Ancient Church

Like the fabled alignment of the heavenly bodies, this week promises great things. For starters, of course, it is the week of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is here, and that means a fast free week, the last until Christmas. Indeed, it marks the effective end to the Paschal season, one last foray into extraordinary joy before we settle into the Apostles Fast and the balance of the liturgical year. There is, you might divine, a reason why from here on out Sundays are identified by their distance from Pentecost.

But that is not all that is joyous. The judges are all out of town, gone to the beach for the annual week long judges’ conference. I sometimes try to picture it: dozens and dozens of yer honors, flapping around in the surf. I can only imagine life for the servers in the bar: “Margarita, and make it snappy! That’s an order of the court!” The table dissolves in laughter, and the barmaid walks away, rolling her eyes in that special sign of respect that we see so often. That’s OK. As long as its not me hearing the order. I like you guys and everything, but I’m as happy to see you all leave town for a week as you are to leave me — which is to say, pretty close to delirious.

Indeed, the week of the disappearance of the the honorables and the week of descent of the Holy Spirit will often coincide with other good things. It does not always do so perfectly: Little/Middle Folk School, for example, the annual event at the Folk School for kids, doesn’t begin this year until next week. For years, our kids and various special guest kids from out of town have used our house for a base of operations to go spend a week learning to knit, weave, throw pots, paint or any of a kazillion other arts. My kids have aged out, but we will still be hosting a niece and her friend, here to experience the mountains and learn something.

Little/Middle week is also the time when the school offers its annual Dance Callers Week. The Folk School is deeply involved in folk dance — insanely garish Morris dancing, whatever that thing is that is done by women bearing garlands of flowers over their heads, and especially contra dancing. Contra dancing is vaguely similar to square dancing, but is higher energy — not just in moves, but rhythm, in a way square dancers don’t quite get. It is also cooler, being an older, more celtic forebearer of the squares. It is a favorite around here, and the school hosts dances every other weekend on Saturday night. Mostly locals attend, but whoever may be around the place also shows up. They are very casual affairs. People wear everything from jeans and overalls to those skirts that fly when the wearer moves. Indeed, some people dance barefoot, which I still think is the most dangerous act possible in a dance hall.

One year, when the girls were much younger, I resolved to attend the dance callers class that week. I thought I might like to try my hand at the art. I backed out, though, because of my shyness. I know — I hear mad guffawing. This blog isn’t shy, and people who attend my parish would raise an eyebrow, but for most of my life I have been dogged by intense shyness. Since then, however, my kids dragged me into community theater, then I became Methodist clergy and finally the Orthodox subdeacon. Now I’m just introverted. But shyness slayed me that week, and I didn’t attend the classes.

That didn’t stop us from going to the dances though, culminating with Saturday night’s grand affair. The community dances are always events. Our community is full of artists — weavers, potters, blacksmiths, what have you — and the whole crowd turns out for a big dance. That particular week there had been a film crew from Nippon television on the campus, and they came with their cameras. There were the parents of the Little/Middle kids, and not a few teenagers. We all congregated in the community room at Keith House, a cozy, un-air conditioned hall. It was a warm evening in mid-June, and although a slight breeze wafted in through the screen doors it wouldn’t be long before the place would be very hot, in every sense of the word.

They always start slowly, so that people that have never done contra dancing can learn how to do it, but as the evening wore on the band and the caller moved things along, and the floor was full of whirling couples, moving up and down the hall. There are highly skilled dancers, but no prima donnas: there is an air of whimsy and humor. Even in the gypsy — a move in which the couple circles each other, eyes locked — there is less smoldering passion than snorting humor. We know each other too well.

Finally there came the last dance. My wife and I take our spot, and the band launched into the song. It was highly energetic, and we flash and swirl, changing partners frequently. I start with my wife, but a succession of others pass through: a weaver; a woman from down the street who creates delicate copper sculpture; the teen aged daughter of a family in the neighborhood, her braces glinting as she laughs while being swung; a woman with the Japanese film crew — what will they say when she talks about this back in Tokyo?, one wonders; a woman I have never seen before, but so strong that I sense she could throw me through the window if she took the notion — a steady stream, and the dance continues in riotous motion, the joy so intense that our smiles threaten to split our faces, until finally my wife returns to me, and I enfold her familiar form in my arms as we swing. The music ends, and we collapse into each other, laughing and sweaty and exhausted. It is time to go home, and we hold hands as we walk out into the darkness.

This week is like that. The judges are at the beach and the Holy Spirit has descended. We come to the end of our joyous Pascha season, happy and sated and ready to walk, hand in hand, into the evening of the rest of the year.