from the rector

June 2010

Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks.

If anybody had told me three years ago that I would be enjoying dancing more than about anything, I would have thought they were insane. Neither Virginia nor I had ever danced in our life. We thought we were just too clumsy and uncoordinated to do any such thing.

Then Missy and Alan Watts took us on, ostensibly to prepare us to function socially at a wedding in France, though they really wanted to get us addicted to dancing, which they did. We weren't really in good shape for that wedding (the French are serious dancers), but we were hooked.

So now, here we are three years later, with a whole new and very joyful facet to our life that we never thought would be there. So much that came clumsily and with great difficulty at first we now do without even thinking about it. (Not that we still don't have a lot to learn.) Most of all, it's as much fun as about anything we've ever done, and it is something we can do together. Since we both have lives that often take us in different directions, something we do together is not a small thing.

We're not "Dancing with the Stars" quality by any means, but we can sometimes look pretty good to the general public. (Though we are acutely aware of our frequent missteps and mistakes.)

Dancing together requires a lot of coordination, being sensitive to where the other person is, being careful to give clear signals, and being alert to receive them. In many ways it is a living picture of what the Bible says about marriage: "Two become one."

And marriage itself is a living picture of one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith - and the hardest to explain. (I say "explain", not "understand", because it is a mystery beyond human understanding.)

How can God be both "three" and "one" - three persons, but one God? As the old Athanasian Creed puts it, "we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance". I confess that faith - while also confessing that the realities it testifies to go beyond the power of my human reasoning and vision.

But when marriage works - when two people of different background and perspective act as one, with common purpose and commitment and will - we get a clue of what the Trinity might be all about. It doesn't happen that often, even in the best marriages, but it does happen.

Dancing - when it works - is another vivid picture of two becoming one, while yet remaining uniquely themselves. No wonder I enjoy it so much! It's almost like saying the creed - and much better exercise!

Yours in Christ,

        David Garrett