Remember the Dance

Dear Beloveds,

I have been reflecting quite a bit over the last couple of months on a statement by Dan Savage about how the gay community dealt with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.  He said, “During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for. It didn’t look like we were going to win then and we did. It doesn’t feel like we’re going to win now but we could. Keep fighting, keep dancing.”

Although it’s attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, the actual source of this wisdom is unknown:  "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."    When I see and hear the vile attacks on trans people and undocumented immigrants and refugees, and on empathy itself, I wonder if the attackers truly think of those of us who value compassion and kindness and justice, those who are woke, as people dancing to no music.  

It’s very easy to be discouraged right now with so much that we hold dear and so many people that we hold dear under philosophical, if not physical, attack by our own government.   Levity seems out of place lately, almost disrespectful of the fear and anxiety some are experiencing.   But it’s in times like these we most need to laugh, to sing, to dance, to enjoy a meal with friends, to remember why we fight so hard for love and light. 

W.H. Auden notes, “As a rule, it was the pleasure haters who became unjust.”   And so the agents of bigotry seem to me. Their hearts are so full of darkness and hatred, their humanity is a black hole, not even light escapes from their presence. They cast shadows wherever they go.   They can’t comprehend the lightness of being, the laughter born of being just alive, the tears that fall freely, encountering beauty.  They truly can’t hear the music of the heart.  It’s like they’ve never known love. And that in itself may have caused the profound hurt that leaves them unable to do anything but hurt others. 

Do not fear them.  They have no power here over those of us who refuse to stop dancing. 

In Solidarity,

Rev. Tony