By: Alex Aivars

 

If God is a DJ,

life is a dance floor

Love is the rhythm,

you are the music
~ Pink

 

I love to go out dancing, which I’ve written about before in this blog space. This wasn’t always the case, however.

 

When I was first coming out in the mid-2000s there was a dancefloor at the first gay bar I ever went to. I remember my friends asking me if I wanted to dance. I firmly said no. Up until that point in my life, my experiences with dancing were awkward and weird, consisting of school dances where I danced with girls at an arm’s length. Dancing had no appeal for me.

 

As I started to come out to more people in my life, and get more comfortable with my gay self, I became less reluctant to go out on the dancefloor. If I was with a group of friends, and they wanted to dance, I would dance. But I would never be the first on the dancefloor.

 

After a few more years, and after I concluded that I could in fact be both gay and Christian, I was the one dragging my friends to the dancefloor. When the right song came on, at the right moment, with the right people, it was amazing. I felt the music to my soul. I no longer had to think or communicate with words; movement became my sole communication medium. The rest of the world would fade away as waves of music washed over me. These waves would then catch my soul and be translated back into the physical world into movement with my body. It was only my body, soul, and the music. It was my escape.

 

I deeply missed dancing that first year of the pandemic. Then almost a year after the pandemic began, I attended a virtual conference of queer Christians. A dance party over Zoom was scheduled for the last night of the conference. I was skeptical at first while I waited for the dance party to start, sitting there on my couch by myself in front of my computer screen. I planned to stay for 2 songs. The DJ then played the first song. I liked it. I started to move my head in time with the music. Then the next song came on, and my hands started moving as well. Soon my upper body started to move as another good song came on. Pretty soon I was on my feet, full out dancing. I was having a blast. An hour and a half later, the Zoom dance party came to an end. It was what my soul needed.

 

I hope everyone can find that place where everything fades away and you can be at one with your body and soul. It’s in those moments when we can fully and deeply hear God saying these words to us: You are my beloved. With you, I am well pleased.

 

 

 

 

 

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