Technically, I was born into the age of disco…though admittedly I was only just trying my hand at cursive writing during its heyday. Because of the music played in my childhood home, I knew the words to songs of The Who and the Rolling Stones before I ever knew about MacArthur Park and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Saturday Night Fever. That said…of late, when I have gone searching for an image of belonging, indeed, an image of God’s heart, what has come to mind is a Disco Ball.

For me to belong somewhere, I need to know that my story has a place, that my story is welcome. And that other people’s stories have place and are welcomed too. Each facet of that mirrored sphere has a place on the sphere. Each one catches light, each one makes a pattern. I can only make my own pattern, when the light hits my story… And, a facet I might not be able to see or a story my experience does not allow me to understand, throws its light onto the wall too.

While I might not understand someone else’s story, I can marvel at the light and pattern it makes on the wall and appreciate that it is a part of the whole, that it is claiming its space within the ever spinning whole. Without it, the patterns, the dynamism, the cohesion, of the whole, would somehow be diminished. I welcome it as part of what I too am a part of. If there is space for me and my mirror on the ball, there is space too for the mirror of another who also reflects the light of God, albeit from a different angle or perspective. Two mirrors cannot occupy the same place. We each have a unique place/relationship with the Heart of God. And thank goodness…

The whole, the heart, the light, the pattern, when we are set into motion, is all the more astounding because of all the stories allowed to have place. Sometimes, having a place to share, to tell, those stories is all about stayin’ alive in spirit and in truth and that life brings life to all. The more of those stories I hear, the more patterns of light that cause me to marvel, the more perspectives I appreciate and allow to inform and broaden my own, the bigger my image of the Heart of God—a heart that is reflective of and refracted by, everyone, everything, everywhere… You, me, neighbours, sisters, brothers, colleagues, Dancing Queens…Where you live and work and have being, in Funkytown, or at the YMCA…in September or any other month…

“As long as [we] know how to love, I know [we] will survive…” And sometimes that love is listening, appreciating, welcoming, the story-facet of light brought by someone else that helps to illuminate the larger Story of God, alive and ever expanding on this blue-green dance floor we call home.