Welcome back to another episode of Stories and Other Things Holy. Happy Pentecost. This week, we bring you a special reflection from Dr. Terry Nelson-Johnson to celebrate the grace, the fire, and the dance of Pentecost. Terry shares three short stories, that when tied together, should have us filled with the hope and delight necessary to dance and celebrate the coming of God's spirit coming to dwell in us, with us, and to move through us. I am so glad you decided to join us and pray that you'll stay to the end for a special announcement. And now let's dive in to Stories and Other Things Holy! Stories and Other Things Holy. Pentecost, baby. Woo! Oh man, Pentecost. One of my strongest images, symbols, regarding Pentecost is dancing. And I have three dance stories that I'd love to share with you, and then I'll link them to Pentecost a little bit. So the first one involves my daughter, who you've heard about and I love, and my uncle, who you've heard about, and I love my uncle's a Jesuit. And my line with respect to my uncle when I was about six years old was I told my mom, I want to be like him. There's something powerful about Who do you say that about? I think to contemplate and to have targets of that declaration, I want to be like him. And my current target of that is my 13-year-old grandson. I want to be like him. I want to be as innocent and as free and as curious and as passionate and resilient and honest emotionally as Wes, my grandson. But when I was six, I wanted to be like my uncle. And I've never wavered from that declaration. At any rate, at the time of the story, my uncle had had a stroke or two, and his physicality was compromised. He was a very physical person, a really good athlete, a beautiful, beautiful guy, and he was in his body. He and I shared that kinesthetic way of being in the world. And so he was recouping at my mom's house, and my daughter happened to be there at the time of the story. My daughter's probably seven, and she was close to my uncle, which delighted me. And there was music on, and my uncle got up and awkwardly walked to the center of the room. And I was in that situation of like, do I go and stand guard? Do I spot him as a gymnast? So, do I spot him? So I just sort of got up, and I had his elbow. And then he got to the point where he would normally just start to dance, and you could tell that's what his body wanted to do, that's what his elbow wanted to do, and his feet somehow would not cooperate. And I saw it on his face. I'm no longer a dancer. And then he shuffled back to his chair and sat down sort of heavily. There's one tear that just cascaded down his cheek. It was beautiful. My daughter beautifully was dressed in gymnastics, regalia with the two tubes, the whole thing's going here and had the glitter. Are you following me? Did anybody else have glitter in their house? Like you invite glitter into your house, it will never leave. Just trust me. This is parenthetical, but glitter. Oh man, it's there for the duration. So she has glitter on, and then she's sitting across the room from her beloved great uncle, and he says, Claire, come here. And Claire tiptoes over dance is over, so to speak. And he pats his knee and gets Claire up on his knee and he says, Claire, I really want you to do me a favor. And she says, sure, uncle Bob, anything. It's like, this is really an important one. And she's like, okay, whatever. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. And then he says, you'll dance for me, won't you, Claire, you'll dance for me, won't you? And then they were both quiet. I just took the picture and I put it in the album of my soul. You got an album in your soul of those pictures that will never leave you that picture. My beloved daughter, my beloved uncle sitting together and he asks her, you'll dance for me, won't you, Claire? Isn't that what's asked of us at Pentecost? Isn't Jesus basically saying, Hey, you'll dance for me, won't you? When you dance, I will be incarnate. Right? Right. Do I have this correct that the church will continue to emerge into the world because you will risk dancing and looking not all that cool but beautiful at the same time and free? Are you following me here? Oh God, it's so beautiful poem, a poet that I love and a poem of his that I love, and the poet's name is Gregory Orr. And the backstory, which is important to this reflection is that there's a tradition in his family and the tradition is that the boys, in order to become men, the ritual for the boys in the family to become men is to go on a hunting trip with all the men in the family. And in this instance, Gregory Orr and his younger brother are going to be initiated. So they got the stuff, the camouflage, they go practice, they got the ammunition, they got everything. They practice shooting, they're all good. And they are, to say they're excited is a radical understatement, and they're going to leave as boys and return as men. And the uncles and the dad, everybody's excited about this. They go out for the initiation weekend, the Boy to Men initiation weekend. And tragically Gregory Orr accidentally shoots his brother while on this trip and the brother does not survive and Gregory or comes back feeling the furthest thing from a man. And he basically stops talking, which is not unusual for an adolescent navigating trauma. And occasionally he speaks, but basically communicates through writing his language. Arch teacher writes a note at the bottom of one of his essays, God, I wish I could meet her. And she says, you can continue to wither away or you can write, I pray that you write something about the note. Got to him, sort of like Pentecost fire got to him. And so he decides to write becomes a poet laureate. And one of the fruits of his work is the following poem. You got to pay attention. It's very short. And the title of the poem is to Be Alive. And