AWARENESS AS THE ?COSMIC DANCE?
Extract from pg. Nos. 136, 137, 138
SILENCE ON FIRE THE PRAYER OF AWARENESS BY WILLIAM H. SHANNON
CROSSROAD . NEWYORK
1991
The Crossroad publishing company
370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017
In the previous chapter I mentioned how Merton compared the ?original State? before the fall of the cosmic dance: the whole universe moving in harmonious rhythm with God. One way of describing salvation is to say that jesus the Christ not only recovers the harmony of that dance in himself ; he leads us and the whole universe in the cosmic dance. The metaphor is a fruitful one of reflecting on our salvation in Christ.
In writing about the cosmic dance in the final chapter of New seeds of Contemplation Merton is quite consciously making use of an ancient English carol, ?Tomorrow is my dancing day? which he describes , in a letter to Edward Deming Andrews as ?a lovely carol about the dancing God with man in mystery of Incarnation? ( See The Hidden Ground of Love, p.34), The carol is made up of eleven stanzas, to each of which the following refrain is added:
Sing, O my love, O my love,
My love, my love.
This have I done for my true love.
The first two stanzas are about Christmas and the Incarnation. The first says; This phrase ?to call my true love to the dance? or a variation of it, is repeated at the end of each stanza, prior to the refrain inviting the true love to sing. Hence each stanza concludes with an invitation to dance and sing.
The second stanza is also about the Incarnation and the notion of the dance begins to take on wider dimensions of solidarity with the whole human race. And the purpose of that solidarity ( there is a lovely image of being knit to human nature) was for salvation ? that he might lead us in his dance: the dance of harmony and unity, the dance of contemplation. Notice that it is my ?True Love? who is being called to the dance. ?True Love? is a singular noun that turns out, meaning wise, to be plural; it stands for all of God?s people, indeed for all of creation; for all that God made is the object of God?s love and is called to the dance.
Stanza four speaks of Jesus? Baptism, in which the Holy Ghost did on him glance and His father?s voice was heard calling ?my true love to my dance? . At this point in the carol of the dance is Jesus? dance and it is to that dance that God calls his people. God wills to save through Jesus. It is a dance led by Jesus that brings us back to harmony and oneness with God.
The fifth stanza and the sixth speak about dark side of Jesus? life; temptation, enmity, betrayal. The devil does his best to persuade Jesus to give up the leading of the dance.
And there is darkness of betrayal by one of his own. Judas is a symbol of a weak and sometimes perverse humanity, continuously threatening to destroy the rhythm of the dance. When he sold Jesus, Judas ?Covetousness for to advance, tells the guards with him:
Significantly the mark that Judas gives his companions to identify Jesus is that he is the one who is the leader of the dance. The forces of darkness that create alienation and disharmony cannot bide the presence of the one who brings unity and communion. They must seize him and eventually destroy him. Thus there is the seeming defeat that comes with death. ?They scourged me and set me at naught,. Judging me to die to lead the dance. This verse intrigues because it could be read to mean he was put to death either for wanting to lead the dance or in order that he might lead it> if the latter meaning is taken, the stanza embodies a doctrine of atonement; it was Jesus? death that restored the harmony of creation. His death accomplishes our at-one-ment with God.
Stanza nine speaks about His crucifixion and suggests a theme dear to very early Christian tradition, namely that the Church, the community of those whom Jesus makes one with God, was born from his pierced side. The water and the blood that issues from his side symbbolized Baptism and the Eucharist, the two great sacraments that create the Church and enable us appropriate Christ?s victory and in him become one with God.
Then on the cross hanged I was,
Where a spear to my heart did dance;
There issued forth both water and blood
To call my true love to the dance.
This striking carol concludes, in stanza ten and eleven, with the victory of Jesus ? a victory described in terms of the dance.
Extract written by
Srjasfer
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