Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

August 2004

An Olympic Moment or Learning to See Music in Motion

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

In one of those rare and unplanned moments I sat down on the couch and the television was on showing the Olympic games in Greece. It just happened to be during the Women's Gymnastic event where they dance their floor exercises to music. This is supposed to be the summer equivalent of the Women's Ice Dancing event in the winter Olympics. It is supposed to be both athletic and graceful, movement that blends with the music and become beauty in motion. This tall young woman in a red leotard from Russia had some of the grimmest determination on her face I have ever seen. Her concentration was so ridged it seems as though she was angry. She was obviously a world champion and her athletic strength and grace was both overwhelming and made me feel really old and out of shape. But I forgot that in my awe of her athletic ability and the years of pain and focused effort I was seeing acted out before me.

But what I did not see was beauty. She was not grace blending with music to create a mystic flow when you can almost feel the grace of God's enjoyment. Then she did a very difficult run, jump up and high spin and her face broke out in a huge grin. Suddenly her hand gestures, which had been an afterthought and both distracting and annoying, became part of the music. Her body movements became fluid and suddenly she transformed in front of me into beauty and movement for the rest of her routine. Instead of a machine I was seeing a beautiful young woman embodying flowing music in the most ancient human art of turning music into visible life.

It happened when her face broke and the woman blended with the training and discipline and transcended it. I didn't get to see much more than that short scene but I have been reflecting on it in the context of my life all week. I have spent a lifetime training to serve in the building of God's Kingdom of love and justice here on earth, yet am I flowing in the beauty of God's love so that the music can be heard in my life? To do what she did requires both training and something more.

Last Sunday the reading was from Hebrews 12:1-6 where the writer compares the Christian life to a long distance Marathon where you have to leave behind any weight or sin that can slow you down and can rob you of the joy the race can bring.

Well that struck a cord with me. As pastor John Ortberg said in Leadership, Summer 2002, p. 104, "There is an enormous difference between trying to do something versus training to do it." Training means dedicating oneself to regular practice and discipline. Anyone can compete in the Tour de France bicycle race, but only someone like Lance Armstrong who trains every day for the competition can succeed. Are we "trying" to be a follower of Christ or are we "training" to be a follower of Christ? Training means spending time with God, in meditation, silence, prayer, thoughtful reflection, Bible study and Christian Fellowship and Community Worship and sacraments.

Am I remembering to do my training disciplines and enough of them to make a difference? What about the other part of leaving behind sin or weight that slows me down from reaching Joy? If I thought of sins as weights, what burdens are slowing down my life? I found an old list I had copied from somewhere of burdens we need not let drag us down.

Tomorrow - No Christian needs to carry this one. An African proverb reads, "Don't be tired tomorrow." Jesus said, "Be not anxious for tomorrow."

The unforgiven wrong - no matter which side you're on. Forgive it, or ask it. A grudge is a dead weight that grows with rehearsal.

Suspicion - no, everyone is not talking about you. They are too busy talking about themselves.

Temper - "The wind that blows out the lamp of the mind." Temperamental people should remember that it is 90% temper and 10% mental. A good addition to the Beatitudes would be "Blessed is the person who does not need to be handled with kid gloves."

Make your own list of weights that hold you back in the race of life - then let go of them. I had forgotten that when I was in college, my Introduction to English Literature professor went around asking the freshmen what they wanted to do with their lives and I surprised myself when I said something like, "I want to look back on my life and say I fought the good fight, I ran my race when I give back my gift of life to God." Well, that had a kind of dampening effect on the class and took my professor back a bit, but looking back on it I think it is the same vision I now talk about when I say, "I want to walk in grace, so in harmony with the will of God that I move balanced with God's world and in the center of God's love that makes all things new." I like my new way of saying it better, it is more a matter of balance instead of attack and push, but I am still looking for the same thing. Reflecting on that, I think I found the thing that made the young woman suddenly turn into beauty.

It is also what my life needs if I am going to turn any of these years of training into something beautiful and something that can transcend the troubles and frustrations that want to drag me down. I think it is something we could all use more of. It is joy. She felt joy when she did what she set out to do. It wasn't just happiness. Happiness comes from outside and is dependent upon what the world does or does not do to you. Joy comes from within. In that moment of doing well she accepted and loved herself. If I can love and accept myself, I open myself to the joy that is God and for a moment I can transcend myself to become something more. I have felt it and it is wonderful. But I did not make the connection between training to find that balance point and the experience of walking in grace with God in Christ. I had thought of it only as a gift, of heaven breaking through. Suddenly it occurs to me that God is always knocking on the door and trying to flood my life with gifts of joy. The bottleneck is on my side. What weights or sins and what lack of training on my part are keeping me from running with the wind of God's Spirit and being lifted up like on the wings of Eagles?

I invite you to think on this for your own life. Not in a blaming way, but accepting and forgiving. Just so you know what to let go of so you can go faster and higher into joy. For we are the family of God and joy is supposed to be part of our life together. Why is it so unusual? Should it not be at least a weekly event? I think it is time again for me to be in training and look at my life. I invite you to train with me. Together we can learn to run with the Spirit of Life, of God's Holy Spirit that can bring joy in the midst of trouble. May God Bless your efforts and bring you joy.

Your brother-in-Christ,
Reverend Michael Lee Burgess

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