Dancing Bones
“Kill off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God…
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as God forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”
Colossians 3:5, 12-14 (MSG)
Dear Friends,
A professor once told me that when you get quiet, still, in solitude and silence—in the wilderness—the skeletons will come out of the closet and dance the polka with you. Not sure why the polka. Maybe because it’s the more embarrassing of music and dance, in my opinion, and my skeletons are pretty embarrassing. There’s a reason I like to keep them hidden away, unseen by myself or others. But who am I fooling? Those dancing skeletons—death dressed in red lipstick—are alive enough to corrode my spirit and oxidize my soul over time.
Paul writes to kill off everything that corrodes and deteriorates life, but sometimes I need to step into a wilderness of loss and lack to see what truly influences me. Sometimes this slow and corrosive death becomes a comfortable companion where it’s difficult for me to see how destructive my impulses can be to myself and others. The wilderness forces me to see and name the hidden things, putting them to death through confession and repentance, and grasping what Full Life is.
It’s in the wilderness that I can see what actually is. I can see I no longer need to be dominated by my impulses or harmful ways of living. I can see I am not broken or falling apart. I can truly see that I am whole, was made whole, and will forever be whole. Living into death is living into a false reality, but living into life is living into freedom of what already is.
In the wilderness, I slink out of the ill-fitting and tattered garments, still holding onto those robes I thought protected me. In my wholeness, I am clothed with robes of kindness, compassion, strength, and love—first for myself and then for others. And while I’m there in this quiet, solitary space of loss and lack, my hands loosen on the tattered lies of power, impulse, greed, and certainty. And it’s then that I hear a still, small Voice once again affirm my wholeness and belovedness as I walk away from those broken bones that formerly danced.
May it be so.
With (love),
Bethany