The Daily Boost #352

The saints dance, we dance—let all creation dance!

“The Dancing Saints” icon is a powerful statement of spirituality, created by artist Mark Dukes with the people of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, California. Completed in 2009, it wraps around the entire church rotunda, showing ninety larger-than life saints, four animals, stars, moons, suns and a twelve-foot tall dancing, dark-skinned Christ.

One aspect of this icon that I deeply appreciate is that it interprets “saints” broadly, to include “musicians, artists, mathematicians, martyrs, scholars, mystics, lovers, prophets and sinners from all times, from many faiths and backgrounds” (emphasis added). Think Charles Darwin, Black Elk, Mohandas Gandhi, Anne Frank, Malcolm X, and Ella Fitzgerald! The icon proclaims a universal vision of “the divine.” (Learn more about the icon at this link. View photographs and even download images of individual saints here.)

Whom might you consider “a dancing saint” that might not already be on the icon’s list?

(My thanks to the saints, Mark Dukes, and St. Gregory’s.)

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The Gentle Nudge

Join other Rafters this week for . . .

• Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, Thursday, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)