Finding Belonging on an Unexpected Dancefloor
by Margot Starbuck
Sophia is the Greek word for Wisdom, and Propel Sophia seeks out the voices of truly wise women and asks them to share worked examples of how they express faith in daily life. Pull up a chair at Sophia’s table, won’t you? There’s plenty of space. Learn more here.
Parking in a grassy field, alongside dozens of other cars, I stepped toward a rustic barn where Nate and Anna’s wedding reception had already begun. Having opted out of fancy dress shoes, I adeptly navigated the terrain in my daisy-painted Doc Marten boots.
I hadn’t come to look pretty; I’d come to dance.
As a forty-nine year-old, I’d been to plenty of weddings where the tipsy twenty-something “cool kids” circle up in the middle of the dance floor to show off their mad dance moves. (Once upon a time I used to be that cool kid.) And though my teens would disagree, I have a general working grasp of most social situations. And in the one where I’m twice the age of the other hipper younger wedding guests, I know to dance halfheartedly in the general vicinity of other old people because I understand that I am “other.”
So as I began to bounce on the edge of the dance floor, I was happy to see lots of friends—of all ages—who lived in on my block downtown Durham, North Carolina, in a neighborhood built around friends with disabilities. And while Anna and Nate’s hip friends were definitely killin’ it on the dance floor, two others caught my eye.
Bonnie, a fifty-five year-old African-American woman with an intellectual disability, was one of the founding members of a home in our neighborhood that includes folks with and without intellectual disabilities. Bonnie, whose smile lights up a room, is known for the exquisite salad dressings she makes.
Dancing beside Bonnie was her housemate, Tony. The lanky sixty-six year-old white man, with a crown of soft white hair and a white mustache, was wearing his signature jazzy pink sports jacket. Tony is gracious, he’s silly, he loves gardening, and he makes others feel like they matter.
Along with their housemates, Tony and Bonnie welcome others into their home for meals, for prayer, and for short and long visits. Before each overnight guest arrives, Tony proudly puts clean linens on the beds in the Christ room, and Bonnie places fresh flowers on the bedside table. When a recent guest thanked Tony for his hospitality, he looked her in the eye and earnestly corrected, in his charming southern drawl, “No, thank you. We needed you.”
As someone who’s been on the receiving end of Tony’s gracious welcome, I can testify that his polite insistence—that the one being received is somehow a gift—is genuine. His earnest sincerity convinces me that I matter.
Even though I tried to force my way through lots of sweaty bodies to reach Bonnie and Tony, there was not an inch of available real estate anywhere near the pair. I couldn’t get close because everyone else wanted to be near these two, who so effortlessly extend the radical welcome of Jesus.
Being seen, heard, known, and loved, is what we’re all hungry for. We want to be received, in the words of Brennan Manning, “as we are and not as we should be.” And I think that’s why, at wedding receptions and community potlucks and birthday parties, self-conscious people like me—overeducated, able-bodied, mostly socially skilled—long to be in the presence of Bonnie and Tony.
Glancing across the joyful wedding celebration, I wondered, “In what world do an aging unemployed white dude and the housemate he loves, who is a middle-aged black woman, not only love one another with the love of Jesus, but love others so well that they have become the centrifugal force that holds together the life of our community?”
In God’s kingdom, that’s where.
Through Bonnie and Tony, I’ve been privileged to taste God’s radical gracious welcome in a way many never will, this side of heaven.
And it’s why I’m amused that when people hear that I live in a neighborhood built around friends with disabilities, they naively assume that I’ve done something “good” or that I’m “helping” or that there is something “selfless” about the decision to share life among these amazing friends.
They have no idea that I’m on the receiving end of the unconditional belonging for which we all hunger. Nine months after we moved to our neighborhood, my husband came out as gay and left, and this community was a solace and support like no other for me. In Luke 14:13-14, Jesus said “But when you host a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed.” I’ve been the crippled one invited in, too. It is me who has been blessed over and over again: not as a reward, but because being in the presence of the people of God is a blessing in itself.
Despite my best efforts, I never was able to dance with Bonnie and Tony that night. But at the end of the evening, I left full because what they offer is contagious. Our whole community has been infected by the gift they give.
Margot Starbuck
Margot Starbuck is the author of a bunch of books. She lives with her teens in North Street Neighborhood, downtown Durham, North Carolina. Connect at www.MargotStarbuck.com.
