Get out there and dance

1 Corinthians 15:1-8;  Their message goes out through all the earth; John 14:6-14

A poem I encountered recently:

The dead say little in their letters
they haven't said before.
We find no secrets, and yet
how different every sentence sounds
heard across the years.

My father breaks my heart
simply by being so young and handsome.
He's half my age, with jet-black hair.
Look at him in his navy uniform
grinning beside his dive-bomber.

Come back, Dad! I want to shout.
He says he misses all of us
(though I haven't yet been born).
He writes from places I never knew he saw,
and everyone he mentions now is dead.

There is a large, long photograph
curled like a diploma—a banquet sixty years ago.
My parents sit uncomfortably
among tables of dark-suited strangers.
The mildewed paper reeks of regret.

I wonder what song the band was playing,
just out of frame, as the photographer
arranged your smiles. A waltz? A foxtrot?
Get out there on the floor and dance!
You don't have forever....

It's silly to get sentimental.
The dead have moved on. So should we.
But isn't it equally simpleminded to miss
the special expertise of the departed
in clarifying our long-term plans?

They never let us forget that the line
between them and us is only temporary.
Get out there and dance! the letters shout
adding, Love always. Can't wait to get home!
And soon we will be. See you there.


I especially am moved by the last stanza of the poem, "Get out there and dance! the letters shout, adding, Love always....  


How often have we lived the reality of the poem, where we uncover or recover or discover old letters from loved ones who have past on; or even simply find a postcard or a picture of time long ago when life was still vibrant and full of action for those who have since  moved on. 

Do we not reminisce and wonder what they were thinking, or saying, or feeling as the picture captures the moment and the frame binds them in that state of mind. 

And yet, those pictures and letters also seem to speak to us in a real way about the fleeting reality of life.  They remind us that time keeps moving and we too must get out there and enter fully into life for one day some one will discover or uncover or recover a letter we had written while our heart still was beating and blood was  still pulsing; or they will see a picture where we are framed in a moment of time and they will wonder what we were thinking, feeling, doing. 

Our letters will say the same thing as the letters of those who have gone before: Get out there and dance....

Get out there and dance. 

As we celebrate the feast of St James and St Philip, apostles, martyrs and friends of God, we think about what they would say to us today. 

In the words of Jesus in the gospel they might state, "whoever believes in me will do the works I do, and will do greater ones than these...whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorifies in the Son..."

In other words, Get out there and dance.  Live while living is right.  BE not afraid. 

We have all received the same Spirit of God flowing through our veins.  Get out there and dance, and love always...these are the words of those who have gone before us in faith. 

James and Philip both were moved by the desire to "See the Father" and yet they are there and we are here and they root for us as we move toward them. 

Their  pictures and statues point us to the way.  Get out there and dance!  YOU will do the works I do, and will do greater ones than these.

There is greatness in all us waiting to be unleashed.  How often we hide it, like a superhero who doesn't want his identity to be found out we too masquerade as just another guy or just another gal yet there is greatness in us for we believe and we have been set on a course that is bigger than we can imagine. 

We got to let our hair down, remove our mask, and let the world know the greatness of being a believer, a lover of God, the one who is loved by God. 

Don't stifle the gift.  Don't put in a frame and keep it as a souvenir.  We are not dead yet.  

Get out there and dance!  Love always...See you there...

Here is an excerpt from the letter of St James chapter 4:13-15
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we shall go not such and such a town, spend  year there doing business, and make profit...you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.  You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.  Instead you should say, "If the lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that."

Get out there and dance!

St. Philip and St. James pray for us!