THE PASTOR WHO LEARNED TO DANCE: How I Learned To Be Myself in the Church

“Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, here would be no dance and there is only the dance.” (T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets)

The metaphor of the dance is one I have chosen to describe the movement of the Spirit in my life as pastor in a small Protestant congregation in northern California during 1978–88.

I dance a light and joyful dance when I remember that God in Christ is the still point of the dance around which the various parts of myself arrange themselves....