Disabled Dancing

Jul 24, 2024

Dear Readers,

I spent last week at the Chautauqua Institution, for the first time since 2017. This was Gary and my seventh visit, the first being in 2002 with my parents, which ended up being the last time they were able to attend.

This visit, I was surprised by the lack of accessibility now that I am disabled. The remodeled Amphitheatre, for example, has disabled seating in the back, but then after morning worship, if you want to greet the worship leaders, you have to go down down down and weave your way through labyrinthine paths. It was worth it, as I knew the chaplain of the week, Leyla King, a fellow Episcopal priest and Eerdmans author—but then trying to return home became an ordeal walking uphill. To my embarrassment, two different people stopped to ask if I needed help—so I only greeted Leyla after the service once. Other buildings lack elevators. I had not noticed these things before, as I didn’t need to.

Back to Leyla: her sermons throughout the week focused on dance, and I was especially struck by “Delighting in the Dance” on Thursday, following a Wednesday night performance by the Puerto Rican group Plena Libre, which encouraged the audience to dance. I remained seated in my disabled seat in the back, but loved watching others, especially a couple who looked to be in their seventies a few rows ahead, who stood up and moved to the music enthusiastically. At one point the woman shrugged off her long-sleeved shirt and just danced in a tank top. They moved their shoulders and made eye contact with each other, laughing.

I love sermons that enable me to look at things a little differently, and “Delighting in the Dance” did that. Leyla King preached about how the confession in the Episcopal Church’s liturgy is one of her favorite prayers, with its line about “delighting in your will.” While I have prayed that prayer several times a week for decades, I had not focused on the delight. Leyla preached about delighting in God’s law and suggested that instead of seeing such laws as sets of rules, we could think of them more like the law of gravity. Here I am, almost a full week later, still chewing on that sermon and thinking about dancing.

I get to preach for the first time in months on the first Sunday in August, at a church I’m fascinated by here in Richmond, Common Table. Two congregations from two denominations came together to form it. I’ve been invited to speak about the themes in my latest book Irreverent Prayers (also by Samantha Vincent Alexander) and can even sell books after the service. At Chautauqua, Leyla talked about how she was invited to pick her own scripture, which is not normal for us as lectionary-following Episcopal priests. I also got to pick my own passage: John 9. Like the Chautauqua Institution, I see this text about Jesus healing a man born blind differently now through a lens of disability. I’ve long loved the story, particularly the line “Here is an astonishing thing!”

Earlier this month, July 2, the book launch for Irreverent Prayers was held at The Little Bookshop in Midlothian! I think it was an even bigger crowd than last year for Unexpected Abundance. My sister and niece came from Arizona, and several friends traveled serious distances to be there, from New York, northern Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee. My former parish from years and years ago, Old Donation in Virginia Beach, sent their bus. I felt so loved and supported. And they ran out of books!

I’d love to hear from you. Have you ever been to the Chautauqua Institution? Have you had (or will you have) a summer vacation? Leave a comment!

Blessings,

Elizabeth

Desert Owl Among the Ruins

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