On a breezy summer evening, I find a spot to watch them. A full orchestra has come together for a free concert outdoors.

In the midst of concrete sidewalks, restaurants, and the expansive town center/shopping mall around this stage area, I find a section of green grass. I pull out my camping chair and sink down, slipping into the menagerie of people already trickling in, looking forward to drown in a musical evening.

The sound of tuning instruments begins to fill a space in the air above the soft noise of the crowd. More people gather on and around the green.

Jazz, big band, a waltz, a symphony movement, opera, gospel, hymns… I hear it all. Excellent vocalists, interpretive dancers, and even an artist creating a painting add extra dimensions to the music.

I let the music minister to me… Give Me Jesus…Vilia… Battle Hymn of the Republic… Amazing Grace… Blue Danube… Slavonic Dance by Dvorak… Prayer for Taylor…Gloria… and many more… nearly twenty pieces ring different tones of life.

The vocalists are outstanding. The orchestra is superb—a mixture of professionals and amateurs. I listen to the deep cellos, the singing violins, the chiming flutes, the calling trumpets, the droplets of the harp, and how all the voices blend together into one symphonic piece after piece, each individual knowing when to join in or stop, and I am in love with it all.

A few feet sway or tap, heads nod, people smile, and at the end of each piece the applause reflects the appreciation of the crowd. I soak it in and my heart dances. But it’s the little children who teach me something.

The young children dance.

Uninhibited, oblivious to the crowd watching them and smiling, they dance…right smack in front of the crowd, just below the orchestra stage. The eyes of the musicians, singers and spectators sparkle with delight. Tears well in my eyes because of the music, the applause, and when the children dance.

The children have no fear of what others will think, or wonder if anyone else is doing it, too. The children dance together, or alone. They swing, sway, leap, hop, letting the music direct their movements. What a joy to watch… and for a few moments, I wish to be a child and be able to join them!

Could it be that when we grow up, we forget how to be brave enough to actually be the first one to dance? Perhaps that uninhibited dancing part of us was already grown-up as a child and we need to go back and learn that part of it all over again… at least, maybe I do.

Maybe … it’s kind of like faith, too. Maybe I knew how to trust better as a child than I do now. Maybe I need to learn some things all over again.

If I could sit and listen to music like this on many more summer nights, I’d have a delightful bit of summer indeed. But if I could dance along uninhibited… oh, then– I would be living life as full as those little kids with a factor of fun and joy and freedom as high as the clouds.

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What about you? Are you being called to dance, to step out, to create something? What is God breathing into you?

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Sharing over at The High Calling as part of the Breath for the Bones book study   and with Laura at The Wellspring
Sharing with L.L. Barkat at On, In and Around Mondays
Sharing with Jen and the Soli Deo Gloria sisters

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