I met John Melton on a motorcycle ride several years back, and we connected nicely and have become good friends. About the same ages, both spent time in the Hawthorne/Lawndale area, and both loved Jesus. The rides continued, then I mentioned we needed pull out drawers for our kitchen cabinets, and the semi-retired contractor volunteered to help. OK, to be honest, he did most of it and I helped. Together we made the doors from scratch in his garage workshop, picked up the hardware at the local Hank’s Ace Hardware, and put it all in.
We had a blast doing it, and we kept riding and meeting for breakfast or lunch at some local dives. Then came the time for John to retire. He’d done a lot of remodeling work for a designer, Candy Anady, and told her about his decision, and she responded, “Just keep dancing!” John replied, “Right now, it’s slow dancing.” Yes, he has a deft sense of humor!
For any Baptist readers who don’t dance, it’s fine metaphor that we stay active, that we move around, and that we choose joy. Not just for retirement, but for any transition in life, any change whether welcomed or not, it’s good to keep dancing: to find reasons to smile and enjoy life.
God gifted us with pleasure, with the ability to taste, to see beauty, with the ability to do, to accomplish. Whatever our stage in life, that applies, and is biblical: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do… Enjoy life with your spouse, whom you love…Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:7, 9-10).
Whether your dance is a frenetic salsa or stately waltz or slow dancing, dance. Yes, hard times exists, and Ecclesiastes talks about them too. But dance through them.
Kick Starting the Application
What in your life now most makes you want to dance? What most makes you not want to dance? How can you best see both sides of life and still dance? What is one “dance step” you can do this week?