Surprised by Joy, Part 4 — Floored
by Jackie Pierce
Today, I opened the door of Edwards Hall, the key clicked in the lock, and bam, I was surprised by joy! You might say, I was “floored.”
I was overwhelmed with the gorgeousness of our new floor, reminiscent of an old Victorian dance hall. What a lovely gift to us! Edwards Hall has a glow, it is warm and welcoming, and made me want to do a little jig right then and there, but I didn’t. Frankly, I don’t know how to do a jig. Nevertheless, I had this odd sensation that I could hear cheering, the tapping of feet, singing, tinkling of the ivories on the old piano. I may have even heard faint youthful voices talking about a star in the East…Was that a shepherd I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye?
You might be thinking that I had a “ghost of Christmas past” experience today, and you might be right. But actually, I think it was something more. So often at St. Mary’s I feel the energy of those who have come before, the devoted loving people who have left us their legacy. And now we have this new floor, a new gift. I feel the presence in our liturgy and in our surroundings. Sometimes, it seems as though the old wood has soaked up a certain something, an energetic quality that holds the past and the present in a sacred moment of synergy. Today, though, my vision was about the future, an exciting one, full of possibilities.
Every time I play music in public, I am in awe that little children just walk right up to the band and start dancing. They don’t care who is watching or how they look, they have rhythm and know all the right moves. When is it that we lose this ability to let the spirit just flow? It seems we spend our lives forgetting and then re-learning what we intuitively know from the time we are born. It makes me think about the Bible passage about receiving the kingdom of heaven as a little child. So how do we go about rekindling this exuberance?
Maybe Psalm 150 says it best: Praise God with trumpet sound…lute and harp! Praise God with tambourine and dance; praise God with strings and pipe!
So, let’s get going St. Mary’s, it’s time to get our groove on!! Let’s get out there and dance. If, like me, you don’t know the moves, we can learn them together!