Standing still … and dancing

I was a senior in college the first time I realized that standing still was not my gift. And recently as the frantic pace of this summer has caught up with me, the memory of this long ago lesson painted itself into my mind.

It started with this assignment during my student teaching year as an education major. We had to video tape ourselves teaching a class and then watch these tapes (yes, actual tapes!) with our classmates and professors.

Can I just say that there is little more horrifying and humbling than sitting in a classroom with your peers and being critiqued on how you teach 8^th graders verb tenses? I nearly lost my lunch when it was my turn.

I needn’t have worried though. I was actually only in my video for about 15 seconds. The rest of it was like a voice over of me explaining verb tenses from every corner of the room. The video camera was in a fixed position and I was everywhere but in front of it. My classmates found it hilarious and began referring to me as The Flash. And when it was over, two of my professors applauded my energy and enthusiasm.

One professor, though, my favorite, saw right through this performance and shook his head at me.

“It isn’t sustainable,” he said, “you had no fixed point. You just kept moving. You can’t do that forever. You are going to have to stop being afraid and learn to be comfortable with being still.”

He scrawled his negative words across my evaluation form and looked right into my tear filled eyes. Like maybe he could see something I couldn’t. And his words etched their way into me despite my resistance to his criticism.

I was terrible at standing still; he was right. I had no fixed point. I was only confident in my ability to do my job if I was moving.

And two years into my teaching career, sick and exhausted, I finally got it. He had been trying to teach me the dance. This delicate balancing act of being still and moving that keeps you from running right into yourself.

And all these years later, I am still hearing his words and trying to figure out the steps.

Maybe you do this too? Run around your life like you are a superhero who makes things happen? Race through the day’s agenda, answer all the right questions, say all the right things – but you never stop moving?

Do you tell yourself that the moving is necessary? Insist that if you stop everything will come to a crashing halt? Yeah, me too. And it can be so exhausting.

In his gospel, Mark tells this story of Jesus and a storm. And when I read it in the middle of my own summer storm, the one that has me running in all directions. I read myself right into that boat with those disciples.

Mark tells it like this. Jesus is in this boat with the disciples. They pull away from the crowds to go over to the other side of the lake. Going had been Jesus’ idea. And the disciples were game. But then this storm comes. This storm that rocks the boat and leaves the disciples running in circles trying to save themselves.

Yeah, I get it. I am always game for the things that I know are Jesus’ idea. I am quick to jump in the boat with him, and pull away from the shore, certain that all will be well.

But inevitably, a storm comes. It gets hard. Loving my enemies seems like a great thing to do until I actually try it. Serving others sounds perfect until it impacts my real day. These things he calls us to do get hard. And suddenly, there we are running around bailing water in a sinking boat, afraid that if we stop moving the whole gig could be up.

Mark’s story continues as the storm gets worse and the disciples finally remember that Jesus is in the boat with them. He is just asleep. They wake him up and with just the sound of his voice, “Peace! Be still! — the crashing waves, the pounding rain and running disciples all fall silent; still. (Mark 4:39). Because he is right there.  And he is their fixed point; in the boat with them all along.

But he chastises them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).

Is your faith really just in your own ability to handle it all or is it in me?

It stings a bit as I read those words. I am that twenty-one year old teacher taking criticism from a favorite professor, “Why are you so afraid of being still?” And I wonder as the waves died down and the storms lifted above them,  did the disciples get it?

Jesus knew what they were going to need. He saw where they were headed, and he knew that they were going to have to learn this dance.

You see, he saw those scared fisherman as the bulwarks of the faith that they would become. He saw them as he had made them to be.

And you and me? He sees us like that too. As we were made to be; not as we feel we are.

But we have to learn how to dance; when to lead and when to follow; when to be still and when to move.

We have to stop just running around the room trying not to get caught on camera. We have to know how to be still,  to fix our eyes and put our faith in the one who is always on the boat with us.

This dance, the one my professor tried to teach me, the same one Jesus tries to show the disciples; this moving and this being still; is how we learn to walk by faith.

Parts of life will require that we move; storms require that we bail water; teaching requires that we move around the classroom. But we must have a fixed point. We must know where to look to get our next move.

Jesus wasn’t condemning the disciples for trying to survive the storm. He was reminding them of what his presence with them meant.

They had the one who made the heavens and the earth; the one who made the storm itself in the boat with them. And so do we. We “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” and we take our cues from him (Hebrews 12:2).

And sometimes that means we just have to be still.

We have to stop holding on so tight and remember that our God is big and we are small and he’s in the boat with us.

We can learn this dance. “Peace! Be still!”  He’s got this.