The Sacrament of Sweat
Reverend Holly Horn
First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA
March 30, 2003
Angeles Arrien writes:
"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask you one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?"
These questions make me uncomfortable. Every sermon begins with an empty page, a vacant screen. Every sermon starts out with staring into the void, sometimes for an hour or more. I have learned to live with this.
But, these questions make me physically uncomfortable; restless and irritable. I’m squirming in my chair. I’m opening the window. I’m watching the bakers across the street, through their window. I’m pacing and stretching. I never do this.
"When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?"
While occasionally elusive, the sweet territory of silence is a trustworthy companion. And I am endlessly enchanted by stories – the ones I read, stories from science or history or the Thousand and One Nights; and the ones I hear, stories from the lives of people: your stories.
When did I stop singing? I can’t say for sure. I can’t pinpoint the day, but I remember the blur of years when it disappeared; when music escaped from the fabric of daily life. I don’t want to think about it. It makes me sad.
But I never stopped singing altogether. And neither have you.
A few years ago, the Lilly Foundation funded a comprehensive study of how Americans worship. Published by the Alban Institute, this study looks at what happens in worship – in over 1,000 congregations across the religious spectrum. They discovered that American worship services "are composed of subsets of . . . 29 elements", ranging from "organ music" to "adults jump/shout/dance spontaneously."
The study concluded that "Empirically, producing worship in the United States means getting people together to sing and listen to somebody talk. . . Not only do virtually all worship services, whatever the religious tradition, contain both congregational singing and preaching, but more than half. . . of all the time spent in worship is taken up either with sermonizing or with music of some sort."
98% of all people attending worship sing. 97% hear a sermon. 81% engage in silent prayer or meditation. It might interest you to know that 74% laugh.
In this place, we visit the sweet territory of silence. We tell stories. We sing. At least once each week, we answer the shaman’s questions with soul-healing medicine.
But, "when did you stop dancing?"
Many religious traditions embrace the sacrament of sweat; teaching spiritual practices that engage the body in physical movement, including sacred dance: the Hindu yogas, Taoist tai chi; Zen Buddhist walking meditation; the Christian perambulation of the stations of the cross; the davening of devout Jews; the raka’ a’s, or prostrations, of daily Muslim prayer. The Mevlevi Sufis, known as the "whirling dervishes", practice the turn. And as their founder, Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi wrote: "There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground."
All of these practices share the goal of achieving a spiritual experience or understanding that exists beyond words and concepts; whether balancing the energies of yin and yang, entering the vast field of emptiness, or dissolving the ego in divine love. They seek an embodied spirituality.
At different times, I’ve incorporated some of these disciplines into my own practice: tai chi, kung fu, the turn. And, especially during the school years of intense intellectual activity, these practices brought needed balance to my life. But, as my living spaces contracted, so did the physical dimension of my spiritual life. I could probably still turn if my kitchen was bigger. But, as it is, only yoga endures.
Yet, there was one other sacrament of sweat, perhaps less orthodox if equally important to me – ecstatic dance. It was a communal ritual. Up to 25 or 30 of us – expatriate Unitarian Universalist young adults – would plan carefully for weeks in advance: who’d buy the tickets, who’d go in which car. I always went in one of the early cars. We’d be there when the doors opened; claiming our space up front on the dance floor by practicing tai chi in a circle until the others arrived.
And then, we’d dance – for hours – four hours, six hours, as long as the band would play, we’d dance. Beginning with the gentle, flowing rhythms and sweet melodies – the roll of rock and roll; then warming up with driving back-beat to that wild, unrestrained, chaotic full-tilt boogie where it seems like the whole place is levitating, tremulous, hair, limbs, bodies shaking.
Then, slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, it begins to dissolve. Stray notes. Screeching metallic dissonance from Jerry’s guitar, like a braking train, sparks flying. Liquid, melting sounds, as if from a distant planet. This is my favorite part, where the world falls apart. Because most people stop dancing. And my friends form this protective circle around me. And there’s room for slow, prehistoric, horizontal movement, legs extended, arms reaching for their limit.
This leads into the drum solo, or drum duet. I keep dancing. Random notes drop in for a visit, accumulating notes, until at last we notice the notes of a new song coming into view – like the first light of morning. And everybody’s up again, beginning again with the gentle, flowing rhythms and sweet melodies.
I’d wake up the next morning, exhausted, sore, reborn – as if my body and spirit had once again been brought into perfect alignment, perfect harmony, into a perfect joy.
Gabrielle Roth writes: "Many of my favorite shamans are rock stars. They probably don’t even know they’re shamans but they know how to get to ecstasy and back, and how to take others with them."
The Grateful Dead knew. And we knew that they knew.
So, "when did you stop dancing?"
When that tight circle of friends, protecting my dance, began to unravel? It was definitely over when I started preaching on Sunday mornings: no more ecstatic Saturday nights. I traded one spiritual practice for another; both sacraments of sweat, I may add. But the bodily memory of that loss makes me restless.
It’s a curious coincidence, considering the culture of Unitarian Universalism. Historically, reason, along with freedom and tolerance, has been our password. We don’t really have an ecstatic tradition. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson – who complained about "corpse-cold Unitarianism" – his great mystical vision was the transparent eyeball, utterly disembodied.
On the other hand, we’ve got a reputation, whether for bold experimentation, kookiness, or sacred dance, I’m not sure. But on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor continues to repeat his barb about "Unitarian missionaries in Minnesota who attempted to convert the Native Americans with liturgical dance."
Our traditions of common worship evolve gradually, for good reasons. Liturgy is a vessel for our best intentions and our highest aspirations, which we treat with the greatest respect and care. A dependable vessel allows us to go deeper, even to be transformed. So, even seemingly small changes are rarely uncontested. And when changes are considered, they are likely to arise from the spiritual practices and emergent desires of significant numbers of our members.
For in our personal spiritual practices, we draw from many traditions. And many of these are traditions of spiritual embodiment; practices that transcend words and concepts through physical movement. For many of us, the sacraments of sweat provide a gesture of balance to our mental activity.
Another among these is Middle Eastern dance. Andrea Deagon writes:
"I believe that Middle Eastern dance inspires . . . love and dedication because in performing it, the dancer finds a unique ability to transcend time, place and her own limitations and touch something eternal – something even divine. She shares this with an audience in a relationship that can feel as close as a love affair. . . And the vision this dance brings is ultimately joyful, a joy filtered through the fragile wisdom of a well-lived life. . . What is vast and cosmic is made comprehensible by the dancer who imbues it with specific meanings, those that arise both from her individual life, and from the values of her culture."
From the Sufi Pir Valayat Khan:
"Why aren’t you dancing with joy at this very moment?
This is the only relevant spiritual question."
Because we cannot answer that question with words and concepts, we dance.
THE DANCE: by Sherri Wilcauskas, Worship Associate.
From Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi: Love for Certain Work
Traveling is as refreshing for some as staying at home
is for others. Solitude
in a mountain place fills with companionship for this
one, dead-weariness
for that one. This person loves being in charge of the
working of a community. This
one loves the ways that heated iron can be shaped with
a hammer. Each has been
given a strong desire for certain work, love for those
motions, and all motion
is love. The way sticks and pieces of dead grass and
leaves shift about in
the wind and with the directions of rain and puddle water
on the ground, those
motions are following the love they’ve been given.
May we, too, move, following the love we’ve been given, AMEN.
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