Lessons in Choreography

cho·re·og·ra·phy

noun \ˌkȯr-ē-ˈä-grə-fē\ : the art or job of deciding how dancers will move in a performance;

 I experienced something pretty amazing today that I must share.  Today in Church, during our main congregational meeting members in the audience were invited to come up and share spiritual experiences or feelings regarding their faith.   Usually adults are more prone to share personal things in front of a pretty large crowd than younger folk.  Today a 'younger folk' about the age of 8 made the long walk from the back of the room with intent in her stride.  She came up to the podium, pulled the microphone down to her level, and began a very earnest delivery......

"You all know that I love to act"  she began....  Next came:   "I have pretty much done it since I was like uhm...4".  "I have done a lot of plays and an important part of acting means that you always have choreography"....  

I looked out at the audience and saw lot's of smiles.  What I mostly saw was that she had every single pair of eyes fixed on her waiting anxiously to what she was going to say next.

"Choreography means that you have to learn steps in order to do the play right."  "So, I have to try very hard to learn all the steps in order to do the play right,  so I practice a lot"

I will just pause here for a sec....  

First of all, she had me at "You all know that I love to act".  No, I didn't know that, but felt admittedly guilty that somehow I should have.  She had that way about her.  If only I could convey with words her flawless delivery, the effortless confidence and her absolute matter-of-factness you might be able to truly taste what it might have been like......

Second, there is something not quite right about a second grader throwing around vocabulary like "Choreography" and then being so kind to make sure, we, the adults in the audience would be sure to understand so she explained it real simple like so we could "follow".  It should have felt condescending or pompous... but no, it was pure child-like honesty.

Third, I have never heard a better explanation ever......!  And I think my mom, a professional choreographer and dancer would agree with me.

"So, I was thinking......  If learning the right steps to do a play right is important, then maybe like Choreography, it is important to know the right steps to return to God."

Uhm.... ExquEEZE me??!!    


"I have been baptized so that is good... that is one of the steps.  But I need to figure out the next ones in order to get all the way back."

"So, I have decided that it is really important to figure these out, so I am going to do that.  I am going to figure out all the next steps, practice hard and then I can get back to God."
 
Then she sat down.....   She hushed the crowd.  Everyone was trying to figure out if she was for real or not.  For me, I didn't even hear the next 4 speakers.... I was lost in a different place.  For a guy who really likes metaphors and connecting them to life I was really thrown in a most excellent way.  This little girl blew me away!...   Here is what I learned:

1.  She knows who she is in the most profound way.  She is a daughter of God.  She wasn't wasting anytime talking about how she was going to make Mom and Dad proud of her acting.. oh no, she was way beyond that "childish" game.

2.  She nailed the doctrine of eternal progression.  That we all are here to prove ourselves, to "practice" to try and learn our path and the "steps" to get back to Heaven if we want to. She really wants to.

3.  She knew, somehow, that the performing arts from her vantage point were simply a means to a much more spectacular and grander end.  She saw the end game at 8 years old.  She was connecting some major life dots that most never do.

4.  She was willing to share this simple but so profound formula with the rest of the world..... that being our local congregation.    Honestly, I don't think it mattered how many were in the audience in the least!  She needed to inform us of what she was going to do as if to challenge us to see if we would do the same.

She did more to cause me to think if I actually knew what the next steps in my life were than anyone else that spoke.  I felt her unasked invitation penetrate my heart and really made me take a few minutes to take stock of where I was and what I needed to do next.

Mom always taught a whole dance to others by breaking it up into small chunks of steps and movement.  She would teach little steps and then have us practice them until we became really good at each one.  We would often tire of the repetitive process of practicing seemingly boring and uninteresting steps that seemed to have no rhyme or reason in and of themselves.  It was only after many hours of practice that we started to see the beauty and grace of stringing steps together into patterns and rhythms that would end up as an entire dance.  Only when we saw how the small steps linked to the whole story did we see.  I think that happens a lot to us with the choreography of our lives.   We think the daily routine is too tedious, too insignificant and we fail to see the bigger picture of how each or day leads to weeks, months and ultimately an entire life full of little steps.

Mom would always teach in front, leading and showing us the way, ever so patient as we fumbled with technique.  She knew what the whole story and dance looked like.  That is what gave her the will to wait and watch us master the steps and then put feeling into them which ultimately brought us closer to her vision of what the dance was really about, and also what would bring us the most joy as well.  This little girl somehow knew that God was doing the same thing, leading out in front, being the example, showing us patiently the way, asking for us to have faith in the little steps so that one day the collective sum of all them would lead to a beautiful legacy and reunion.

I am figuring out my next steps right now....  I feel more urgency today than I did yesterday.  And I know I am going to have to practice a bit harder now than ever before because this particular performance is different and has a most amazing finish because of how the story ends.  I want this one too.  I just needed a little reminder about how important it really is to me....

.....I learned some lessons in Choreography today,  I wonder what story the steps of your dance is telling you....