the poem reads to be alive. Not just the carcass but the spark. I know that's crudely put, but if we're not supposed to dance, why all the music the to be alive, not just the carcass, but the spark. I know that's crudely put, but if we're not supposed to dance, why? All the music? Last story in this Pentecost trifecta was during COVID and a young boy was diagnosed with a fairly aggressive cancer and he had to go in the hospital for all of his treatments, but couldn't leave the hospital because of fear of infection. And so rather than get the chemo and radiation and then go home, he had to stay in the hospital for however long that period was, which was sort of a long time for anybody, but especially for an 11-year-old boy. And only one parent could come to visit because of all the COVID stuff. So the mom is the hospital gal, the dad is home with the other child, and the dad is aching. The dad just wants to be with his kid and he wants his kid to know how much wants to be with them. But to know avail, because COVID and the fifth floor of the hospital, et cetera, the two of them, the dad and the son had become known in the larger family circle as the two guys that dance at big family parties. And something about the way they danced together apparently was hilarious. And so when the party got to a certain point, they're like, Hey, hold on. And then they would get up there and they'd dance. Everybody cracks up. So they shared this particular dance that they do together. The dad is aching to be with his son and he wants to find some way to mitigate the ache. And so he comes up with an idea. He puts on these pajama bottoms that I swear are built for Pentecost. They're like flames on the bottoms of the pajamas. And then he puts on some crazy top and he shows up in the parking lot of the hospital. His son's on the fifth floor. He arranged with his wife like at five 30, have Tommy, look it out the window down to the parking lot. And then he has this one of those speakers that just gets your attention, like the whole world, the whole neighborhood's attention. And he puts on the song that they most love to dance to together. And then he starts their dance. And the son on the fifth floor of the hospital is looking down and you just hear him giggle and he's little, he's got no air, he's got a little hat on, and he just has this smile on his face. He's looking at his mom. And at some point he says to his mom, he's doing the sprinkler. He's doing the sprinkler. And then the kid starts to do the sprinkler. So the dad in the parking lot of the hospital is doing the sprinkler and the kid on the fifth floor in this room, they're both doing the sprinkler. Oh, if you could only hear the kids laugh. And I did wonder how many people called the cops when they're leaving the parking lot, like who's the guy in the Pentecost pajamas dancing in the parking lot? And then the answer obviously is God. God is in the parking lot dancing, letting us know that we will not be alone. What's the message of Pentecost? You are not alone. We are going to do church together in some sort of mysterious way. I will be with you, but you'll dance for me. You, you'll dance for me. Won't you to be alive? Not just the carcass, but the spark. I know that's truly put, but if we're not supposed to dance, why? Oh, the music. And so my invitation to all of you listening in whatever mode you're listening, video or otherwise, is to get up. Come on now and give me a little something. Give God a little something. Do a little dance. I'm Bethel. I'm talking about, it's Pentecost. You're not supposed to dance. Why all the music? You'll dance for me, you, you'll dance for me, story and other things. Holy bless us, oh Lord, for the gift of dance just keeps on giving. Oh, through and in Christ our Lord. Amen. Blessed Pentecost, anybody, let's dance. I'm so thankful you joined us today for this Pentecost episode of Stories and Other Things Holy! I hope these stories from Terry moved you, stirred something in you, and hopefully got you moving because it's Pentecost and we can't help but dance. That being said, I wanted to share the special announcement with you. During the next 10 weeks, we are going to do something different. We are going to do a top 10 series of the last 32 episodes of Stories and Other Things Holy. So starting next week, you're going to be presented the 10th most popular episode from the last 32, followed by the ninth and the eighth, et cetera. So for 10 weeks, we're going to do a top 10 list. When we come back in September, we are going to make some adjustments to the podcast, maybe bring in some new voices. The goal is, is to take some time to reflect, to figure out what we can do better, to figure out what matters most to you so that we can make this podcast valuable and meaningful for you and sustainable for us in the long term. It has been such a privilege over the last 30 plus weeks, bringing these incredible stories to life through the medium of video and audio, depending on how you join us, there will still be a weekly email announcing the top 10, which of the top 10 episodes is coming out that week, and that will be posted on your podcast app like it normally is, but it will be a highlight episode. So my hope is is that you'll appreciate getting to revisit some of these classic, sometimes hilarious episodes from Terry. And thank you for your understanding. As we take some time to make some adjustments, we always welcome your feedback. You can email us at connect@otherthingsholy.com. If this is your first time with us, visit our website: Stories and Other Things Holy (dot) com, where you can sign up for those weekly emails and you learn about what's coming down the road. I'll see you next week, but you'll see both of us anew in September. Thank you again. And until then, go looking for Stories and Other Things Holy! God bless!