{"id":14324,"date":"2020-12-02T00:31:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T07:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=14324"},"modified":"2020-12-02T00:31:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T07:31:30","slug":"before-you-make-2021s-resolutions-consider-2020s-revelations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/02\/before-you-make-2021s-resolutions-consider-2020s-revelations\/","title":{"rendered":"Before You Make 2021\u2019s Resolutions, Consider 2020\u2019s Revelations"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Makenzie Dustman (left) and Phillip Chbeeb (right) perform in Justin Bieber\u2019s video for his song titled All Around Me. Photo credit: JustinBieberVEVO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took a dance history course in college. On day one, the first thing my professor said was: \u201cDance is the splitting of time, with movement.\u201d So perhaps dancers feel life a little differently, and I envy their ability to show it off.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been following a handful of them lately on social media, including one dancer who cut through the clutter and captured my attention several months back: Makenzie Dustman.<\/p>\n

Makenzie is an emotive dancer and her athleticism is nuanced, not Lebron-esque. She and her boyfriend, Phillip Chbeeb, choreograph and perform in Justin Bieber\u2019s new release, All Around Me. The setting is minimal\u2014just two gray walls and a dark floor. Their wardrobe is disheveled and torn. Their dance is beautifully messy, an intertwining of arms and legs, catapulting off floor and wall and each other. It reminds me how some of us must look and feel right about now.<\/p>\n

Makenzie lives and works in L.A. but has been isolating during the lockdown in Texas, apparently with family, making the most of her newfound prison of free time. The other day she said, \u201cAs weird as it is to hear myself say it, I\u2019m totally OK with not caring about dance right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many of us have heard the opposite message of late? I believe she\u2019s stumbled on the power of surrender, the disintegration of the ego, the feeling sentient beings usually don\u2019t uncover until death. A literally self-less experience of love.<\/p>\n

Surrender is something our culture and our life instinct tell us not to do. But scripture does. The word Islam means \u201csurrender\u201d and in the New Testament, Romans 12:2, it says \u201cDo not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will know God\u2019s will.\u201d And the Old Testament, from Ecclesiastes, \u201cThere was a man all alone. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. \u2018For whom am I toiling,\u2019 he asked, \u2018and why am I depriving myself of joy?\u2019<\/p>\n

Women who have experienced childbirth have told me it\u2019s when they surrendered to the pain that it went away and their child was finally born. It\u2019s like sacrificing one\u2019s self might be the only way we live truly free. Christ didn\u2019t save us while he was preaching, he saved us\u2014so the doctrine goes\u2014when he was nailed to a tree. Talk about taking one for the team.<\/p>\n

So consider the possibility that your greatest dance is when you are splitting time, without movement. No need to wait for orders from the CDC. You can find endless, self-less love in that choreography, with astonishing ease.<\/p>\n

Rest up if you can, dear friends, and watch less become more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine I took a dance history course in college. On day one, the first thing my professor said was: \u201cDance is the splitting of time, with movement.\u201d So perhaps dancers feel life a little differently, and I envy their ability to show it off. I\u2019ve been following a handful of them lately on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-commentary","7":"category-lifestyle-commentary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}