Ministry

October 3, 2004

Learn to Follow, Learn to Lead Reverend Jane Bramadat

Meditation

Boundaries

The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and plants spinning
Through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons, even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless nor ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?
from: Blessing the Bread by Lynn Ungar UUA Meditation Manual, 1996

Question: This poem asks one of the big questions: Where do you fit in the scheme of things....and how do you act because of that?


Sermon

This morning I want to tell you the story behind the song, "Let It Be a Dance" but first I want to share with you a bit of my fascination with the quantum string theory...in my mind there's a close relationship between the song and the string theory! And that relationship has to do with dancing.

The string theory is an attempt to put together a unified field theory (Brian Greene- the Elegant Universe) It just might, ultimately, solve the conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics. (Sylvester James Gates, U. of Maryland, interviewed by NOVA) - Physicist Amanda Peet from the University of Toronto (interviewed by NOVA) describes the string theory as: "the fundamental constituents of everythingÑmatter, like electrons, and the forcesÑare essentially tiny, tiny vibrating strings. So it's as if there's this tiny little rubber band that's inside all of the molecules in your body and so forth, and that explains everything, at least in the string approach." These strings are so small they would be the size of a tree if compared to the whole universe....

What does this have to do with dancing?

Well this theory is described in dancing terms over and over again. The strings are: ''vibrating in an interwoven circular motion'(Robert Johnson), or they are: 'Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a [sometimes furiously] vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament' (Brian Greene) or 'that all there is participates as it were in a great harmonious Dance' (Giuseppe Del Re)
This is quite an audacious theory and one that has both supporters and detractors. It is also a theory that helps to bring all things into relationship and in a most creative way.
Dancing is always about being in relationship - whether the dancing is being done by the universe as a whole or by an individual or by a group. It is about vibrating, moving to the rhythm of life that is sensed. When we choose to be part of a religious community we are choosing to move to that particular rhythm.

Now when I am asked which songs are particularly Unitarian or Universalist, I immediately think of three songs: Spirit of Life (Carolyn McDade); One More Step (Joyce Poley) and Let It Be a Dance (Ric Masten) All three of these composers are still alive and still composing each in their own inimitable style.
This year, after much discussion and more laughter the Canvass Committee with the support of the Board decided on "Let It Be a Dance" for its canvass theme. This makes the song, "Let It Be a Dance" the obvious choice to help explicate this year's canvass message.
But it is my guess that very few of your know the story behind the writing of this song. First of all, here are the words which we sang earlier this morning:

Chorus
Let it be a dance we do. May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times and the bad times too, let it be a dance.

1. Let a dancing song be heard. Play the music say the words,
and fill the sky with sailing birds,
Let it be a dance, let it be a dance; let it be a dance.
Learn to follow, learn to lead, feel the rhythm, fill the need
to reap the harvest, plant the seed.
Let it be a dance.

2. Everybody turn and spin, let your body learn to bend,
and like a willow in the wind,
Let it be a dance, let it be a dance; let it be a dance
A child is born, the old must die,a time for joy,
a time to cry. Take it as it passes by.
Let it be a dance.

3. Morning star comes out at night, without the dark there is no light.
If nothing's wrong, then nothing's right,
Let it be a dance, let it be a dance; let it be a dance
Let the sun shine let it rain; share the laughter, bear [bare] the pain,
And round and round we go again;
Let it be a dance.

And here is the story. I will tell it in a combination of mine and Ric Masten's words.The song is copyrighted in 1977 so he probably wrote in about 1975.
This song had its beginning in what Ric described as a "horrendous tragedy." Two of Ric and Billie Barbara's children, both daughters, were attending a high school and taking modern dance - quite successfully - and were offered along with other dance students, the opportunity to go with their teacher in a van to watch professional dancers perform in a city several hours from where they lived. Both his daughters wanted to go in the worst way, but both of them had other commitments they had made and could not go. Several of their closest friends did go, however. After the performance, as Ric puts it: "Late that evening coming back in a blinding rainstorm, a drunk going a hundred miles an hour, jumped the center divider and crashed head on into the loaded VolksWagon bus. The teacher and the two girls in the front seat were killed outright and a number of the other young women were seriously injured."
One of Ric's daughter's best friends was in the van and her kneecap was so badly crushed that she was told she probably wouldn't walk again without a cane, and certainly wouldn't dance again. Not only that, but one of her sisters was one of the girls in the front seat who had been killed. Ric visited her in hospital and made her a wager. He wagered that "she would come dancing up [their] Big Sur dirt road exactly one year from that day." And what's more, (said Ric) "I would write the music and song that she would dance to."
Shortly after this time Ric was working in his garden and the entire music and lyrics to "Let It Be a Dance" came to him in one fell swoop. And one year to the day he had made the wager with his daughter's friend (Barbara Brussell), she did indeed come dancing down his lane (limping, it is true, but still dancing) to the music Ric had written. Ric recounts an interesting side light. Two photographers were filming the event, as Ric thought he might be able to use the sight of Barbara twirling down the lane on the next album cover of his songs. Ric said: " Both cameras meticulously filmed and recorded the event but nothing developed but gray. On both rolls of film. Some events are simply to precious to be photographed I guess."
Barbara Brussell did recover and is now a cabaret singer and performer....

