Broken feet cannot dance very well. I learned the steps by standing on a pair that really tried…but broken feet can only teach a broken dance. And the feet learning atop them become broken in the process—perhaps to an even greater degree.
The teaching feet told me they had learned the steps from the DanceMaster and that everything I would ever need to know I could learn from them—I would be wasting the DanceMaster’s time if I sought Him directly.
Eventually, the teaching feet grew too broken to bear my weight, and danced off alone. By then, my own feet were quite broken: each step was a stumble, every twirl became a fall; but I had come to love the dance. For a while I tried to dance on my own—pretending the stumbles and falls were intentional, celebrated elements of my own clever choreography. But my feet grew more broken…and the choreography fell apart. It became evident that if I was ever to dance as well as the teaching feet, I would have to seek out the DanceMaster.
Over the years, I had rather hoped that I might catch a fleeting glimpse of the DanceMaster or encounter Him in passing, but of course that doesn’t happen. As I had never sought Him, I had never found Him. But the minute I purposed to go looking for him, the DanceMaster found me.
He said that He would be delighted to teach me, but He would not instruct me in the dances of the teaching feet—He would not help me to augment those dances and mask my stumbles and falls. If I was determined to pursue those desires, He could not help me. After much thought, I told Him the only two things of which I was certain: I wanted to dance better, and I wanted to learn from Him…if starting over was the only way, I would try it.
The DanceMaster instructed me to stand on His feet. I found myself wondering if this was, in fact, a waste of time: He seemed to be using the same technique as the teaching feet who had left me. But slowly, softly realization dawned—something was different about His instruction. There was a rhythm underlying each step, a nuance that guided and rejoiced in every move of the dance. He called it music. If He was attended by something so beautiful, perhaps the DanceMaster was different after all.
For fully three years I seemed to struggle without improvement. We never worked on more than the most basic steps, and He never let me dance on my own—I was always on His feet. Yet standing on the DanceMaster’s feet was excruciating! His feet were not broken and deformed: standing on them forced my own broken feet to take a different shape, and the pain was almost overwhelming. For those three years, I spent most of our lessons in tears. Repeatedly I begged Him to let me dance on the floor. He always said it wasn’t time yet; He said that I was not yet strong enough to hear the music on my own, and that the floor would hurt my feet more. All that sustained me were the DanceMaster’s frequent reminders of His promise to teach me many new dances when it was time, and the increasing beauty of the music to which we danced.
One day He said, “Look at your feet.”
They were so different!!! My feet were now shaped more like the DanceMaster’s, although they were still a little warped and…how scarred they were!
He said that my feet were no longer broken, but they would continue to cause me some degree of pain for the rest of my life. The DanceMaster gave me permission to dance on the floor now, but said that He would sometimes have me dance on His feet so that He could make my feet straighter. He also said the scars will fade over time, but that new ones will form any time I choose not to dance on His feet in moments when the pain is intense.
“Are you ready?” He asked.
He started teaching me dances. Each step, each dance built upon the one before it. At times He taught me quickly; more often He was slow and deliberate. Perhaps the music sustained me: slow didn’t seem so slow as before, and fast was never too fast. He began showing me solo dances, partner dances, and group dances. Some bore a vague similarity to the dances I had learned from the teaching feet…but these were far more intricate and beautiful. The steps which the DanceMaster taught me were far more complex than anything I could have previously managed with my broken feet. I grew to love combining the steps He had showed into improvised dances I would perform for Him. I’m sure the DanceMaster has seen many dances more artistically and technically correct. But each time I display for Him my affection and gratitude by mirroring back to Him the steps He has taught me, delight suffuses His face and He sings to the music surrounding me.
I was so excited by all I was learning that I began using my practice hours to introduce others to the beautiful steps the DanceMaster was teaching me. Some have grown excited and begun to study under Him as well; group dances are more and more fun! Most have been more or less polite to me and continued with their own dancing, or lack thereof. Some have grown very angry at the suggestion that their lives could possibly be deficient in any way that would necessitate the undertaking of such nonsense. Others have been deeply moved by the steps and the altered state of my feet…for a short while…but upon learning there is pain involved, they have always left in haste; my feet hurt worst after those encounters.
Usually I remember to dance on my Master’s feet when the pain grows unbearable; sometimes He has to remind me. Occasionally I ignore His reminders. I sit staring at my feet as the pain builds and the throbbing envelopes my mind, intentionally tuning out the DanceMaster’s persistent and gentle admonition to rise drifting to me on the music. Once in a while I do this even when my feet are not very painful at all; but hunching over them and thinking about them seems to make the pain grow somehow until I forget that it had not been nearly so sharp to begin with. But without fail—be it minutes, hours, or days later—the music penetrates my self-induced silence and I begin to hear His voice. It is always in those moments when I raise my head to look at Him from across the floor that I am most clearly struck by how tall and straight and strong the Dancemaster is. Gazing at Him from a distance is far more imposing than when I am dancing around Him or held close in His arms. The awe of this realization always spurs my desire to be near Him, in the shadow of His gentleness, and gives me the strength to rise and dance toward Him once more. Somehow, when I sit down, I always forget that while dancing the pain serves only to keep me light on my feet.
