Dancing with Christ

Saying Yes to Gracing

A life in Christ is an intimate partnership—so close that it feels like Christ is alive in our hearts. In this kind of life, our works come alive as a response to both life’s giftedness and its need. We anticipate the givenness of God from moment to moment. This life calls us to internal dimensions of sacredness and outward dimensions of love.

A life lived this way is a dance. One partner’s hand presses lightly upon his partner’s back, and she pivots to the left. His hip leads, hers follows. Her eyes glance right, he follows. Each subtle movement is complemented by reciprocity, animated by the shared rhythm. One partner pulls back, while the other reaches forward, both breathing in tandem. A concentrated attention on every movement is complemented by a countermovement, creating a fluidity in which her movements flow into his. When the partners in this divine dance are us and God, we learn to respond to what God offers and give something in return. This reciprocity creates a kind of uninterrupted unity.

The partnership of this dance feels to me like salvation. Understanding this, I’ve stopped focusing on the Jesus who will come into my future and have started focusing on His coming into my present. The lines between a religious life and an everyday one blur. My search for a life in Christ requires a new kind of seeking and an entirely different orientation to my works. Works stop being a way to carry me into future grace and start being a way to orient me to present grace.

Consider baptism, one of the many works we do. I was baptized by my dad when I was eight years old. I have a photo of my baptism day, standing in front of the stake center with my family. With the summer sun in my face, I am smiling and squinting. I don’t remember much about that day. I remember a boy in my Primary class also got baptized. And I remember the water was warm. I assume that I was pleased to be making that big step. I made a choice I didn’t remotely understand. But I did it gladly.

Afterwards, I learned more about what this decision meant. I went to Primary and Young Women’s. I learned about the temple and the promises we make there and how everyone would have the chance to be baptized in either this life or the next. I tried to choose the right and sometimes chose wrong. The sacrament was a way to renew the covenants I had made at baptism. These covenants, I learned, were like a two-way contract between us and God. We made promises, and God reciprocated. We lived good lives, and God would eventually welcome us home.

Many years later, though, questions arose. What was it about baptism that made some people fit for heaven and others not? Why require such a seemingly arbitrary entrance requirement for heaven? Sure, there is deep symbolism built into baptism, but wasn’t it still just symbolism? It seemed that when all was said and done, God would be less interested in the symbol and more interested in the real thing—the transformed heart.

While these questions simmered, I heard a Jewish rabbi speak, and something became clear. While this rabbi was only tangentially speaking about covenants, he reframed them for me. He said that he was sometimes asked by people who were not Jewish, “What makes you so special?” The implication was, “What gives you the arrogance to call yourselves a chosen people?” Latter-day Saints could ask themselves this same question: among the billions of people who have lived on earth, why would God give this unique piece of saving information to just a few favorites? Who made us the teacher’s pet?

The rabbi’s response to this question was simple: God chooses those who choose Him.

This felt like a mic drop moment. It was so basic. Could it be that this was the essence of covenant? Fundamentally, it’s not about reciprocal duties, but rather, reciprocal relationship?

And could it be that at the heart of every covenant we make is this one same truth? It’s not just separate and distinct agreements made at baptism, during the sacrament, and in the temple. It’s not a legal contract with pages of clauses. It’s one promise. It’s one choice. It’s saying yes to gracing. Fundamentally, it’s not making covenants (plural), it’s living in covenant (singular). It’s living in Christ.

Baptism is not fundamentally about keeping some people out of heaven and letting others in. The symbol is an invitation. Baptism says, “Salvation is here.” Right now. Enter God’s presence and start living life as it was meant to be lived. Baptism says, “In Christ, your old self has died and your new one has risen.” Don’t wait. Enter into the divine dance now, so that when you mourn with those who mourn, and comfort those who stand in need of comfort, you will do these things differently. You will do them in Christ.

When we haven’t quite learned this participatory dance, we can practice. When life’s activities seem hollow, we can learn the steps. If we haven’t figured out how to play the duet, we can learn scales. We can read scriptures without really understanding them, or minister without real connections, while being ready to pivot into the relationship when it presents itself in unexpected ways. It’s the karate kid sanding the floor and waxing the car. It’s going through motions, through rituals or habits, in hopes that they may lead to something good. It’s the children of Israel looking to the serpent on the staff, and it’s trying different parenting approaches. It’s the bird flapping in imitation of the other birds. These works are a vehicle to grace. They school us in how to draw peace from conflict, clarity from heartfelt prayer, or joy from a chaotic evening bath time.

