Dancing in the Dark

Dancing in the moonlight the young man turned bent low and then spun quickly gracefully athletic. His joyous laughter pierced the still and silence of the night.

Approaching him along the shoreline a tall muscular three pieced suited gentleman, walking briskly, his steps in measured strides, his arms keeping time like a mechanical metronome.


The very proper and correct man broke his pace at the sight of the dancing, prancing silhouette in the moonlight. With hands firmly on hips and his suit jacket bulging at his chest he glared at the dancer. Not until he allowed his sight to adjust to the shadowing twilight did he see that the ritual dance had a purpose.

The dancer was picking up stranded starfish left behind by the receding tide to soon be baked up the rising of the sun. The starfish of many colors littered the beach as far as the eye could see.

Without hiding his contempt the watcher chided condescendingly, “What are you doing? What difference can saving a few starfish possibly make?”

Smiling with the innocence of a child the dancer sang while whirling but one more stranded starfish back into the deep. “It certainly makes a difference to this one!”

How are we as followers of Jesus the Christ to measure success? Are we to calculate by the multitudes, business models, and the lenses of modernity. Can a life spent in only making a difference to one be counted as a success?

Absent from the story are the familiar qualifications of success and measurements of progress. All that mattered was the dance and the “one” of the moment.

My point and purpose is not to attack large successful ministries nor to hold them up for examination but simplt to propose that the importance of the one is close to the heart of God. And those dancing in the dark may not be so out of step.

I have met some wary dancers – perhaps am one myself – who feel abandoned and diminished only due to their dancing the steps that the Spirit of God has put into their hearts. Their crime: caring more for the “one” than the organizational goals.

So, dancers in the dark, keep dancing even if only for the one. Keep dancing for if you slow down and lose the rhythm you may find your unique personality being trimmed to fit someone else’s mass-produced frame.

Post script:

Today I learned that one of the “ones” I hoped to throw to the deep was not thrown far enough and is trapped in the shallows with the heat of the full sun now bearing down.

J, may you find deep water and rest for your soul.