Being the Interrupter
Who might we be?
In Tap Dance Land, one of the skills I’ve trained up is to learn how to build, manage, and navigate momentum. Whether in my own dancing, or in pieces of choreography, momentum is an integral part of what is going on. There is a rhythmic and physical pacing that gets established, and then modified (hopefully creatively), that in the best of cases brings me and others into what is happening. Once the dancing starts the momentum never really goes away. Of course, it can decrease or increase, but it should never be lost or become unwieldy. The skill of the dancer to work with the momentum that they have instigated is one of the things that differentiates dancers who look like they are “trying” or “out of control” from those who look like they are “dancing.”
Of course, momentum is not just found in Tap Dance Land. More broadly, from the Cambridge Dictionary, momentum is the force that keeps an object moving or keeps an event developing after it has started. Something gains or loses momentum. When talking about momentum there is an object, motion, and direction. The fact that momentum has direction is the thing I’ve been thinking about this week.
A few summers ago, I had the opportunity to take a three-day one-on-one coaching experience. It was intense. For eight hours a day for three days straight, I unpacked, and thankfully re-packed my life. In the unpacking, I encountered streams of momentum that I had found myself in that I was battling. I didn’t want them, and yet I didn’t really know how to change them. Frankly, I hadn’t had language, time, or space, to identify them clearly enough before this moment. It was a hard realization. There were aspects of my life that had been and were continually being fueled by momentum in directions that had been good once, but no longer. Now I was tasked with dealing with that momentum to instigate a different way of doing things.
Have you ever tried to make a change? Have you ever felt the resistance that comes as you begin to make that change?
Whether we use the language of patterns, cycles, grooves, or habits, there seems to be a common aspect to all of these things. They operate with a kind of momentum. They are fueled by movement in a particular direction. The direction of my thoughts leads to a particular kind of action. The direction of my actions leads to a particular kind of vision of who I am. And with every repetition the momentum builds, and the likely hood that I will think that way or do that thing again grows. The question of identity seems to be a core question for me. Am I the kind of person who [fill in the blank]? If I don’t want to be that kind of person, there are going to be things about me that need to change. I can’t just do things differently. It’s not just my actions that need changing. I need to be different. This is the core pursuit of spiritual formation: a change of being.
I walk into the studio alone. There isn’t anyone else there. I carry the memories and voices from my time with my teachers with me. They continue to affect my choices. I have years of physical memory from practice that I can rely on to fuel my dancing. But I am alone. There isn’t anyone else there to judge me (let alone condemn or encourage me) with their words or body language. I can play. If I fall, no one will know (and I’ve fallen a lot). If I mess up, no one will know (and I’ve messed up a lot). But here, alone in the studio, there is also no one else around to help me get better. This is a significant challenge. I must be the performer and the observer – the actor and the director. I must be self-aware enough to be available to interrupt any momentum I find myself in that I don’t like. To grow in my dancing, I run myself through the following cycle: Discovery, embodiment, interruption. Discovery is the moment of finding something I want to pursue – a particular step perhaps. Embodiment is the practice of repetition that brings that step into my physical being. I act as if that step is true and real – and I can bring it to life with little effort. Once that is the case, I have essentially developed a habit for myself. Something I can do without thinking about it. Now, to complete the cycle I must be able to interrupt the habit. I must also be able to not do this step when I don’t want it to happen, even though I have trained it to be automatic. I must be willing to be my own interrupter.
This is an odd situation to be in. It requires high levels of self-awareness, a willingness to call myself out for doing the thing that I didn’t want to do, and a strong enough intention to stop the thing that I had trained to become a part of me. All this is possible, although challenging, on the individual level. What has further captured my mind these past few days is the idea of how this plays out in community.
If I institute practices of interruption in my own life, I begin to form a kind of transformational core. That is something about my being that is, at its core, bent towards change. I would likely have cultivated a clear vision for the kind of change I am working towards. I may begin to have less need for consistency in certain other areas of my life. I may begin to anticipate, welcome, even work towards intentional experiences of change. Experiences in which I would need to shift and grow to take part in fully. And, in the end, I get used to this ongoing discovery, embodiment, and interruption as a way of life.
In my experience, this transformational core can be disruptive to others, unless they too have cultivated a transformational core within themselves. Get a few people together who are committed to cultivating a transformational core between them, in addition to the one within themselves, and there is a particular kind of power there. However, without individuals and communities being guided toward cultivating a transformational core, another challenge arises. That is, how to relate to, and further love, the world around us even though it looks like it just won’t ever seem to change.
On the individual level, as a teacher, performer, artist, colleague, and friend I have found self-limiting – especially by way of self-control or self-composition – to be a significant act of love. I think about the father or mother who does not burden their child with the worries of adulthood until the necessary time. I think about the spouse that does not continually purge their emotions onto their partner, or force their partner to divulge their emotional landscape continually. I think about the brother or sister who does not impose their will or even their ideas on their siblings. Love is the will to good for the other, and frankly, sometimes it isn’t good for me to share everything I’m thinking or doing.
Self-limiting does not mean shrinking. It means being our full and complete selves while learning how to express what is in us in the most loving way. And there are plenty of moments when being the interrupter within a gathering might very well be the most loving thing to do. When rumors abound, maybe we are the ones to stop them. When gossip gains momentum, maybe we are the ones to disengage and interrupt the spread. When anger and frustration build, maybe we are the ones who are called to acknowledge and console. When we see someone in harm’s way, maybe we are the ones who step in to provide protection, correction, and encouragement towards a different way.
To step into someone else’s life as an interrupter requires trust, courage, gentleness, and much more on both sides. From us, it will require a willingness to put ourselves in between the momentum behind someone’s thoughts and actions and the person themselves. For them, it will require a willingness to allow us into that position. This is the stuff of nuance, the soft touch, kind words, and for the follower of Jesus, a clear understanding that none of this happens well on our own. Whether interrupting our own momentum or someone else’s we must be reliant on the one true guide who is Jesus. It may be said that even as we may perceive, Jesus is the only one who knows the true landscape of someone’s heart (even our own).
A quick word about rest: cultivating a personal transformational core is a wonderful pursuit and must be done in parallel with an ongoing practice of rest. That is not cultivating and not transforming. Rather, simply doing nothing. This is the balance to the intentionality often required to cultivate a life that opens us up to transformational experiences. This is the rest from the dealing with the momentum. Doing nothing and experiencing transformation on account of it is also the preventative measure to thinking that all transformation comes from us doing something. That we are in charge and deserve the credit. No, transformation, for the follower of Jesus, is something that God does. In God’s grace and judgement we are allowed to be a significant and important part of the process – there are things that we do or don’t do that bring the process along. But ultimately, the credit for our transformation as we follow Jesus belongs to God.