Learning to Dance in the Dark
Over the 4th of July my family and I took a vacation to visit Cumberland Island National Seashore. To get to the island, you must board a ferry at St. Mary’s Island, which arrives approximately 45 minutes later at Cumberland Island. I have heard about Cumberland Island since I was a child, but this was my first time to visit it. Cumberland Island is well known for the feral horses that roam the island. But even though the horses are the celebrities on the island, you also may see manatees, fish, sharks, crabs, armadillo, deer, hogs, birds, alligators, turtles, bobcats, snakes, and numerous other animals. I was relieved we did not see any snakes, alligators, or sharks, but we did see an armadillo, manatee, deer, fish, horses, and the biggest crab I have seen in my life. Although we were overexposed to the sun and came home looking like tomatoes, our trip to Cumberland Island was magical.
Before the excursion to Cumberland Island, I showed my 3-year-old daughter, Isabelle, some pictures of the Cumberland Island wild horses. In one of the pictures two of the horses appeared to be playing and Isabelle looked at me and smiled brightly and said, “Look mommy the horses are dancing! I can’t wait to see the dancing horses.” Many times, before our trip, she excitedly spoke about how we were going to see the dancing horses. We were disappointed when we spent the day on the island and didn’t see any of the horses, and so we hiked to another part of the island where a ranger promised we would see the horses. When we arrived at this spot, we were amazed to see at least 15 horses roaming in front of the ruins of a mansion that looked like it had once been nearly as impressive as an estate like the Biltmore.
Many people say the 1st week of July is the hottest month of the year and the day we spent at Cumberland Island was humid and hot. If you have ever been to the zoo in the summer, you know the heat wears the animals out and therefore the animals are less playful. And a July day at Cumberland Island was no different than a summer day at the zoo. We stumbled upon the horses at around 4 in the afternoon and at this point the horses must have been exhausted by the sun because they were barely moving. Isabelle looked up at me with the saddest expression and said, “Mommy, the horses are not dancing.” She spent a few minutes pouting and feeling disappointed. Her expectation was that the horses would dance. Instead, they were worn out by the extreme weather and were barely moving.
If you have ever witnessed a child, you know they have an uncanny ability to let go of whatever bothers them. In fact, less than 15 minutes after Isabelle’s letdown that the horses weren’t dancing, she walked up to her dad and said, “Daddy will you dance with me?” After dancing with her dad, she whispered to me, “Mommy will you dance with me?” Like the horses, I too was depleted by the sun, but I was not going to miss this moment. I picked Isabelle up and held her in my arms and we slow danced together on the island. Instead of watching the dancing horses, the horses watched us dance. My body was already warm from my sun burn, but as we danced, I felt my heart also warm. Isabelle reminded me to dance, even amid disappointment and pain.
In the book, Dancing in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times, Rev. Otis Moss shares the story of a difficult period in his life when the church he was serving was threatened with credible violence. During this anxiety filled time, Moss woke up in the middle of the night and heard some noise in his home. Because of the very real threats his church had been receiving, Moss worried someone had broken into his house. Instead, Moss found his six-year-old daughter, Mikayla, joyfully dancing in her room.
Moss shared, “She’s dancing. The darkness is all around her as it’s all around you—but she’s still dancing….”
Children often absorb the anxiety of their parents and also have their own fears and concerns. By dancing in the dark, Mikayla, was creating light amid all the fear and darkness she felt. Rev. Otis Moss said he immediately thought of the verse from Psalm 30:11, “You have turned my mourning into dancing.” This inspiring moment with his daughter, led Rev. Otis Moss to tell his congregation about his experience witnessing his daughter dance. Rev. Moss told his church, who were scared about the very real threats towards their church, “…even in the darkness of midnight we can maintain a connection to the light…Dance…Dance in the dark!”
The world is full of darkness and disappointment. The violence, inflation, environmental concerns, and division has us on pins and needles. Both individually and collectively, you and I are holding fear, anger, and sadness in this human body, like never before. And yet, Mikayla and Isabelle are inviting you and I to dance amid fear, disappointment, and even the unknown. Otis Moss invited his church to maintain their connection to goodness, light, beauty, and the divine, despite all the worries of the world. I don’t expect the problems of planet earth to diminish anytime soon, but I do intend to keep dancing in the dark. For me, dancing in the dark sometimes means I will literally dance, but it also means I will metaphorically dance by cultivating hope, faith, love, joy, and peace despite all the darkness. Dance! Dance in the dark!
A version of the article was published in The Mountain Mirror.
