Pedestal
By Lisa Stockton Howell

Growing up I heard a story about my mom when she was a young Methodist pastor’s wife. My dad had been appointed to serve a church in a small town in North Carolina. We had just moved into the church parsonage house when my mom received a call from a parishioner. This church member was calling to let my mom know that, as the wife of the pastor, she was expected to arrange the altar flowers each Sunday. Kindly explaining that flower arranging was not her gift and that she had two young children to care for, mom politely declined the opportunity to arrange the altar flowers. After a bit of persistent back and forth, the parishioner stated that the church members had always put their pastor’s wife up on a pedestal. In a moment of frustration, my mom replied, “Well, I just fell off.”
As a person of deep faith my mom always followed her own path to expressing that faith and sharing it with others. She was a dancer who taught modern dance and used the gift of dance in worship. Beginning in the 1960’s she danced in church services in spite of being raised as a Southern Baptist during a time when dancing was frowned upon. Later, as I grew up, my mom taught me liturgical dance and we danced together in worship.
The story of the pedestal and dancing with my mom have inspired my own journey of faith and engagement in the community, especially with those who look different than I do or have different ways of expressing their faith in God. For me this means building intentional relationships with those who have been marginalized due to the color of their skin or their country of origin. Through those relationships we work together to speak up and speak out to bring about change, while building friendships of mutual support, having fun, and perhaps dancing a bit.
Fall off of the pedestal. Dance where you are called to dance. Practice mercy. Love.
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