Sun Above, Earth Below, Living in the Middle
Listen to Sun Dance
Sun Dance
As an itinerant pastor, I once hoped never to be sent to Holly, Colorado, or Sundance, Wyoming — remote towns far from what passed for civilization. Naturally, I was sent to both. Holly first, where eight years of ministry and a tornado eventually packed our lives into boxes and made us ready to move again. Then came Sundance, tucked at the edge of the Black Hills beneath a mountain long sacred to the Lakota people.
In a community wary of outsiders and suspicious of my quiet political differences, I learned a new pastoral discipline: silence. My voice found another path through brief radio reflections and, unexpectedly, through music software that let me compose within tight limits of time and form. Constraint became a teacher. With no room for argument or grand explanation, I had to notice, to offer, to speak only what could be said clearly.
Behind our house, Sundance Mountain rose sharply — not as scenery to conquer but as a reminder of its deeper history. The name “Sun Dance” is literal: a ceremony of alignment held on open ground where sky and earth meet, centered on a sacred pole linking below and above, with human bodies between. Dancers fasted, faced the sun, and moved to the drum, sometimes tethered to the pole — not as punishment, but as a living declaration that we are bound to land, people, and powers beyond our choosing.
Watching that mountain each day, I learned that freedom is not the absence of ties but the wisdom to accept the right ones. I arrived thinking freedom meant choosing my direction. I left knowing that sometimes the direction chooses you — and freedom begins when you consent to stay.
