Dancing? Saints???

It certainly caught my attention.
I subscribe to a monthly devotional. I guess you could call it that. It is titled: Give Us This Day and it is a publication of Liturgical Press. (And if this catches your interest, you can Google Liturgical Press for more information.)
This little publication contains a daily Morning and Evening Prayer, loosely based on the Liturgy of the Hours, a daily reflection on a holy person, the texts for each day's Mass followed by a reflection on the Mass texts. There are some other items included, but all in all, this is a simple daily devotional that can help with one's prayer.And having provided that commercial, back to the matter at hand.
What really grabbed my attention is the November cover, front and back, for this publication.
At first, I merely saw some saints, which, of course, would make sense since November launches with the Feast of All Saints.
Then I looked again.
And still again.
And then I realized it. I was right.
They are all dancing!
And there is even one playing a saxophone!
And I liked it!
Really liked it!
You know, all those pictures we see of angelic creatures floating around in the clouds, harps in hand!
That's a rather common image of heaven, isn't it?
And I just bet that really turns a whole lot of folks on (NOT!)
But why should heaven be depicted as boring to say the least?
After all we do have that New Orleans favorite "When the Saints Go Marching In," and that certainly has a beat.
And now this!
Dancing Saints!
The cover credit is given to a larger work, a mural by Mark Dukes titled, exactly, Dancing Saints. It is a work seen at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Fransisco, California.
What appears on that cover is a sampling of this larger work.
Naturally I Googled the church, found its site and began to learn more and more about the Dancing Saints.
On the church site is a listing of all the holy people depicted in this mural. Also to be found are brief biographies including, often, information about why they are included. Well worth the read.
You can check out the site for yourself. And as you do be sure to click on the brief video showing the entire mural with background music included.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA

And as I reflect on this art piece, I see captured something of the joy of heaven, the joy of the saints, the joy of our beloved who have gone before us and the joy that awaits us.
Why not?
Dancing Saints!
Brings to mind my Aunt Betty.
She has been long gone from us now but while she was with us, though she may have gotten a tad ornery and cranky in her later years, she knew the joy of dance.
She taught me how to dance, got me ready for my first school dance back in the ninth grade.
If she had no one else to dance with, she just danced by herself.
Dance spoke of life.
In her later years movement was often difficult. She had trouble just getting out of chairs.
I had a lift chair that once was my dad's. I offered it to her to help her.
She refused.
I can still hear her words from back then to me, "Someday I will dance again!"
Dance on, Aunt Betty! Dance on!
Join the Dancing Saints.