 |
 Woodie White "I Could Have Danced All Night" Program #3317 First air date January 28, 1990 |
Biography
Woodie W. White, Bishop of the Illinois Area of the United
Methodist Church, grew up in New York City's Harlem neighborhood. After
graduation from Seminary, he pastored churches in Massachusetts and
Michigan before becoming General Secretary of the Commission on Religion
and Race of the United Methodist Church. In 1984 Woodie White was
elected to become the first minority bishop in the Illinois area.
Bishop White has served on a task force to examine racism and race
relations in Australia and New Zealand and has participated in preaching
missions in Chile, Argentina and Brazil. He is the co-author of Racial
Transition in the Church and the author of Confessions of a Prairie
Pilgrim, an anthology of his weekly articles for a denominational
periodical. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast
date noted above.]
"I Could Have Danced All Night"
In 1955 when Lerner and Loewe penned "My Fair Lady," I am sure they had
no idea that it would become one of the most famous musicals of all
time. You might recall it was an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's
"Pygmalion." It was set in 1912 London. Professor Higgins finds an
urchin girl, Eliza, and tries to make her over into a sophisticated
woman to become a part of London society. He does so to his amazement
and hers. He produces a beautiful, sophisticated, cultured woman. There
is one unforgettable scene when, having achieved what they had sought,
she is introduced to London society. She learns how to speak with proper
diction; how to carry herself in a way that causes heads to turn. Having
succeeded, they decide to dance together.
Afterwards, she is still on cloud nine. Late in the evening when she is
about to go to bed, the maid comes in. She is still excited and begins
to sing a memorable song. The words are these:
I could have danced all night,
Dancing. What is it about this rhythmic movement of body that causes one
to sway, to come close to self and to God? In its biblical context,
dancing was originally not done for its own sake. Dancing was an act of
gratitude and thanksgiving. It was what one did to express faith and
thanksgiving to God. It was a part of festival and feast. It had an
important place in worship because words seemed inadequate. Somehow the
grateful spirit had to express itself in body, motion, and movement. So,
people danced. David danced. People danced in worship. They danced and
danced and danced. In Psalm 30, the psalmist is crying out in his place
of darkness. He wonders why he is there. Do you know what darkness is?
I could have danced all night,
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my wings,
And done a thousand things,
I'd never done before.
I'll never know what made it so exciting,
Why all at once my heart took flight,
I only know when he
Began to dance with me,
I could have danced, danced, danced
All night.
Growing up in New York City, I was always in the light. I never quite
had an appreciation for darkness. One summer I went to camp and
discovered darkness, real darkness. James Weldon Johnson, the poet,
talked about darkness by saying, "Blacker than a hundred midnights down
in the cypress swamp." Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.
The Psalmist was in darkness. He couldn't understand why he was there.
So much had happened to him. He was deeply ill, indeed near death. He
had been faithful. He wanted to know from God. He argued with God. How I
can identify with the Psalmist. I often argue with God and ask, "Why,
why, why me?" The Psalmist at his point of death argues, "Why me, God,
why?" He believed he was now ready to die. Helpless, nothing seemed to
work. Then he cried out, "Oh, Lord, have mercy on me."
Have you ever been there? Been to that place when all seemed to fail —
your knowledge, wealth, resources. Everything failed. You reached the
place where all you could say was, "Lord, have mercy." In this dark
place the psalmist cried, "Lord, have mercy." Then God stepped in. We
recognize the resources that God has to transform a life. Having stood
with God in his moment of darkness, the psalmist then said these words,
"Thou hast turned my wailing, my mourning, my crying into dancing."
Why are we afraid to dance? What has happened to us? As a boy growing up
in Harlem, one of the early characteristics that one learned for
survival was how to be cool. So, one was always cool. You never let
anyone know your weakness, your vulnerability. You tried to be cool
under all circumstances. Be cool, no matter what happened. I learned
later that kind of philosophy seemed to permeate other places in life.
Don't be vulnerable, be cool. As the homeless surround you, be cool.
When you greet those who have need and are hungry, be cool. When the
Lord speaks to you and encounters you in your place of worship, be cool.
When the Spirit comes in upon you, be cool. Perhaps the church has lost
something by being cool, so that we have a cool church and a cold faith.
Why have we stopped dancing?
In Eugene O'Neill's 1925 play, "The Great God Brown," Dion, one of his
characters, contemplates this same issue and wonders about life and its
paradox. He says, "Why am I afraid to dance? I who love music and rhythm
and movement and grace, why am I afraid to dance? Why am I afraid to
live?" Have we become too sophisticated? Have we become too
intellectual? What causes us to let loose, to dance? Is this one of our
failures?
The Psalmist found himself where many of us have found ourselves. He
needed an assurance of God's presence and a sense of meaning where there
seemed to be such meaninglessness. In his dark place, about to be taken
to the depths, God stepped in and turned his mourning, wailing, and
weeping into dancing.
I'll never forget the play "Zorba, the Greek." As Zorba danced,
something happened to him — a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.
Dancing. You need to dance because God has found you in your dark place.
You need to dance because God snatched you from the pits. You need to
dance because you know deliverance and transformation. We are part of
the people of faith who understands what happens when God intervenes in
that moment when we think all is lost.
