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Sunday School with Scarves

Mari and I went to see Shen Yun, partly because of the rave reviews purported to have come from the New York performance.  We, of course, saw the performance in Minneapolis.  It was Sunday School with scarves.  That is to say, the battle for good against evil, and the need to choose sides now, before the inevitable victory of ultimate good, up in the sky, was all dressed up in asian costumes and flying saints.

The dancing was beautiful!  The costumes were lovely, and dramatic.  But it was a morality play in which it was clear that the forces of evil wore black, emblazoned with red Chinese characters, or something.

"Our cultures have much in common!", I thought.  Moses climbed up on Mt. Sinai during a thunderstorm, and reported that he had heard the voice of God.  Somewhere in Asia, a nearsighted monk stared at the sun  and reported that he had seen the golden face of Buddha.  My Scandinavian ancestors heard the hammer and anvil of Thor, and sailed off to Ireland to steal chickens and maidens.  In the Southwest, Coyote created the world; clever critter that he is!

Personally, I tend toward Coyote, probably because I am a terrible dancer, and am reluctant to stare at the sun.  And it may be a matter of preferring something in my own image.  Or, maybe, that we are moving back to Tucson, and I do not think it wise to irritate the local gods.

But I do wish I could dance.  But out in Washington State, when I was young, Hans Svinth, our pastor, and local well-digger, reported that he had it on good authority that God did not approve of dancing, and that has made all the difference. I suppose that one thinks about such things, at the bottom of a well.

I am trying to understand what it means that I come from a religious tradition that found God at the bottom of a well.

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