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Ouch...

How do you get past hurt?  Is it something that will naturally heal?  Or is it something that will always stay open until you do something about it?  Some natural wounds heal.  If I get a paper cut, normally it will be fine in a day or two without doing anything to medicate it.  If I break a finger, it will not be fine in a day or two, and it will not be fine if I don’t do anything for it. 

I have some hurts.  Some have been paper cuts, while others have been gashes and broken bones.  The paper cuts go away and you get over them.  The broken bones on the other hand… they get worse if you do nothing for them.  Sometimes if you don’t do anything long enough they start to affect everything around it. 

My grandma was great.  I don’t remember a ton about her, but she was a larger german woman who squeezed the life out of you when you got a hug.  I liked her a lot.  She scared me a little bit, but that was okay because I always knew that she would squeeze me when I came to see her.  She did a lot of stuff that most women don’t do and seemed very independent.  She wasn’t someone who I ever saw cry or wimp out.  If anything she would be the one getting other people to wimp out.  Never play her in mercy… your hand will be destroyed. 

I don’t know how it happened, but grandma got a cut or an injury to her foot one day.  I don’t think she thought it was a big deal.  She could handle a little cut… until it didn’t heal.  It got infected and eventually it got so bad that she had to have her leg amputated from the knee down.  I don’t know that I understood what happened to grandma being that I was very young, but from that time on I made sure that I used peroxide and bandages on my cuts. 

I think that the same thing can happen to us internally.  We can get hurt or we can get cut and if we don’t take care of it, it spirals out of control.  Sometimes we want to be big and say, I don’t want to deal with it.  So we don’t.  The problem is a week, a month, or a year down the road when that hurt is festering with un-forgiveness and it develops into hate and the pain is unbearable.  Whenever that part gets touched we wince in pain and it kills at just the smallest reminder of what happened. 

We get broken bones as well… In high school, my senior year, I was on the varsity football squad.  I was a Capitan and had played varsity all four years.  I don’t know that I was a “tough” guy on campus, but no one messed with me.  After one crushing win, I went back to the locker room and started to get ready to hit the shower.  In games I would always get hurt.  If I didn’t sprain an ankle or two, I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough.  If my fingers felt fine, that means I didn’t push the fat D-linemen hard enough.  I always had pain.  I would take two aspirin before every game because I knew I was going to head butt people and have a head ache, so I would take preemptive measures. So it wasn’t odd when my wrist was killing me in the locker room.  It was painful.  I just figured that I sprained it and I would be good in a day or two.  I went home and did my normal post game routine by soaking my bludgeoned body parts in hot water and then freezing them in ice.  Three days go by and it is football practice again.  My wrist was still killing me and the swelling had not gone down.  I didn’t want to do anything about it though… I had a season to finish.  At practice, we were doing some training and I tried to do a pushup and I couldn’t.  My wrist didn’t want to bend and couldn’t support me.  I was ticked at my body for not fixing itself.  I gave it one more day and then I went to the doctors.  I scheduled an appointment right after school so that I could get back to school for practice.  I went into the doctors office and came out with a cast and an order that my season was done.

I was pissed.  I was mad.  I don’t even know if I can explain how I felt.  When I walked on the field and told the coach and saw the disappointment in his eyes I felt helpless.  I couldn’t do anything.  I was crippled.  Months and months passed and surgery came and went and still my wrist doesn’t function properly.  Do I regret playing football?  No.  Not one second of it.  I loved it.  I still do.  I still play.  Granted I am not like I use to be, but I still try.  My wrist still hurts.  I am reminded of it everyday when I try to bend it and it doesn’t bend.  It is something that won’t go away.  It was something that I had to have a cast on though.  It was something that I needed other people to help me with because if it was up to me, I would have tried to suck it up and keep playing football.  I think that we have things that people need to help us through.  Perhaps that might be tough.  I did not want to give up football.  I hated the doctor.  I hated being forced to go to him.  I hated that he wouldn’t let me play.  But if he would have… I would be much worse than I am. 

