My Dance

I love the lyrics of the song sung by Garth Brooks, “The Dance.”

“Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain
But I’d of had to miss the dance.”

Yes, life is fraught with pain, but we take it along with the joy. The two go together, are inseparable. And if you choose to avoid the pain, you will miss the dance. Joy and sorrow come together, and those who know the greatest joy are those who also knew great sorrow.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

The dance is filled with both joy and sorrow. Bishop Charleston describes the dance:

The dance is not over, even if the night grows long, even if others have left the floor, for as long as the band plays on, as long as music fills the air, the spirit within me will move, move in time to the sounds of life, to the rhythms of change. I age but I do not grow old. My dance goes on, and when I have no ground beneath me, I will dance on air.