Dancing Feet

In these retirement years I have become a watcher.  I am aware that I am paying attention to life around me more than I used to do.  No longer do I feel like I am hurrying to nowhere fast.  At least, such is true part of the time.  A slower pace has created more time to watch.  This watching has made me more of a people watcher.  Today while waiting for a bag of lunch in a fast food eatery, I watched a guy at the table across the room as he watched the laptop open on his table.  He was from the wrinkles on his face and the graying around his face pushing fifty.  He had finished eating and was intently watching whatever was on the screen.    

So, he was oblivious to most everything even an older people watcher across the room.  What really caught my attention was his feet.  The music filling the air was a little faster than most hymns are sung on Sunday morning in church, it was loud, and it had a strong beat.  I wondered as I watched if he knew his feet were dancing while every other part of it was still as a rock planted in cement.  Up and down with music they went and when the music stopped, they stopped as well.  Nothing else changed.   

The guy kinda reminded me of what it is like to be a United Methodist.  We sit still as rock in worship, but every now and then there rises up within us a need to raise our hands in praise, so we turn them over with palms up on our knees, or we hear some powerful music and our toes start tapping like we about to square dance, or we hear a profound spiritual truth that requires that we become like the old time shouting Methodist and we softly whisper "Amen."  All the while the rest of shows no awareness that something is stirring some place deep within us.  We just sit there like a room full of rocks poured in cement.  Every now and again we should get up and dance!