Election dilemma

 

When one is on the far side of 50 (sliding downhill even), it’s a bet that reasonable people might be forgiven for asking, “Why on earth did you ever take up tap dancing? Aren’t you the person who thinks using the television remote constitutes a full upper body workout? At your age, what the heck possessed you?”

To them all I say simply that I decided to take up tap dancing because I needed to get involved in some form of exercise, and no one wanted me on the Olympic Ski Team.

I enrolled in adult tap.

The other women in my tap class are perhaps a little younger than me (about two and a half decades). And they are each a little, shall we say, smaller, than me (about the size of my left thigh.)

They have all taken tap for some time, and most come to class in form fitting tights and tops. I tend to appear in those elasticized, ‘comfort-fit’ pants and men’s extra-extra-large t-shirts. 

Nonetheless, I am determined to get into shape through dance.

Actually, just bending over to try and get the tight buckles on my tap heels done up equals a full pre-class warm up for me.

Each week for months now we have extensively worked on steps like the frappé, shuffle ball change,  the brush, cramp, buffalo and Susie Q. And you know, just as soon as I can remember what any of those terms actually means, I’ll be fine. Currently, I struggle along about two taps behind everybody else in the chorus line: I would like to point out, in my defense, that it used to be four.

What I have primarily learned about tap recitals (yes, a recital!) is that you have to wear a costume. Recitals are an important high point of the dance school year, and hundreds of family and friends fill the hall to watch the performances.

Now that my teacher has firmly established that I must actually dance in front of the back drop curtain at the recital, I find I must also wear a costume. My class mates were very keen on the dance catalogue selections: short, strapless, backless frocks with lots of ruffles and glitter. Their suggestions were eye-catching. Youthful. Small. I mentioned that the last dress slacks I purchased carried a label that said ‘House of Omar the Tent Maker.’

We’ve actually compromised on a kind of 1920’s look for our recital number, complete with plenty of fringe. Still, in idle moments, I find myself imagining what the audience will be thinking if I get all that fringe swinging and swaying on stage, still two beats behind everyone else. Perhaps prairie wheat fields in a gale? Sigh.

The thing is, I like tap dancing. Really like it. I intend to go on.

Still, if I can’t get the choreography in the adult number down a little better by spring, I  secretly fear being ‘sent to the minors’ as it were: i.e. the junior tap class. 

This class is made up of five-year-old girls, with pig tails and pink tutus. 

I might stand out.

[…]

 

I was visiting a senior member of my parish this week. She told me that she has felt blessed her whole life. I asked her why she felt that way. 

She replied that no matter what was going on in her family, either good news or bad news, that they stuck tight together through that time. A good  philosophy for any type of family.

Our compassion for people in the world around us is an important human value. 

Perhaps Christmas time provokes us to do this more than any other time of the year. We reach out to others to offer them hope.

We remember those who have experienced a loss in their family over the past year. We visit the lonely, and the ill and we help out those who need food, shelter and clothing. We may donate our time, money and talents to an agency that needs support to help others.  

Our “good will” extends out from us as we reach into ourselves to be more compassionate toward others.

Perhaps it is because we acknowledge that we have been deeply blessed in our own lives.

Although we as Christians no longer wait for Jesus Christ in the physical form of an infant, He is still the source of our hope. 

As Christians we can look forward to the future because the baby in the manger was and still is, the promise of good will and hope and peace on earth. 

May God bless you and yours this Christmas season and may Hope and Joy lead you into 2012.

[…]

 

Life Discipline

Maybe you’ve seen the Dempster’s commercial in which two scenes are played simultaneously. One scene is of a farmer who rises early to prepare his fields to sew seed that will produce grain that in turn makes the very best bread. The other scene is of Sidney Crosby, who also rises early and is at the arena practicing while it’s still dark because he wants to be the very best hockey players.

Many today, despite his injuries, would say that he is, without a doubt, the best hockey player in the world, even better than “the great one”.

Truth is, whether your aim is to make the best loaf of bread or be the best hockey players, neither of these will just happen. Much work is involved in attaining anything that is of any great worth.

Discipline became not just a word to be talked about, but a life style to be lived.

I read that Patrick Chan, one of the world’s premier athletes, denies himself certain pleasures because of his passion to be the best. He takes a life of discipline very seriously. He watches everything he eats, how he sleeps, even the water he drinks.

Why do I refer to all of this? Well, I want to make a point.

In Christian circles, we have a word that means the same as discipline. It’s a word that no one seems to want to talk about anymore. It’s a word that conjures up all kinds of negative thoughts in people’s minds, maybe because it has never been rightly understood, or maybe because some people presented a false understanding of what it really is.

What is that word? Well, it’s “Holiness”. It is really having a passion  for Jesus, desiring to be like Him and Living a life that is pleasing to Him.

It’s not about a list of do’s or don’t’s, that only leads to a life of legalism, which God hates by the way.

So a Christian who wants to live a life that is pleasing to God is going to say “No” to some things because, like athletes, they are willing to discipline their lives to be true witnesses for the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Holiness is not a word that we should take out of the vocabulary if we are born again believers. It is really through living a life of discipline that we announce to the world that we have a passion to be like Jesus and to present Him to the world as the Hope for Humanity.

May I encourage you to pursue a life of Holiness for, “Without holiness no person shall see the Lord”. Heb. 12:14.

Rev. Duncan Perry,

Morrisburg Pentecostal Tabernacle

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