Ric had other motivation to write this piece as he had been asked to write something for the UUA GA and he knew that the feature speaker that year was Sam Keen who was going to be talking about his book To a Dancing God.
There's one other major part to the story and it has to do with the last verse. The line is: "Let the sun shine let it rain; share the laughter, bear [bare] the pain." Bear the pain...the way it is spelled, bear the pain it means that one should bear the pain in the same way one bears sorrow or a heavy load...with difficulty but if possible with dignity. This is not however, after several experiences of singing the song, this was not the way Ric wanted the word to be spelled or to be understood (he is dyslexic and often has difficulty with spelling.)
He wanted it spelled "bare" bare the pain - that is, acknowledge that you have pain...don't keep it inside like a martyr. But he is also quite a mischievous person - (perverse is actually the word he uses!), so when the UUA Hymnal Commission asked if they could publish his song in the book we use almost every Sunday, "Singing the Living Tradition," [Ric said:]
ÒOf course. Be my guest. But in a sneaky way I decided to send the Committee a page clipped from one of my published books with the lyrics printed (and obviously proofed) with out any "bear/bare" commentary (spelled in these proofs, "bare"). I was interested to see what the committee would do."
"Well, without consulting me they changed the spelling from ÒbareÓ to "bear" which tickled me greatly. Of course, they did send a copy of the manuscript for me to proof before The Living Tradition went to press. But I kept mum about it. Why? Well, that typo has given me the punch line for every concert and reading I've done since then."
"I even use the Òbear/bareÓ spelling difference when I officiate weddings -- counseling the couple about how the word must be spelled in a successful marriage."
I don't imagine I would give quite the same advice as Ric gives his wedding couples...because I believe that any marriage that lasts more than a few months will require both kinds of bear....that kind that means one must bear compromise; and the kind the requires each partner to bare their mind, heart and soul to each other on a regular basis...
So that's the story of Ric Masten's "Let It Be a Dance."

But I'm not quite finished because I need to explain why I picked the title I did for this sermon. It also comes from the same song...'Learn to follow, learn to lead, feel the rhythm, fill the need, to reap the harvest, plant the seed. Let it be a dance."

These particular lyrics for me are evocative of our canvass theme. Here we are a religious community of people who need to both follow and lead - sometimes one, sometimes the other; a religious community of people who need to sense the rhythm of opportunity, or possibility, of creativity, for themselves and for those both within and outside our community.
We most particularly are at the time when we are asked to fill the need of our community for financial stability... but much more than that, to fill the need with an excitement that comes from bringing on financial health and the chance of fulfilling the dreams we all have for this congregation, this religious home, this place of nurturance and challenge; this place where we can move beyond our more narrow concerns and bring some determined support and justice to the larger world as well.
"To reap the harvest, plant the seed....and let it be a dance."
When I lived in Trinidad in the West Indies, I would wash off a plate that had had left-over tomatoes on it and I knew that within several weeks I would find baby tomato plants growing beside the open drain where that water from the sink had gone and splashed over the edge. The climate was so fecund, so rich in the right air and soil needed, that you couldn't stop the tomatoes from growing even if you wanted to.
I encourage you to join me again in casting your seeds for the present and future into the rich loam of this community and together watching it grow to make its dreams a reality, in harvesting what we all contribute, in being part of the dance..

Oh Jane, some of you will be thinking, I really enjoyed hearing about the string theory and your story about "Let It Be a Dance" - why did you have to go and ruin it by bringing up money....that's not nice....I was drifting, dancing really, on a nice cloud of memory and metaphor and appreciation for all Ric Masten's lyrics and experiences. This all has nothing to do with money.

Ah but it does.
Ric Masten's lyrics tell us over and over again to experience the fullness of life: let your body learn to bend... like a willow in the wind; a time for joy, a time to cry... Take it as it passes by (don't avoid it, don't ignore it, take it!); without the dark there is no light...
If nothing's wrong, then nothing's right, ...And round and round we go again. Let it be a dance.... Our world contains the material stuff as well as the stuff of mind and spirit... or as John Holt said: We learn to do something by doing it - there is no other way."

And I guess for me, I resonate...vibrate to Natalie Goldberg's quotation..."If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution [your religion]." That is, I need the metaphor of dance to feel I am being the best I can be - that I can make sure that I am pushing the edges of my courage, my love, my possibilities to their utmost...to transform who I am, to turn myself round and round until I "come round right."

There is no other time to decide on your commitment to yourself, to life, to this religious community. It is always now....and to be fully the best person you can be, your answer needs to be YES to those people and places; to those values and dreams; to those who dance to the same rhythm of life as yourself.

Dancing by yourself can be very fulfilling for some time, but ultimately there will be an inexorable pull to dance in community - to feel the vibrating rhythms that give you the opportunity to grow, to participate, to feel safe in supportive arms, to know you have reached out to others and made a difference and added to the dance.

May I have this dance with you? Consider taking one more step...and then another, and then another, until the pace has us dancing in ways we could never have contemplated alone.

May I have this dance with you?


Closing Words

Let me leave you with some of the words of Lee Womack's song, I Hope You Dance:

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean;
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens.
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance -
I hope you dance
I hope you dance."

...................................................
and then...

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?
Do you know that the song they are singing
is based on the dance they can see you doing?
Let it be a dance we all do.