Dancing. Why are we afraid to express this gratitude, letting ourselves
loose in this dramatic way? Let us dance, not just with body but with
spirit. Dance with depth. Dance, because we understand what the
transforming power of God does to a life. Dance, for the transformation
is one that causes us to become a new creation, a new person with new
purpose.
Oh, why are we afraid to dance, knowing all that we know; knowing how
God has delivered and will deliver us? Why are we afraid to dance?
Perhaps the church needs to recover the capacity to dance, to cause
worship to soar so that men and women may speak in gratitude and
thanksgiving. Perhaps each of us who knows that power will learn to be
more expressive, reaching out and touching other lives, dancing so that
other men and women who have somehow missed this experience will see us
and ask us the source of our dancing. Then we can sing our psalm and
dance our dance, so that those who do not know Him, His power and
assurance, might join in the dance. They, too, might dance all night.
I know darkness. I know my dark place. I remember so well when God found
me and came to me in my dark place. I believed that death had come and
would overwhelm me. I remember my darkness of spirit, darkness of
hopelessness, darkness of barrier, prejudice and walls.
Darkness. Then, the Lord came. He found me in my dark place, heard my
wailing and mourning, and turned them into dancing. Why are you afraid
to dance? In that night of darkness, the Lord came and found me in my
place of weakness and despair. Just before I could do my last, at that
point when I believed it was the last, at that very moment, God was glad
to hear me cry, "Lord, have mercy."
Have you ever cried, "Lord, have mercy?" It's almost as though that is
God's cue. You must depend upon the grace and greatness of God. God came
in my moment. He touched my life, dried my tears, and gave me a new
sense of the human family. He showed me how precious that family is; how
loving I could be to all of God's family. Race was no longer a barrier;
class and lifestyle no longer a barrier. Somehow you were able to see
anew. God came into my place of darkness. He turned that mourning into
dancing and
I could have danced all night,
I could have danced all night,
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my wings,
And done a thousand things,
I'd never done before.
I'll never know what made it so exciting,
Why all at once my heart took flight,
I only know when he
Began to dance with me,
I could have danced, danced, danced
All night.
Interview with Woodie
White
Interviewed by Gunther Knoedler
Gunther Knoedler:
Woodie, it has been a couple of years since you've been here and we're glad to
have you back. I was interested in your talk tonight. You seemed to
differentiate between what you might call a head religion, which would be kind
of an intellectual institutional framework, and a heart religion, which would be
a personal, vital religion. I assume that dancing, as you referred to it, is an
end result of a heart religion.
Woodie White: Yes.
Knoedler: How do you get there? What is the process?
White: One of the challenges of religion is to strike an appropriate balance
between a faith that has intellectual integrity and one that has warmth, piety
and vitality. I think we have tended to fall more on the side of the
intellectual aspect of religion. This is necessary because our faith must have
intellectual integrity. But, there is a warm vitality that comes out of a deep
personal relationship with God and with Jesus Christ. Thus, one not only knows
God as concept; knows Christ as concept; but knows Christ also as Savior and as
personal Savior. When one has that kind of relationship, then one is loosed to
express that faith in a much more realistic way. I think we have come to the
point, unfortunately, where we have overdone the whole concept.
There are two things you never talk about, politics and religion. It is just the
opposite for the Christian. The Christian talks about his or her faith, never in
a super pious way but always in a way of gratitude and faithfulness. I think
perhaps we have shied away from sharing with each other what Christ means and
has meant in our lives.
Knoedler: Woodie, the heart religion that you talk about, the personal religion,
seems to require us to live under the authority of the scripture, God's Word. As
we do this, it seems like it makes us radically counter cultural in the way we
treat our marriage commitments today; the way we treat our children; the way we
talk; the way we treat our resources. It sometimes opens us to the accusation of
being narrow and intolerant. How do you react to that?
White: There is always a danger the Christian can become pharisaic and have a
"holier than thou" attitude. When one remembers where one is, I don't think any
of us feel totally comfortable with where we are in our faith journey. I
certainly don't. There are so many places where I am unfaithful, disobedient,
and lacking a sense of God's presence in my life. Knowing that about myself, it
tends to moderate my judgment about others. At the same time, there are those
faith principles to which I cling and which I represent. I can't let those go.
Even when I see in other persons a lifestyle or attitudes that are quite
contrary to the mine, I have to hold to my principles and at the same time keep
a proper perspective of who that person is.
It is like loving the person and hating the sin. While I may be intolerant of
acts, I must not be intolerant of persons. It's a difficult line to walk.
Knoedler: Let me shift gears. We have just witnessed a radical, unexpected
upheaval in Eastern Europe. Some call it the death of a repressive, godless
system. In Romania, where there had been a forty-year vacuum in which religious
expression was totally denied and the churches became museums, within weeks
services began with leadership. They had vestments; they had liturgy. This had
not occurred in forty years. Does this indicate some kind of an irrepressible
need for the individual to worship?
White: I think that from time to time we have witnessed the announcement of
God's irrelevancy and death. in the sixties quite prominent theologians were
announcing that God was dead. They just didn't inform God. The societies in
which we have official atheism stating the assumption that, because you have
announced that God is dead, you have announced that there is no need for
spiritual values. Somehow that states the case. Your illustration is a beautiful
one. As soon as those persons had an opportunity to express their spirituality
and worship God, they did so. God is not absent and He hears our announcements
about His irrelevancy and death. God is quite patient. There is something called
"God's time." God's time is quite different from any political ideology that
might announce otherwise.