My Daughter's Dance

When my oldest nephew could stand, and may be before--this is just an aunt's semi-inaccurate recollection--he was bobbing about and dancing with a grin on his face. Now, his mother loves to dance. Having never been around small children, I presumed he danced about because he was mimicking his mother.

My presumption was affirmed when my second nephew arrived; Austin, too, loves to dance! And on Christmas eve I learned that Austin even has a special robot dance he only performs in the bath tub. This kid has moves, and he's not even two!

Now, imagine my astonishment when later my own daughter, Lucy, was born and soon demonstrated dancing tendencies without a dancing mother to mimic! Granted, I have been known to take the imaginary form of a ballerina in the privacy of my own home, flitting or twirling about "on point"--until I drift in front of a mirror and have the sudden, shattering realization that I am not fit for the New York Ballet Company. I can't even touch my toes!

Well, Lucy can touch her toes, twirl, jump, bounce... nothing in sync with anything like rhythm, but there is something that must be joy welling up from inside her being that explodes into dancing.

And last night, as I watched Lucy put on a show and dance around to tinny music coming from a pink toy car, I wondered: Why do children dance? By themselves, without influence.

Well, they are born that way. It's part of their being. The textbook answer to Why do children play? would probably be something like: Playing is learning. I don't doubt the truth of that; children do learn when they play. But as adults, we continue to learn (hopefully), and it usually doesn't look like playing! It usually looks like hard, very not fun work.

I believe that children dance, like they play, because of God-given joy; uninhibited joy that, as we become adults, many of us loose sight of.

Scripture shows grown adults dancing for joy--in public. Joy is not lost when our focus and attention is toward praising the Lord:

"Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. Let them praise His name with the dance; Let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and harp. For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation." Psalm 149:2-4

There is so much joy they cannot help but dance! And the Lord takes pleasure in this.

And I love this:

"And so it was, when those bearing the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, that he sacrificed oxen and the fatted sheep. Then David danced before the Lord with all his might..." 2 Samuel 6:13-14

This dancing was later described as "leaping and whirling before the Lord" (v16). If our pastor ever took a cue from King David and danced with all his might with leaping and whirling, half our congregation would go straight to heaven.

But I would describe Lucy's dancing in exactly the same way--leaping and whirling. It is no graceful dance, but wild and joyful.

I think I like being a parent. It teaches me things like this: that I should loose my inhibition and dance with joy to the Lord, like my daughter's dance.