I’m inspired by those who have shown me how this is possible. The Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren describes something similar in her book Liturgy of the Ordinary. Liturgy is not a word Latter-day Saints use frequently, but it refers to religious rituals and habits such as the sacrament or daily prayers. Warren explores the idea that the common daily liturgies of making our bed, brushing our teeth, or checking our email can be opportunities for practicing holiness. They can be practiced as liturgies to experience God in even the most mundane tasks.

In addition to the many chore-like daily routines, a more intentional motherhood has often involved reaching for what lights my children up. With my Minecraft-loving son, that might mean some stumbling around in the game. With my math-loving son, that could mean learning about the Fibonacci sequence and how its mathematical patterns show up in nautilus shells and galaxies. Too often I’m cluelessly going through motherhood, not paying attention. But my experience changes when I reach for connection with my children through the things they love. I bring God into the dance.

I can also shift the way I speak about my activities. This can open me to deeper engagement. Sometimes a subtle word change can alter the way I engage. Instead of going to church, I could worship at church. Instead of being an active Church member, I could be a practicing member. Instead of saying my prayers, I could seek communion with God. Each of these shifts challenges me to see if I’m coming from a place of complacency, seeking, or loving engagement. It keeps me open to relationship.

When I find myself frequently thinking, “Let’s get through family prayer and scriptures so we can go to bed,” I can shift to a more seeking attitude: “Let’s reach for some good to come from all this wrangling.” As I practice, gracing sometimes emerges in the form of meaningful interactions or deepened understanding. More and more, I hope to embrace these experiences.

Life is busy, no doubt. And it can easily become a long list of empty nothings if we constantly find ourselves checked out or oblivious to our divine partner. We may think we’re on our way to heaven as we do all the right things, but in this frame of mind, we could arrive in heaven and not even know it. All these works, even if performed exactly and by the book, will be hollow. They will fail to transform us. They won’t help us fly.

Going deeper, we can repurpose our tools. Learning to bring God’s music into our activities often requires practice. Our intention shifts. We say yes to God. We invite God into the process, even if the end result is unknowable or undefined. It’s characterized by hope and seeking. It has a wholly and holy different feel.

When loving, grace-filled partnerships arise, we rejoice in the truths we have discovered with the people we love. We do good from a place of communion with God. Life here feels like the call and response of a harmonious conversation between two violins. Here we’re serving or praying or playing or exploring math because those activities are intertwined with divine joy, peace, love, or power. They teem with truth, wisdom, or light. We are the bird flying, flapping our wings or soaring in the updrafts. The law is written on our innermost parts, engraved on our hearts (Jer. 31:33). We live the law in response to the crux of all the commandments: love God and love your neighbor (Matt. 22:36–40). As in Jesus’s parable of the vineyard workers, we stop worrying about who has labored longer, and instead rejoice for all who have learned to live in Christ—whether that realization came early or late in the day (Matt. 20:1–16). Works performed in response to grace are an expression of our intimate connection to God and all creation. We’re in partnership with God—in gracing.

My daughter’s interests and activities have been different from my sons’, but my interactions with her, when they have been gracing, are similarly lovely. Once, she was behind the wheel and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” came on the radio. We blasted the music and sang at the top of our lungs. She knew the words, and I tried but have a terrible memory for song lyrics. The car windows were open, the wind blowing her brown curls, and my heart took a picture.

I have no memory of where we were going or where we had been. It was joy and laughter—my beautiful daughter, a ball of sunshine. The commute wasn’t simply moving from point A to point B—a task to be completed while both of us were stuck in our own heads and lives. It was alive. Wholehearted. The connection with my daughter was full-on gracing.

Embracing these moments leads me to God in the here and now. In all the works I do, from math, to raising children, to taking the sacrament, to belting Queen, I can live more fully in relationship with Christ. I can stop living a severed life. I can learn that life in Christ has been the natural state of affairs all along.

We have a divine and willing partner.

And an invitation to join the dance.

Hannah Packard Crowther has an MS degree in biological science from Brigham Young University and a twenty-plus-year vocation as a full-time mom. This essay was adapted from Gracing, a new book from Faith Matters.

Art by Cyril Power.

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