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 Scrumbly Dancers, One and All.

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LoriV
EPISTLER (201-250 posts)
EPISTLER (201-250 posts)
LoriV


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Posts : 201
Age : 62
Join date : 2012-03-08
Location : Michigan

Scrumbly Dancers, One and All. Empty
20150104
PostScrumbly Dancers, One and All.

Recently I had the privilege to teach worship dance to some little, and some ‘tween’ girls at our Worship Arts Camp at church.  Every week the girls were excited as I gave each one a long white satin circle skirt to wear during practice.  It is a sight to see when the girls don their skirts.  Not one of them can sit or stand still.  The entire room is filled with twirling dancers in pretty long white skirts, paired with a variety of different tee shirts.  Nothing can compare, however, to the special times they get to wear the ~white dance dresses~.  They are always so excited, and you can see by their faces and behavior that they feel beautiful!  It doesn’t matter if their pony tail is cockeyed, or if there is left over peanut butter and jelly on their cheek.  As far as they are concerned, they are beautiful ballerinas.  It is a joy to watch them.
 
For eight weeks we practiced choreography to The Creation Song, by Fernando Ortega.  The girls used beautiful flowing fabric pieces to represent different parts of creation.  A glittering iridescent fabric was used to represent light, and the Light of the World.  Silky red fabric was used to represent the sun, and a shimmery golden piece for the moon.  Brown satin was used for the mountains, and green chiffon for the valleys. A light blue sheer represented the wind.   Shiny blue fabric with pale white streaks and silver glitter represented water.  Two of the girls swirled teal and purple peacock feathers for “the birds of the air”.  When the song spoke of God’s glory, a beautiful piece of purple taffeta was held high above the head of one of the girls as she ran across the floor from one side of the stage to the other.  Creation was beautifully and colorfully illustrated.
 
Before I begin to teach any choreography, I like to set aside the first part of class talking about worship and how we can use dance toward that end.  Because worship dance involves beauty, I like to talk about The Author of beauty.  My goal is to help them understand that God is the creator of beauty, and I do my best to encourage them to be beautiful for Jesus; not just on the outside but even more importantly on the inside, the part of us that thinks and speaks and acts.  It is important to emphasize this because those twirly white dance dresses can be very distracting; especially in a room filled with mirrors!  It is amazing to see their reactions when I begin to talk about being beautiful for Jesus.  Somehow, it settles and focuses them.  They are thinking, I can tell.  Something happened on the eighth week though, that I cannot stop thinking about. 
 
The last, or eighth week, was when we showed the rest of the Worship Arts Camp classes and parents what we have been learning over the eight week period.  The girls were very excited, and so was I!  They had accomplished so much, and I was proud of them.  The girls were gathered on the stage as I passed out the white performance dresses and sent them, along with my fearless helpers, to the dressing room to change.  When they left the room I began to ready up a few things and noticed a little girl sitting off to the side of the stage.   The little girl was a neighbor to one of the families who attend our church, so she came to arts camp with the children of the family.  I observed her for a moment as she sat on the edge of the stage with her feet hanging over.  Her arms were crossed tightly in front of her, and I could see that she was crying.
 
My very first thought when I saw that she crying was…Oh boy, I don’t have time for this.  I remembered when she first arrived, how she had acted. She was uncooperative and angry, she complained about everything, and wouldn’t let you touch her.  I felt certain her home life was less than desirable, and on top of that, her appearance was what we call at our house, scrumbly.  I was annoyed with the problem of the little girl.   But something happened as I began to walk toward her.  I sensed the Holy Spirit urging me to love her; to care about her.  I decided I would try.
 
I crouched next to the unhappy visitor and, since all the girls were out of the room, asked if she was feeling all alone.  She scooted away from me and said gruffly through her angry tears, “I just want to be in the dance.” Instantly I thought - she can’t.  We have practiced for seven weeks, and she doesn’t know any of the choreography.   Then I remembered... The dancer who was to run across the stage with the purple cloth representing God’s glory was out of town.   I knew this scrumbly, stringy haired little girl could take her place and run with the purple fabric.  ~Holy Spirit speaks.~  “Ask her”.  So I told her I had an extra white dance dress and asked if she would be in the dance.  She frowned, but nodded her head.  I gently touched her arm to direct toward the dresses and she flinched away.  Now stepping back, I coaxed her to come with me and she hesitantly followed me across the stage.  At that point the rest of the dancers were making their way back in, so one of my helpers took the little girl with the tear smudged face to change as the rest of us started our “dress rehearsal”.
 
When the scrumbly, angry little dancer came back in, we explained to her what she was to do.  “Sit on the floor here, and when Miss Sharron tells you to run, hold the purple cloth high above your head and run from this spot to that spot and come back.”  I asked her if she would like me to put her hair in a bun like the other dancers.  I thought she would say yes, but she didn't.  She said, “No. I don’t like that.  I think it hurts.”  I asked her if she would like to take off her tennis shoes and have bare feet like the other girls.  “No”, she replied. “I don’t want to”.  I will tell you the truth - she did not look beautiful to me at that moment, but God has a way of helping us to see through His eyes.
 
As the music started and the girls danced to the first verse, I saw beautiful girls who were doing just as they were taught.  They were dancing beautifully for Jesus.  Each one dancing to the best of their ability.  And then the chorus came…
 
  Glory!  Glory!  Glory to our God!
                All praises and honor!  Forever!
 
And there, a little, angry, scrumbly girl with stringy hair clomping awkwardly across the stage in her dirty tennis shoes; purple cloth flowing not high above her head, but from the back of her neck like a super hero.  A scrumbly little girl~ clothed in a beautiful white dress.  I imagined the Trinity dancing with joy at the sight of every single one of the beautiful young dancers; and especially for the beautiful purple cloaked super hero dancer.  And as I chocked back my tears I thought how much we are all like the little scumbly dancer in the sight of God, and yet in his great and wonderful love, He dances over us with singing.
 
Glory to God in the Highest. 


Last edited by LoriV on Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Scrumbly Dancers, One and All. :: Comments

scottn
Re: Scrumbly Dancers, One and All.
Post Wed Jan 07, 2015 2:19 am by scottn
Hey Lori, this was a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing. I don’t know if you were doing this activity as a volunteer but if you were, Chicken soup for the Soul is looking for volunteer stories for one of their upcoming books.
 
http://www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/possible-book-topics
 
Scott
 

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