We filed into the shell of a gym at a community college for a ballet class. The faint smell of decades of perspiration seemed to seep from the wood floors, and the shellacked blond brick walls echoed back the sound of each movement -- the squeak of a shoe, a sigh, the thump and crash of purses and other possessions being dumped on the floor.
The class was a diversion for us, a kind of elegant impulse, a unique way to get some exercise – “Hey, let’s sign up for a ballet class” -- but suddenly, no one seemed to want to be there, especially the teacher. We were all amateurs, totally unfamiliar with ballet’s terminology, let alone the disciplined movements. The teacher tried to describe the precise, stylized movements to us, but we stared back at her with bovine blankness, at first eager to learn, but then surrendering to a cloud of confusion.
After a few warm-up exercises and a brief explanation, she asked us to perform a pique, which is sort of a series of turns in a straight line. But each clumsy attempt seemed to end the same way. The person would start out with a look of intense concentration that would dissipate into a discouraged, deflated jumble. Instead of rotating, we’d end up in an uncontrolled twirl, our torsos spinning off in errant directions like spinning tops that would slowly lose momentum, followed by floppy arms and legs. As our feeble attempts faltered and floundered, our teacher’s frustration became more apparent, and the weight of her disappointment robbed the experience of any pleasure.
Suddenly, I decided to give it a try. For a moment, no one else was in the room. I entered a dimension where I drew from something deep and, as a result, preternatural ability emerged. I could feel myself turning and turning, my face whipping around rhythmically, my body propelled through space as if carried on a breeze. When I finally stopped spinning, the teacher and other class members all stared at me in astonishment. Finally, the teacher spoke. “That’s what I mean. Do that again.”
But I couldn’t. Suddenly, I was self conscious and I couldn’t repeat what I had just done. It had been a magical, elevated moment, where I had become a part of the air, fluid and transcendent, but now I had returned to the the ground. Now, I was just another untrained, awkward kid in a community college ballet class with a grumpy teacher who scowled at me in disgust and disappointment.
I had experienced something that gave me a glimpse of a world where passion and ability merge in an expression of effortless transcendence. But that moment had passed and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had fallen back to earth. I never went to ballet class again.
Another time, as an even older adult, I was trying to learn to ski. In my lifetime, it was only my second visit to the slopes, and I couldn’t get beyond the bunny hill. Just when I thought I was making some progress, I’d go for one more run down the bunny “slope” and end up on my rear end or topsy turvy. Finally, I figured that I couldn’t improve if I didn’t push myself, so I decided to give the intermediate hill a try.
As I headed down the hill, no one was more surprised than me when I didn’t fall. The packed, icy snow propelled me forward faster than I anticipated but my knees eased and rotated with a natural responsiveness to the terrain. The speed was exhilarating. The wind seemed to caress me with giant, unseen hands into just the right angle and rhythm and I felt like skiing was what I was born to do. I felt my Scandinavian ancestors come alive in each fiber of my being, and it was like every molecule in my body buzzed. Take that, mere mortality! I had connected with a thrill shared by skilled skiers throughout the ages.
“Wow! Did you see that?!” I hollered, as I came to a perfect stop, scraping the landscape with a spray of snow worthy of an Olympic skier. “That felt amazing!”
I couldn’t wait to try it again. But this time, as I headed down the hill, I was hit by a wave of fatigue. I careened off the side of the mountain with no strength left in my legs. After I tumbled into some kind of perverse pretzel shape, I was buried in snow and couldn’t even make myself get back up. It was like temporary paralysis and I started to cry. I can’t even remember exactly how I made it back down, but I do remember the exhaustion and fear. I haven’t gone skiing since. I intend to go skiing again eventually, but for now, it just seems like another transcendent moment that I may never recapture.
Finally, in another recent incident, while practicing to play the non-speaking role of the biblical Martha in my church’s Easter drama, I was put on the “hot seat,” meaning that I would be queried by a church volunteer named Stephanie in an acting exercise designed to help me get into character.
She asked me about myself and I told her in detail who I was, or who Martha was, because at the moment, we were one in the same. I talked about my family and how I had grown up knowing Jesus and that he was no ordinary man, but that it had taken me a while to recognize him as the Messiah. I told her about my brother, Lazarus, and how Jesus had raised him from the dead. “Were you there when they crucified Jesus?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, trying to choke back tears that, nevertheless, flowed freely.
It wasn’t an exhilarating moment like the others because of the somber subject matter, but it was energizing nevertheless. I had transcended my own identity and entered a character and place beyond my own. When I was finished, and everyone else had finished their exercises as well, Stephanie gave me a hug. “Thank you for that,” she said. “You really blessed me.”
This coming weekend, I’ll take on the character of Martha for seven performances. During practice, I’ve often transcended my experience as I’ve relived the wonderful story of the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus. Still, I don’t know if I can recreate it with the same intensity seven times and, of necessity, I approach this weekend with an awareness of my total dependence on God’s power.
So far, my life has been filled with “one hit wonders,” but I’m thankful that God continues to supply the wonder, even when my own limitations provide the “one hit” part.
The free, reserved tickets are gone, but you can still watch online at church-redeemer.org. Here's a preview. You’ll get a limited sense of the drama online, but still hear the story. And I’m praying that -- not through my feeble power but through the power of God’s Spirit -- you’ll have your own transcendent experience as you encounter Jesus.
