Doing the Dance

Space is what keeps the world in balance. Space is what defines matter. Without space, individual quantities of matter don’t exist. Our sense of self, our sense of community, our sense of reality, our sense of who we are in relationship to others, is all dependent upon space.

You may notice, now that you’ve been in quarantine for about two months, that you’re either seeking more space or less space, depending upon your situation. Too much of it, and you long to see the people you love. Too little, and you’re ready to flee to the hills for some alone time. Space is something we take for granted in our lives. But space requires constant awareness, because space, in reality, is a relational dance that we do with each and every object –and person— in our lives. Depending upon which partner we engage with, the dance looks different.

Ever come across someone who invades your personal space? Someone who likes to stand just inches away when they talk to you? Nowadays we’re more than ever aware of how close someone is to us, who is in our space, who has violated our boundaries. “Social distancing” has brought our awareness of personal space to a new high.

Space is defined partly by time. Right now, time has slowed down in a sense. We have been accustomed to fast-paced lives in our internet-driven world. Our days were filled with activities, with lots of choices, with busyness, with travel. Due to COVID-19, we now are spending our time differently. And our space has changed.

The more time slows down, the more we become aware of our changes. No longer can we go out to the movies, attend concerts or sporting events, or gather for parties. Home is our new hangout.

We talk to those who pass by the house just to engage with another person. And our families have suddenly been thrust into a pattern that our grandparents must have been familiar with but we have not been – spending evenings gathered around the news, sitting on front porches, playing board games, cooking food and gathering around the dinner table, talking about everything imaginable.

As we spend more time in close proximity to our closest family members – our spouses, children, partners – we find our relational dynamics are changing. Families are spending time together and getting to know each other in ways we never have done before.

For some, this increase in time may mean our marriages and families may be drawing closer. For those in conflicted relationships, it may mean we are forced either to confront issues and resolve them or flee to separate rooms and risk further isolation.  We are learning more about each other. We are forced into a shared reality, sheltering against a shared invader, and we are re-learning to value each other in new and surprising ways.

Love has taken on new meaning, as we see each other day after day in confined space.  Limiting space, however, makes the dance of love more challenging, too. How can you create space within your household? How can you honor individuality and difference within an increased spacial environment? These are all questions that require loving responses, as we re-learn to respect each other in our family sardine can.

But love isn’t just about confined space. It’s also about distant space.

In WWII, as young men left their wives and lovers, sisters, and mothers to go to distant shores to fight on behalf of their country, they would often take pictures that they carried close to their hearts of their loved ones. Without Skype or Facetime, they were limited to occasional letters and even more occasional visits during their long time away.

Their family members had to spend months waiting, hoping they would be alright, longing to see them, biding time until they would come home. When they did, it was cause for celebration. When they couldn’t, people had to mourn without closure, grieve and hold memorials often without a body to view or a hand to hold. Children sometimes only saw their fathers after they reached the age of 4 or 5. Families needed to adjust to new dynamics, and changes from distant to personal space.

Love is a dance that sometimes requires distance, and sometimes requires close proximity. How well you can dance that dance will reveal how well that relationship can manage through changes and adversity.

Jesus had spent three years in close proximity with his disciples when his death shocked them. He had been ripped away from their sides, and their small community had felt shattered. No longer would he be with them. They had just been in the midst of grief, in the midst of adjusting to a new kind of normal, when Jesus returned.

Jesus’ post resurrection appearances to his disciples required them to think of him in a new way, to readjust to him in ways they were not accustomed. He told them that he was not back to stay, but only here for a brief visit. Soon he would be returning to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. But he would send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to be their guide. In this way, he told them, he would be with them until the end of the age. But unless he would go, things could not progress.

Jesus told them he was going away to prepare places for all of them, and when the time would come, they would know how to find him, how to follow him into the realms of eternity.

Like a brief visit from afar that we endure with a confined relative, someone perhaps that we wave to through a window but can’t be close to, Jesus was there, and yet he wasn’t. He was alive, and yet he couldn’t be with them as he once was.

No longer could he walk with them through the hills of Galilee or sit with them in a boat by the lake, or engage with them in laughter, or meals, or conversation.

And yet, he could. Yet, he would. Not in the way they were accustomed, but in a new kind of way.

Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, would always be with them, guiding them, comforting them, talking with them, infusing them with trust, courage, and strength. They may not see him in the flesh, but he would always be there with them.

Our discipleship relationship with Jesus is much like the relationships we have with others. It’s a love dance. Even when we can’t see Jesus, we can feel the Holy Spirit with us, and we can trust that Jesus is merely away for a time, preparing a place, a space for us to be with him in close proximity when the right time comes. In the meantime, we share our love of Jesus with the ones we are close to – with our family, our loved ones, our children, our friends and neighbors. And we let them know he’s there.

For the thing about Jesus is this: He is always there, in our minimal space, in our distances, in our close quarters, and in our community. As the apostle John says in his first letter, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

While we wait in our homes and in our quarantines, we can know and trust that God is busy constructing a new reality for us. And when the time is right, we will emerge into it, and adjust to it.

Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is like extra insurance. He fills our space when it gets to be too much. He creates space for us when we begin to feel confined. And he can show us the way to dance. For Jesus is our dance partner, our destination, and our rest.

May our homes be filled with peace, with music, and most of all, with the exquisite dance of love.  Make it a point to practice your steps, for someday soon, you will dance not only in your home, but you will take your dance out into the world.