she wishes she could tell you the beginning so that you would realize the end
is the glory of a song
and a dance
with heart and meaning,

the poetry of creation
always leading back to itself.

Eric Butterworth was one of the great mystics of your time.  He taught many Brown Girls and left many books and tapes as a lasting legacy.  Before he made his transition, he was in a wheelchair.  His voice had become so weak that those around him hung on to his every word.  One of the last things that he said at a retreat in upstate New York was “I have no theology, I dance.”

“I have no theology, I dance”  means that you move with the Holy Spirit,  move with the wisdom that there is no separation between all that you are and all that I am.  You flow, you live, you laugh, you sing, you dance with a new understanding that you are unlimited in the Spirit, regardless of the appearances of the flesh.  You are Spirit in movement.

You are not a religion, you are divine truth. You are constantly re-defining yourself because there is no limit to Spirit.  In John 14:12, Jesus said, he who believes in me will do the works that I do also; and greater works than these will he do.  When you dance in the Spirit, you realize that if things are not going the way that you want them to go; if you are not satisfied with the direction your life has taken; if you don’t like the experiences that manifest in your life – you have the power to change them.

When you dance in the Spirit, you know that if patterns of negativity keep showing up in your life – such as disharmony, loneliness, pain, physical discomfort, financial insecurity, lack, worry, doubt – you can change them. You can wake up from your self-limiting thought and you can experience the ceaseless flow of good – and turn your life around.  You can dance.

When you dance in the Spirit, you shake the dust off your feet.  You bless the people who are not in accord with your greatest good, who do not support you and do Spirit calls you to do.  You dance in the joy of infinite possibility.  You dance in the hope that you can create, grow, plant, deliver, empower, ignite, vote, rap, sing, write, dig, teach, sell, envision, tap, rescue, develop, uncover, realize something in your life that will heal the world of hatred, of doubt, of lack, of limitation.

The Psalmist says in the 8th Psalm, the 6th Verse, you have given him power over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet. You dance.  No matter how unimportant, how trivial, how average, how unattractive, how old, how overweight, how unnecessary, how disabled you may seem to you, the dance that you do could not be done in quite the same way – without you doing it.  You dance in the realization that you are my unique melody sung once – only once as you – one melody of Spirit singing itself into the continuum; and the music of the spheres would not be complete without your voice.

You dance in the truth that Spirit moves through you. You have something wonderful to offer life, which can only be created as you.  When King David brought the Ark of the Covenant to the City of David, which to the Israelites was the ark where God was kept, David danced before the Lord with all his might.  This mighty king made up his mind right then that he would tap dance, break dance, cabbage patch – clap his hands and stomp his feet – that he would gladly be a dancing fool – not just for a wooden Ark but for the Spirit that dwelt within him.

Throw away your crutches – whatever shape they may take.  Get up from beside your pools of Bethesda.  Touch the hem of my beloved Jesus’ garment.  Rise up like Lazarus.  Run the race and don’t get weary.  Renew your course with a new strength, a new power and a new victory.  There really is nothing, absolutely nothing that can hold you back.  So press forward not just to win the prize but to dance – all the way to the finished line.

 

This is an excerpt from the book God is a Brown Girl Too, which can be purchased on amazon.com.  It is a book where God speaks to us from the kingdom within, which is and always will be uniquely us.  Read and imagine God speaking to you, in the image and likeness of all that you are.