Greetings!
Blessings of Easter to you! What a strange time this is … so much change in our daily routines, and a call to connect our hearts with everyone around the globe in both strength and vulnerability. We might remember a wonderful quote by poet Alice Walker – “Hard times require furious dancing.” Furious or flowing, in grief or gratitude, I’ve discovered that dance can help me engage all of myself to respond to the demands of this time with prayerfulness and playfulness. Have you had a chance to dance?
For me, since all of our Lent and Holy Week services were celebrated online, I ended up creating a number of movement prayer videos for our parish, and I’d love to share some of these with you so you can dance along! The video below is a dance prayer based on American Sign Language that we created for Good Friday. You can pray along as you learn the signs … in whatever tender grief or life challenges this time might be serving up, it’s always a good reminder to place our lives in the hands of our loving God.
Abba, Abba (Ps. 31)
After the starkness of Good Friday, I always enjoy helping our community to enter the beauty of Easter by engaging our youth in the story of Genesis. This year, we couldn’t gather at church, and so I called together many of our families over Zoom, and we enacted a wonderful version of the Genesis story from our homes for Easter Vigil! Please pray along with us in our new modality! And God saw that it was good!
Upcoming Schedules? Ha! Ha!
Wow, who knows anything about our upcoming schedules? As you might have guessed, I’m not going to Uganda in May! Perhaps next year … we will see. Our overseas trips to the UK in the fall will likely be rescheduled.
Meanwhile, it is the perfect time for online courses … zoom, zoom, zoom! Mary Magdalene is calling me to help bring her gifts to us in this time of challenge and new life. I will be leading a Zoom Mini-retreat on Dancing with Mary Magdalene on Saturday May 16th, 2:00 – 4:00 pm (Pacific time) sponsored by the Priory Spirituality Center. I will send more info. in my next note!
I also wanted to mention that our dear InterPlay community is offering many online options for dancing, praying and playing from home! Please check out the InterPlay website for daily dance opportunities. Also available are Online Dance Chapels offered by Cynthia Winton-Henry and other spirited InterPlayers. Let’s dance whenever and however we can!
The message of Easter continues to seek the light through our darkness, and find the invitation to resurrection in the midst of our challenges. Here is a rousing rendition of Roll Away the Stone, recorded “from home” by our parish choir, and interspersed with American Sign Language of me dancing in the Holy Land.
May all our stones be rolled away! Take good care, stay healthy, and dance on!
Love,
Betsey
Betsey Beckman, MM
