When things are difficult we look to our inner-resources; we ask for support from those who love us; we seek specialist advice and care. People say, “there’s always someone worse off than you.” My response is to feel ‘that doesn’t do it at all’ and then ‘but it does make me wonder what help they get.’ In ‘sustaining our love of life’ other people do encourage me. Three visual events have touched me this week [TV and Facebook]. 16-year-old Dara McAnulty won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing and spoke of being bullied and being autistic. Peter Scott-Morgan uses synthesised speech and avatars to improve and prolong his life with motor neurone disease. A South African ex-colleague shared a video of a group of Ugandan young women and men dancing and it made me realise that dance has indeed a language all of its own.
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When reflecting on the first four years of my ministry spent in Newchurch in Rossendale Valley my mind often turns to dancing. Young and wet behind the ears my wife Jenny and I were blessed to have a couple of couples, Fred and Annie, Kathleen and Bob take us under their wings. Many a Saturday evening they took us dancing. Invariably a cross between barn and country. The one dance, among others, I can recall learning was 'The Breakaway Blues.' Fred, in particular, moved with a grace I can still recall all these years later. Kathleen's son phoned a few months ago to let me know that his mum (the last of the four alive) had died in her 90s.…
I have been encouraged by dancing... I know it's not possible for everybody Tony. Hannah and Nabil had so many types of dancing at the wedding and loads of people took unofficial video and it really lifts my spirits to re-watch them and to see the celebration people were all expressing in their own way. It reminded me of the image of intercultural life about asking 'Do we invite people to a party but choose all the music? Or do we plan a party together and all choose music we want to dance to?