dance on the teeth of pain

Science re-learned old truths about dancing. I love what this re-reminds us.

In a fresh-off-the-presses study published in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), physical exertion was compared for how well it helped people who suffer with depression.

As you've heard before, exercise helps to fight back against depression's tentacles of despair.

But that's not what -- in this study -- caught my attention. 

It was this, from page 8: 

Dancing does the most to ward off depression. Dancing, by itself. 

Dancing! Better than yoga, mindfulness, tai chi.

"We're going out dancin'

Chase our blues away..." 

-Go Out Dancing, Rod Stewart

"Just dance, 

gonna be OK..." 

-Just Dance, Lady Gaga

"You turned my wailing into dancing, 

you removed my sackcloth 

and clothed me with joy..." -Psalm 30:11

I love when super-smart people (scientists, in this instance) reaffirm wisdom that the Bible elaborated upon in ancient times. We should dance. 

How many times has this happened to you: You're supposed to go out. But you're in a cranky, funky,  nothing-fits-right, life-sucks sort of mood. You rather wallow in this vibe, listen to your sad playlists, eat chips, play a video game, and doom-scroll. BUT you already said you'd show up.

"I don't even know if I want to go," you think. "I'm not feeling it."

But you force yourself to get out. You push yourself to be with people enjoying themselves. And voila -- you have a much, much MUCH better time than you would've predicted.

"Here we have a lot of fun,

Putting trouble on the run,

You find the old & young

Twistin' the night away" 

-Twistin' The Night Away, Sam Cooke

I look closer at these songs about dancing I mentioned above, and I see something I missed before. The lyrics all juxtapose dancing with the chasing away of trouble. Psalm 30 also does this. 

It's as though God designed it like this: dancing plays a role in reinforcing to us that, with our Lord, it'll be OK. The specter of doom wilts on the dance floor.

Of course it's natural to sometimes feel depressed. But why should depression get unresisted squatter's rights on our moods and days? Just because we're in that state doesn't mean we should -- without protest -- accede to all it brings. We can try to push back a little bit. We can work to stand up underneath it.

Sometimes we gotta kick pain in the mouth, and then dance on depression's busted teeth and gums.

I say this with supreme confidence: you do not dance as often as you could. Go do something about that, even if you feel self-conscious. Go get after places and times to dance.

"And David danced before the Lord 

with all his might"-2 Samuel 6:14

creed

The morning of my senior prom, my car's engine died. 

It started acting up the week prior. I'd press the gas pedal. And instead of an immediate response, my car would wait for a weird few seconds before throttling up with the RPM's. A mechanic told me it was the car's cam shaft -- I didn't know what that meant, but I knew it'd be pricey to fix.

I hoped it'd last through the promweekend, but alas. I turned the key that morning to go pick up the corsage for my date. The engine turned, then shuddered, then quit. And wouldn't turn again. 

How would I get to prom? 

But before I even asked, or figured out alternate plans, my dad interrupted his Saturday to vacuum and clean out the family car so that I could drive it instead. It took him about 10-15 minutes. A small sacrifice, but a sacrifice nevertheless. 

Our daily lives fill up with these sorts of sacrifices, do they not? 

A friend briefly interrupts what they're working on to plug your laptop cord into the outlet. 

A stranger holds the elevator door open for you so you can get to class on time.

A friend listens to you try (at length) to decipher your crush's latest mixed signal. 

A parent mails you a fresh supply of your favorite snack; they had a hunch you were running low. 

An older sibling talks you through a challenge you're facing with your parents.

Ergo, let's get the idea of 'sacrifice' to a broader space.

When someone makes this sort of effort for us, maybe they mean it when they say 'you're welcome!', 'it was no problem' or 'no worries'. One way to know they mean it is that they never bring it up again. It won't ever be the sort of favor or sacrifice that you can expect to hear about later. 

They'll never leverage it against you.

So when we consider Christ in the wilderness for 40 days, enduring temptation and going without, maybe it's this sort of sacrifice. The sort where he says 'no worries' afterward. The sort where he says 'you're welcome', because when he thinks about what he'd do for you, that effort doesn't even scratch the surface of how much the love and care motivates.

I don't exactly know what point I'm working to make here. So for you ... finding something simple to give up, to set aside for this season of Lent, comes from a motivation of what was given up for you. You can't possibly repay it all, so there's no use trying to do that. 

So you do what you can, in the time you have. 

And that's worth something.