<html><body><font color="#1d2129" face="Arial" size="2"> “The man looks down and notices the feather. As it moves toward him, he lifts his briefcase to let it pass. A smile forms on his face.<br></font><span style="margin: 0px;"><font color="#1d2129" face="Arial" size="2"> </font></span><font color="#1d2129" face="Arial" size="2">“Then he begins to dance. He hops from one foot to the other in his polished leather shoes, keeping time with the feather as though, together, they are listening to the same imaginary song.”</font><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>In that Lent – or some New Yorkers may call it Purgatory – in that Lent of silence, or inconvenience, yet of pregnant possibility for thinking over one’s life; in that Lent, that man was able to discover how to inject some pleasure, some sheer joy into his life. There’s no telling who he was, but he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DID</u></b> have a briefcase, so maybe he, like Nicodemus, held some sort of authority, no matter in how small a jurisdiction. Maybe he was looking for some answers. Perhaps he would have been glad to have found a Jesus somewhere with whom he could sit down for some clarification of purposes in life.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I love that final comment to the newspaper column: the man and the whirling, fluttering feather were listening to the same imaginary song.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b> what Nicodemus wanted and needed – to find the song for his life. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b> what Sophie and The White Rose wanted and needed – to find some dance steps which they could coordinate with their belief in God that would enable them <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>NOT</u></b> to fit in to society, but to help them transform society, to make it a safe place for everyone; to make it a place where there would be justice for everyone; to make it a place where people could dance different steps to the Song of the Universe that Jesus sings, different steps yet ones which would not make them feel awkward or self-conscious, but empowered, knowing that they were all being born again.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nicodemus was right at the point of admitting that he wasn’t quite there. Abram – Abram must have had all sorts of thoughts that kept him from even asking God where the nearest Arthur Murray School was. But they, and those in Munich seventy-five years ago, were at least willing to admit that even if they needed a few more dance lessons, they were still willing to go out on to God’s dance floor, no matter how dangerous.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>These people recognized not only <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THEIR</u></b> need to be born again, but also the need of society to be born again. They saw the direction their communities and countries were going.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Abram – well, maybe he wasn’t sure what was happening in his homeland, but he had to leave.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nicodemus – he saw where the occupying Romans were imprinting their ways on every part of every culture, trying to stamp each into conformity, and he saw how his own friends, the others who shared his authority and privilege; Nicodemus saw the other leaders were falling into lock-step and accommodating the Romans.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Nicodemus couldn’t go along with that. He had to meet Jesus and to apply His teaching. He had to discover, rather painfully, just what it would mean to be born again, and how much of an effort it would take to begin to reverse the direction that society seemed determined to take.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Even <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>IF</u></b> Nicodemus were are the man on the New York train, even if he were alone in working for renewal in Jerusalem and the whole country, he discovered that he has to dance as that feather on the breath of God, a feather directed to show joy in expressing and revealing love in the drabness of a rail car.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jesus challenged what Nicodemus thought were certainties. Nicodemus thought he knew it all. Into that thought pattern, Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be willing to loosen up, to accept the seeming uncertainty of a feather bobbing and gliding on a draft of air in a train, of all places.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And this may be the gift of God to us this Lent – to discover the possibilities, the contacts, the partnerships, as we work against all that would try to contain the Spirit and prevent it from blowing into every corner of every single person’s world.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Sophie Scholl was an ordinary girl – devoutly Catholic, she fell in love with one of her fellow conspirators, she loved the countryside, she adored her parents. She was very ordinary, just very, very brave.” <sup>3</sup> So was Nicodemus, when you come right down to it. Neither of them ever had to give up having questions. That’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> what Jesus asks, ever. But, for them – for us? – cover of darkness worked, even as they were aware of the danger that would come when someone would reveal what they were doing, how they were making Jesus’ life and work the model for their own.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Maybe this Lent we’re waiting to find the feather. Maybe this Lent we’re waiting to hear, for ourselves, the invitation to the dance. Maybe we need to slip off quietly to some dance studio where we may pick up a few steps, a few ideas, and find the courage to work in both the dark places of this world and the light.</span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The music is playing.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><span style="margin: 0px;"><font size="2"> </font></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose"><font color="#0000ff" size="2">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose</font></a><font size="2"> </font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";'><font size="2"> </font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2</span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>'This Is Canal Street', </span></i><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Metropolitan Diary<span style="margin: 0px;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The New York Times</i>, </span>14<sup>th</sup> February, 2017 <a href="http://p.nytimes.com/email/re?location=4z5Q7LhI+KVBjmEgFdYACPLKh239P3pgJ9vhMb7FAHiyIHe%2FiDN+fJvDBFSA5%2FRKbMsM3AYHT91PKKHvo7%2FIPNfSHiSjt0c4NH8GfSPwOTa9A5yg2vcnQyITfqjsUvO9LT9aGQX3OyRfa%2FXAsYLFEZG2hfbx+gqI&campaign_id=61&instance_id=92409&segment_id=103664&user_id=13776d46e58cd1c84bbfacad680c03b7®i_id=63205127" target="_blank"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(54, 88, 153);">http://p.nytimes.com/email/re…</span></a></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>3</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>They were guillotined 72 years ago today. And they deserve remembering.”</span></i><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> Posted: February 23, 2015 <a href="https://wellthisiswhatithink.com/category/political-musings/"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0in; border: 1pt windowtext; border-image: none; color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Political musings</span></a> <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="https://wellthisiswhatithink.com/2015/02/23/they-were-guillotined-73-years-ago-today-and-they-deserve-remembering/"><font color="#0000ff">https://wellthisiswhatithink.com/2015/02/23/they-were-guillotined-73-years-ago-today-and-they-deserve-remembering/</font></a></span></p></body></html>