Flame-dancing Spirit

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

Flame-dancing Spirit

Flame-dancing Spirit, come,

Sweep us off our feet and

Dance with us through our days.

Surprise us with your rhythms;

Dare us to try new steps, explore

New patterns and new partnerships;

Release us from old routines

To swing in abandoned joy and

Fearful adventure. And

In the intervals,

Rest us

In your still centre. Amen.

Janet Morley in The St. Hilda Community, Women Included

        I love this meditation by Janet Morley for many reasons. I am not a dancer. In fact, at weddings, when everyone piles onto the floor and dances to the music, I resist the urge to run to the ladies room or retire to my bed. I have my reasons.

        I like the idea of a flame-dancing Spirit. I can see and feel the Spirit moving within me and all around me, offering “invitations to sweep us off our feet, dance with us through our days, surprise us with its rhymes, dare us to take new steps, explore new patterns and new partnerships, and release us from old routines.” Yep, I’m on it!  Sign me up for #TheBigShift! I’m ready to dance.

        I never thought that I would return to a settled cure in one parish, after feeling called to leave that form of ministry in Connecticut in 2012. Since then I’ve been swept along with the Spirit to Ireland, Spain, Chile, Maryland, New Hampshire and Vermont, before I landed in Massachusetts in 2015. I have delighted in service to God’s mission, inside and outside the walls of any one particular parish. Then COVID 19 changed my life, your life, and our lives! The dance music stopped.

        Like grace, a new invitation came to me recently and unexpectedly. Beginning in September, I will be back on the dance floor, in the pulpit, and at the altar, serving as a part-time associate clergy at Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill. On Sundays, I’ll join their rector, the Rev. Mike Dangelo, as preacher, presider, and celebrant in a place that offers glorious music and a faithful community. Then on Thursdays, I’ll join the women’s Bible study group to talk about this flame-dancing Spirit. I’m ready to dance with them in “abandoned joy.” I’m ready to ground myself in a new way, and rest in the Centre when the music stops.

        But wait, there’s more, said the flame-dancing Spirit. I have another invitation for you - a new and fearful adventure. So I said, “Yes,” again. Recently, I joined the Friends of the Anglican Pilgrim Centre of Santiago, Spain. We hope to help Anglican and other Protestant pilgrims at the end of their journeys on the Camino find a safe and welcoming place, with beds and food for refreshment, a chapel and gardens for spiritual reflection and renewal, where pilgrims will have time to share their experiences. 

        Perhaps in these new, fearful, and joy-filled adventures I will find the meaning of “it” all. Perhaps in this Big Shift I will drop my masks and dance as if no one is watching.

        The Flame-dancing Spirit is alive and well on the dance floor and She’s dancing with you, me, and the Lord of the Dance!