Belly Dancing and Grace

I typed my blog and was at the ending of Namaste and in trying to correct some spelling, I did something (who knows what) and deleted the entire blog. There was no outline, it was freestyle, as usual. And now it is gone, gone, gone. I am ready to cry... seriously.

As with so many things in my life....

Allow me to begin again.

12 friends.
12 bellies.
24 hips.
12 hearts.
1 awesome belly dancer.

Tonight we danced.

Belly dancing.

The evening was enchanting, liberating, sexy, fun!

We learned the basic moves and then we got to put them together and perform to the drum solo. Over and over and over again. Bliss!

After our class, several of us stood around and talked about our lives.

The evening progressed into a lesson of grace for me.

We got to speaking about giving gifts with great intention, and what might happen should those gifts not be used for the good that we intended.

In the book Loving What Is by Byron Katie, she speaks about "three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God's... Anything that's out of my control, your control, and everyone else's control - I call God's business... If I am mentally in your business or in God's business, the effect is separation... If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, who is here living mine?"

Perhaps if we apply Ms. Katie's approach to the gifts, we find that giving the gifts is "my business". What is done with the gifts is "your business". And what happens in this person's life because of the gifts is "God's business".

One friend pointed out that this is grace. Webster's defines grace as "unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification". Can we not extend grace from human being to human being by giving a gift that is perhaps unmerited, by our human definitions and standards, but by God's standards, is divine assistance given for this person's regeneration or sanctification. God knows, there are so many who need regeneration in our world.

May we all learn to give in Grace (our business) and then let go and allow yours and God's business be theirs.

Namaste