Terry Paul Choyce
Nov. 20, 2005, Brunswick Street United Church
Desert Dance
By Danna Faulds from One Soul
I danced with my Lord in the desert and he showed me a cactus flower,
red like the blood of a thousand sunrises.
I danced with my Lord in the clouds,
and he presented me a garland of shooting stars.
I danced with the Lord in the pause between two breaths,
and he took my heart in his hands and blessed it.
We spun for ourselves a cocoon of silence
with no beginning and no end.
We moved until his face and mine grew indistinct,
until our essence merged and there was only love,
dancing beyond the boundaries of time and mind.
Then love whirled back into stillness, back to the land of lizard and cactus;
and knew itself as One.
I think Danna Faulds has written a psalm for today in this poem Desert Dance. She has captured the joy and the wonder of an intimate relationship with God. She is so appreciative for natural beauty - the desert, the cactus flower, the clouds, the stars. She experiences the sacredness of stillness and of silence and of reverence.
She dances with joy at the unity of all, of the Oneness that comes with the deep knowing and loving of God.
I have created our service today around Psalm 100. I would like to read the version of this psalm that is in the Promise Bible:
Shout praises to the Lord, everyone on this earth.
Be joyful and sing as you come in to worship the Lord!
You know the Lord is God!
He created us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, the sheep in his pasture.
Be thankful and praise the Lord as you enter his temple.
The Lord is good! His love and faithfulness will last forever.
I'd like this psalm to be the guiding passage of this church. For many of us life is stressful and difficult, but here we have a place of sanctuary and a place of community and a place of joy. I wish we could all dance into here every Sunday singing praises, and feeling thankful for our lives. And I hope when we are in this church our belief in the everlasting love of God is strengthened. I hope we leave this sanctuary feeling renewed and hopeful and ready to spread God's goodness into the rest of our lives.
In his book Super Joy Paul Pearsall writes: "Joy does not have to be earned. Joy is a natural human response, a natural human right. Our basic humanness does not have to be achieved, it must be received." For most of us our ability to feel wonder and joy diminishes as we get older. When I taught pre-school, I was always in envy at how excited a child could get over finding a shell on the beach, or dipping his fingers into red paint and smearing it all over the paper - and himself, or curling up into my lap to hear a story about Santa Claus. By the time a child is 10, there is no Santa, no lap-sitting, no red paint on the face, and one shell is like every other shell. The wonder of life is all but gone. What a tragedy. And what a disservice to God, who created so much for us to be happy and curious about. As Paul Pearsall said, joy is a natural response and a human right. The trick is how to keep our ability to "receive" the wonder of life - to see the beauty, humour, magic, and amazement in every day, common occurrences, like a child does. In Mark 10:15 Jesus says "I assure you that whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it." I think Jesus was referring to the innocense and joy of childhood. These can be reclaimed by us all.
What happens to us as we age? Some might say we become hardened by the realities of pain, fear, jealousy, ambition, and grief. Some say our ego takes our lives and drives us to be selfish, to be the centre of our own universe. Some say it is naive and ridiculous and a waste of time to be joyous more than occasionally. But what does the psalmist say in the Good News Bible version of Psalm 100:
"Worship the Lord with joy; come before him with happy songs!" So right now I will lead you in a happy song that I sang to my children. It is "I'm inside, outside, upside , downside Happy all the Time." (With hand motions)
I'm inside, outside, upside, downside (clap) happy all the time. (Twice)
Since Jesus Christ came in, and freed my life from sin
I'm inside, outside, upside, downside (clap)happy all the time.
I invite each of you to reclaim your natural joy. I invite you all to worship the Lord with gladness. I invite each of you to really believe the last line of the 100th Psalm: "The Lord is good! His love and faithfulness will last forever."
Question for "Sharing Hearts and Minds:"
What did you love to do as a child that you rarely or never do now?
