, my inability, my lacking, that is causing this misunderstanding.

Yet when I try and communicate with him, the same tension applies. I search for ways and words to communicate what it is I am trying to get him to understand, but often times my most creative efforts simply have no ability to overcome the developmental gap. We are at an impasse of communication, unable to understand one another. Sounds simple and straightforward when looking at this in the picture of a two year old and an adult. But this picture may be far closer to the reality of our situation with communication with the Lord. But in this instance, the communication gap is entirely more one sided. The Lord is trying to communicate with us, and we are the ones with no capabilities; we need outside help, we need the Holy Spirit. He’s the only one who can teach us what “our” stories are really about, and why we are free to dance.

1 Corinthians 2:14 -man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The tension is created when my perspective is that the ability to communicate any truth, or understand that truth, lies within my natural self. Even in saying this must be careful because I believe scripture is clear that it is the “indwelling” of the Holy Spirit that makes truth proclaimed or understood possible (John 14:20). When I am saying “lies within my natural self,” I am saying without need of anything by my own rational, faculties, and capabilities, uninfluenced by Gods grace. We are so desperately dependent upon the Holy Spirit to guide us, and it is our pride-laced unwillingness that manifests itself in frustration that proves it. So what’s the alternative?

To hear (to listen, receive, and understand) the larger redemptive story, and tell our stories to one another in light of the larger story (proof of understanding). And as a result respond to what we have received by dancing (celebration and gratitude).

Dancing is the ultimate expression of being lost in something larger than you. We only dance when we are free and uninhibited, when we have slipped from the center of our focus and realize the truth that our story, is a valued part of the greater redemptive story that God has been writing since the creation of the world. It is when we experientially “brush up” against this truth that we stop being simply peddlers of our own limited tale, and begin to speak as humble co-authors or the great story that is being told to all the earth. When this shift occurs for us, the pressure of the “story is all about me” and all it’s of narcissism-paralyzing-side-effects begins to wane. We dance because we are free from the weight of a self-centered existence. We tell our stories with freedom and humility, soaked with the grace in which they are wrought. And we call others to be storytellers and dancers as well. Dancing is only foolishness if the cross isn’t real.

2 Samuel 6: 16- 22

As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart.

They brought the ark of the LORD and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the LORD. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD Almighty.Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!"

David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD's people Israel—I will celebrate before the LORD. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor."

1 Corinthians 1:18 -the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

I hope you wore comfortable shoes.