What does it take for someone to call another out and tell them that they have a broken bone?  What does it take for someone to carry someone else on there shoulders until they can walk?  What does that look like?  I have no clue.  My guess is that it starts with love. Enough love to tell someone that they need to let things go.  Enough love to let someone know that they need to see a doctor or someone who knows more then them.  It isn’t easy.  My parents made me go to the doctor and I didn’t like them for a while because they made me go, but it was in my best interest that I did.  Life doesn’t last forever. Life isn’t easy.  Erwin Mcmanus said in one of his sermons that Christianity is not about making life easier, but it is about making living life worth living.  I know I let things that are hard get in the way of living a quality life.  Sometimes I need people to kick my butt and tell me that, other times the pain shouts that to my brain.  Dealing with hurt, dealing with others, and dealing with yourself is not easy, but it will make life worth living when it is over with.

Tap, Jazz, or Stomp

A little background on me and my family:

My dad – Ballroom Dance Instructor

Stats:   Competitions in New York and Chicago

            Trophies and Accolades

            Still can do a mean Salsa

My sister – Dance Instructor

Stats:  Salsa dances in heels I couldn’t walk in

(not that I walk in heels)

                                    Teaches polka and the fox trot

                                    Dances at home, Famous Daves, and the Studio

My mom – Married a Ballroom Dancer

                        Stats:   Doesn’t look like she can get it but…

                                    She does when my dad grabs her hand

                                    Makes a mean banana cake?

My brothers – Army/Air Force

                        Stats:   I don’t know if they can dance

                                    Drew took dance lessons at the same time as me

                                    No clue if Jon can dance…

 
So anyways.  I never really learned to dance growing up.  Wasn’t a thing I did.  Sure, I took tap dancing lessons once or twice and had a class on jazz dance, but for some reason that is blacked out of my memory.  I cant dance, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.  Most of the time when I find myself “dancing”, if you could call it that, is when I am playing guitar.

There is something about creating music that surges through my body and ends up in my feet.  I was playing tonight and after the chorus of a song, I realized that I was moving awkwardly/dancing as I played.  I was really confused and my body continued to do that even though I didn’t really want it to, for fear of becoming an outcast and shunned from society.  The problem was that I felt it and couldn’t stop and it felt right.  Sadly, it probably didn’t look to right.

If you know a little bit about me, you probably know that I went to school for church music.  Church music you say?  Yes.  Church music.  That was my major.  I learned how to conduct a choir and how to play piano.  Not to mention play Jazz, do theory, and rock out on guitar.  I love music and I would almost rather play my emotions than speak them.  I think that is what makes my feet move.  I find that when I am playing music at a church, my feet move.  There is something that goes into my body and comes out of my hands and feet.  (I have also heard that I do some odd things with my face/head combination).

When I play in a church, I am generally playing worship songs (songs about Jesus, God, and stuffs like that).  Those songs move me.  I think that God wants us to dance.  If you have ever danced with someone it can be pretty awkward if you don’t know them, but once you know them (and if you like them) it can be amazing.  You don’t even have to know how to dance for it to be great.  Being close and moving to music.  Letting the words and sound become part of you and exude out of you is a natural thing.  When I am playing music about Jesus, something takes hold of me and I forget what my body is doing and it just starts moving. So… that sounds a little weird.  Dancing with Jesus?  Awkward.  Umm… well, I guess I am normally dancing with my guitar, which is a little weirder, but I can’t help that.

So I can’t dance.  My family is full of people who can dance (3-4 of 6) and I just am handicap in that area.  Two left feet… That is me.  That doesn’t matter though.  I don’t know that I am dancing for you.  I don’t know that I am dancing for me.  I dance when I play and I dance when I sing to express how I feel about the God that I serve and love.  While some people are stuck with the image of Zeus sitting on a cloud with thunder bolts to throw at people who are disobedient, I imagine someone who loves the stomping and swaying that I do.  My body knows who it is dancing with sometimes better than my mind can comprehend it.  I am dancing with a lover like no other.  I am dancing for him.  I guess I am bringing my best and really, that is about all I can do.  So if you see me swaying and stomping, there is another person there and I really don’t care about you in that moment.  Sorry it is not the prettiest thing to look at though.  No I’m not.  It is me. Dance.

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