The Formula

“Name please.”
“What’s your social and phone
and postal and email and all other codes.”
“Sign on the dotted line -
Then you will be a friend of mime
Just as long as you follow these rules -
All I ask is that you be -
Perfect.

Perfect.
It has many strings attached.
Broken, flawed, cracked and marred -
seeping floods of weeping and drugs
to blunt the corner
of Reality’s open, ugly door.

Somehow we interpreted it all wrong
Science blinded us to the song -
The one where mystery holds understanding
and love is not a rule book -
where if we’re good we get something like candy…
The powers that be once ruled the world -
But nobody would die for them.
No.
They hide from them.
But Beauty from above
He came with Love.
No strings.
No lines.
No bullet points
or chimes, chants (or even rhymes!)
But poetry where the heart didn’t know what to say
stories, when it couldn’t just be explained,
and a hope that life is full of gray;
There’s no fence to sit on sometimes.
There’s a living death,
or there’s Jesus Christ.

…beyond the book
…beyond our ways
…beyond and bigger than the mysteries of mysteries
of the ancients and today….

(~Ep)

Martha Graham’s Student (and an Incredible Man of God)

For anyone who is reading this who does not know, Martha Graham is a MAJOR modern dance pioneer. Known to be a bit eccentric, I was able to hear stories of her by a very talented and godly man, firsthand. His name is Steve Rooks and he was our last guest choreographer before the Christmas break. He studied with Alvin Ailey in the beginning of his career and later toured with Martha Graham’s company. Never in my life have I met someone so talented and yet so humble at the same time. People used to ask me as a child who my role model was and I of course would respond with the the usual expected answers which are not wrong nor less sentimental, I just never knew of a person who inspired me as much as this man.

We would begin classes abruptly and everyone was at attention in his classes. Nobody wanted to miss a thing. For warm-up he didn’t need any music to keep time, he simply sang himself! He’s one of those teachers that one learns more from in one week than what would normally take months to learn. The minutes would fly by in his classes. I learned not to be afraid of movement, which is a silly thing, considering how much I have been dancing. Movement should be the thing I am least afraid of; He taught us that when one moves without fear of their body or others around them, no matter the skill of the movement, the dancer’s dynamic takes on a whole new dimension. And it’s true. God created us with such amazing bodies. The problem with getting people to dance is that they’re afraid of their own two feet and what others might think of them. What if we were to dance uninhibitedly and in freedom, imagine the liberation that would take place!

Steve set a piece on some of us that was one of the most physically demanding pieces since the beginning of school. (This may change since we have many more guest choreographers coming). Steve chose Bach’s English Suite with three movements. The choreography is to be sure genius, especially since most of the time he made it up on the spot. It is full of gestures and quick movements, some of which require a certain fearlessness of movement which many of us are still trying to master. It is an ongoing effort. One thing Steve made sure to mention to us about this dance was not that is has some “evangelistic message” or some hidden picture of the gospel but simply that it glorifies God.

(Note: video of the piece to Bach’s English Suite, choreographed by Steve, will be posted here as soon as possible)

Bach wrote some of the most ingenious pieces of music from which the world of music has used as its foundation. As a result musicians have created all sorts of revolutionary music. Bach was and is famous for his work but he never credited it to his own glory. Signed on each piece of music that he ever wrote was “S.D.G.” which he meant in Latin, “For the Glory of God.” We dance for the glory of God.

Isn’t that our entire purpose as humans?

To glorify God?

Steve is not just an amazing dancer. He spoke into all of our lives about the responsibility it is to dance for God – to invest our abilities for Him. Since the beginning of his career in his twenties and when he gave his life to Christ, people have been telling him to “stop dancing so he can ‘truly’ start serving the Lord.” But he didn’t. He did not fall capture to the fear of man. He was in God’s will. God wanted him to dance. He knew that he knew that he knew, or as he says, he was so close to God’s will for his life it was like he could “hear God’s heart beat.” I want to be in that very place someday. I know that God is bigger than simply handing out tracks, or evangelizing on street corners. God is an artist too and I know He gave me this passion and skill for a reason. I cannot bury it or else I would do God wrong, like in the Parable of the Talents(Matthew 25). But one thing I also know. God is bigger than dance. That is what I learned from God through listening to Steve’s wisdom. God’s bigger than all of that. Dance is merely a tool. Art is merely a tool. Skills, are merely tools to finding the heart of what really matters. The Spirit of God is what does the real life changing work. Steve kept saying what an honor it was to come to YWAM. I knew that I would seldom get a chance to be taught by one as anointed as him. To us, it was an even bigger honor to have him come to us.

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God“(1 Cor. 10:31)