PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

April 3, 2024

DANCING IN NEW PLACES

Last year Ray Buckley wrote a Lenten study for adults entitled Hard to Dance with the Devil on Your Back (Abingdon Press, Nashville).  Buckley describes the Christian journey as a dance in which Jesus invites us to participate.  The title of the book comes from the fourth verse of a song by Sydney Carter called “Lord of the Dance.”

In the third chapter of his study Buckley recounts the story of Charles Carl Roberts IV taking hostage on October 2, 2006, the students and teachers of a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.  After releasing all of the boys and their teachers, Roberts lined up the girls in front of a blackboard and began shooting.  When he was done, there were five Amish girls dead as well as Roberts.

When the news of the shooting began to spread, one of the first responses of the Amish community was to go to the support of the family of the shooter.  For almost an hour an Amish man held Robert’s father in his arms as he wept uncontrollably.  At Robert’s funeral there were thirty Amish who had come to stand by the family.

Marie Roberts the widow of the shooter was invited to attend the funeral of one of the students.  In The Daily Telegraph for October 17, 2006, is the following quote from Marie in a letter she wrote to the Amish community: “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need.  Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe.  Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you” (Hard to Dance with the Devil on Your Back, p. 33).

Buckley closes his chapter by noting that sometimes when one is wounded they need to learn to dance in a new place.  The Amish community re-presented this by tearing down the school where the shooting took place, leaving only a grassy field with trees.  Next they built a new school in a new location.

During this Lenten season our focus is upon one who endured the ultimate wrong on a cross almost two thousand years ago.  He was accused falsely by the religious leaders, condemned by the political leaders, and put to death at the hands of soldiers.  Only one of his disciples was there at the cross.  Peter, one of his inner circle, denied him.   Most of his followers could not be found.

Easter morning the focus was not on the past but the future.  A new chapter was beginning in God’s relationship with his people.  The emphasis was on reconciliation and new birth.  Rather than looking back, it was time to move on.  The followers of Jesus began to learn new ways of dancing in changed circumstances.

One thing that all of us have in common is that we have suffered wounds of all kinds.  They have the potential to weighs us down and bind us to the past.  While their effects can never be erased, we can move on, embracing our changed circumstances with hope and expectation.  Following the shooting of October 2, 2006, the Amish community relied upon their basic instincts to care for the troubled and minister to the grieving.  They offered comfort in the midst of unspeakable pain.  In the process they were able to forge a new day.

(This article was originally published April 3, 2011.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)