The Dance of Me and We

Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.  We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord... this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. - Eph. 2:20-22

We took time yesterday to wonder over a bunch of different ways to imagine and try to understand, however imperfectly, God's three-in-oneness as Father, Son and Spirit.  Another is that of Divine Dance, often represented by this Celtic image.

Richard Rohr explains it this way: “The fourth-century Cappadocian Fathers tried to communicate this notion of life as mutual participation by calling the Trinitarian flow a 'circle dance' (perichoresis) between the three. They were saying that whatever is going on in God is a flow that’s like a dance; and God is not just the dancer, God is the dance itself! ... We are invited to join in the dance and have participatory knowledge of God through the Trinity."

In this imagery and in the image of a house we find in Eph. 2, the whole includes distinct parts - our individuality, our ME-ness - but the whole, the WE, is more than the sum of those parts!  Valuing both the ME and the WE is a necessary and tricky part of the dance - our tendency is to put higher priority on one than the other, putting us out of balance.

Take a few minutes this morning to reflect on your dancing partners - first, your connection with God, and then the people who matter most to you.  How are you doing at allowing God to move in your individuality and meet you at your core, at sensing God's voice calling you beloved?  How are you doing allowing God to move in your relationships and weave love and connection and joy into your life?  Talk with God about these things.