The Balcony, the Dance Floor and a Jigsaw Puzzle

Yesterday at church we received about a dozen boxes of used books as a contribution to the St. Anne's book sale in the fall. One of these boxes was filled with about fifty little pamphlets titled 'The Hundred Minute Bible." There little British books were an attempt to convey the whole story of scripture fro Genesis through Revelation in a form so concise it could be read in just over an hour and a half.

I'm reminded of a metaphor from one of my favorite writers about leadership, Ronald Heifetz. Heifetz says that good leaders alternate between time on the balcony and time on the dance floor. Sometimes, you need to be above the crowd, reflecting on patterns and watching what emerges. Sometimes you need to be down in the mix, feeling what life is like, immersed in the pattern yourself.

So it is with scripture. Sometimes we all need to remember the great story of creation, fall, redemption through Jesus and the strange, tragic and joy-filled life we are all invited to lead in the light of the resurrection. At other times, we are called to simply attend to a particular passage in scripture, with all its power, oddness and difficulty.

One of the reasons I am so fond of the Daily Offices in the Book of Common Prayer is that it always invites us to both the balcony and the dance floor. Every day we are invited to say the Apostle's Creed, the Lord's Prayer and other great and ancient summaries of the faith. We are in the balcony seeing how God, through Jesus, is making all things right. Every day, through the lectionary, or daily assignments of scripture passages, we slowly work our way through the thickets of our holy text. Just now, for example, I am discovering, almost for the first time, the fascinations of an Apocryphal book, placed in my copy of scripture between the Old Testament and the New, the Wisdom of Solomon.

I sometimes imagine that my daily reading of scripture is like the slow process of putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle. Each day I'm given another small piece which I am invited to patiently attach to a slowly emerging picture. Over time, I learn more and more of the true picture of reality. That is, each day I am learning more of God's picture of reality as revealed in scripture.

There are many at St. Paul's who follow the practice of the Daily Offices. If you would like to join us, please speak to me. I would be happy to teach you how to work with a Book of Common Prayer and a Bible so that you too can get into the life giving rhythm of this ancient practice.