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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Canon Anne Easter

Good morning!

I hadn’t been going out with my husband for very long when we discovered that we both loved folk dancing! We had a marvellous folk dance as part of our wedding celebrations and, over the years, we’ve helped with organising dances at harvest suppers, festivals and birthday events in a variety of halls and once even outside.

There’s something about the lively beat of the music and the variety of steps and moves that makes folk dancing great fun – and there’s usually lots of laughter ‘cause we get it wrong too.

For me, perhaps the best thing about folk dancing is that it’s very inclusive - almost everyone can join in; very fit folk and those with physical needs – I’ve seen people in wheelchairs taking part; there are those who know the dance and those who’ve never done it before; we have dances for which you don’t need a partner and, in a partner dance, men and women can be of any gender - as long as they remember which they are for the purposes of this dance!

And it’s interesting how some people can see a pattern and others can’t. For several years we did an annual dance for a club for people with special needs and we marvelled at how they picked up a particularly complex movement – one man was so thrilled that he shouted, ‘We did it’ and his dentures shot across the hall in his delight.

I think that all of life should be inclusive – no-one left behind or left out and the wider the diversity of our community, the more we all benefit.

Dear God, you have made each one of us different and special. Help us to be generously inclusive and enable us to feel that we are included too.

Amen.

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