How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
—1 John 3:17–18
For this week’s installment, instead of presenting for contemplation a song and a visual artwork, I want to share a contemporary dance number, in which the aural and the visual—music and bodily movement—are intertwined. Click on the image below to watch the performance on YouTube (will open in new tab; ends at 2:11).
This routine was choreographed by Travis Wall to Will Young’s cover of “What the World Needs Now Is Love.” It aired August 22, 2016, on season 13, episode 10 of So You Think You Can Dance on Fox. For this “Next Generation” season, contestants were between the ages of 8 and 13 and were paired with older dancers from previous seasons (“All-Stars”). The young dancers are Tahani Anderson, Leon “Kida” Burns, Ruby Castro, J. T. Church, Emma Hellenkamp, and Tate McRae. The All-Stars are Gaby Diaz, Comfort Fedoke, Marko Germark, Jenna Johnson, Paul Karmiryan, Sasha Mallory, Kathryn McCormick, Jonathan Platero, Robert Roldan, and Du-Shaunt “Fik-Shun” Stegall.
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Liberate us, we pray you, Lord, from the getting and grasping to which we are prone. Teach us the royal way of the law of the gift, that in giving not only things but ourselves we may know even now the life abundant you promise to bring to perfection in eternal life with you. Increase in us gratitude for your gift of yourself, and let that gift of gratitude inspire us to the greatness of living our lives as love in response to love.
—Richard John Neuhaus
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God of all—
come now and transform my life
into becoming an instrument and embodiment of your peace.
May I bring, be, and sustain love over hate.
May I bring, be, and sustain pardon in the midst of harm.
May I bring, be, and sustain hope where there is none.
May I bring, be, and sustain light in the terror of the dark.
May I bring, be, and sustain rejoicing upon sadness.Grant me the gift
to choose the consolation of others over my own;
to seek to understand over my need to be understood;
to seek in all things, to love well beyond myself.
Because in such ways,
I will receive much more if I give without reserve,
and I will know true reconciliation and restoration
when I forgive and restore others;
and then,
I will know the joy of life to the fullest
when I truly die to myself.Amen.
—David Haas, adaptation of the Prayer of St. Francis
(© 2017 by David Haas / The Emmaus Center for Music, Prayer, and Ministry)
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, cycle B, click here.
Art & Theology 