Dance Music

The Mountain Goats captivate me...no, not actual mountain goats.  The Mountain Goats is the ontologically misleading moniker of John Darnielle, a folk-rock lyricist whose songs touch on everything from the deepest spiritual skandelon to the confusing days of youth.  One of his songs off the album "The Sunset Tree" has really grasped me lately, the title?...

Dance Music.

It's an upbeat, two minute diddy where Darnielle reflects back to his childhood and the abuse he witnessed and received from his stepfather, escaping to his room to his headphones to engulf himself in the volume knob, listening to...you got it, dance music.

Normally, we consider dance music to be music which occasions the moments of life which require jubilation and rejoicing.  Dance is, more often than not, something we usually avoid in our sorrow or frustration.  Usually, at the end of a rough and tumultuous week the last thing we want to do is dance.  When life doesn't go our way, when we bask in our self-remorse and bitterness, when a dark cloud of misfortune shadows us, it is then we avoid dance.

Not Dance Music though.  After all, as Darnielle writes, Dance Music was his escape, the volume his separation, and the tones and chords his sanctuary from the shattered world beneath his bedroom floor.  Such an irony that such exuberant and cheerful music is merely the droning barrier from the misfortune of our unsettled lives.



Dance Music...dangerous stuff.  After all, in a world where we can't do it on our own, we surely cannot depend on our self-ignoring frustration buffer.  We need to depend on something, or someone, much stronger than the volume meter on our iPods, the hustle and bustle of a busy schedule, or even the company of others.  In the midst of pain we must offer them up to someone who heals brokenness, eases anxiety, and says "brother, sister, have peace"

Here people do something interesting.  Instead of greeting during service, they say "peace, may the peace of the Lord be with you".  Maybe we should do the same.  Maybe peace is something we've long ignored.  Maybe we need to trade our Dance Music for the joy of the Lord; His peace.

Peace, shalom, and love

B.