Back home in Canada my father has U.S. Civil War battlefield letters written or preserved by some American ancestor. One epistle is dated July 4, and the writer reminisces about their neighbour’s annual Fourth of July picnic. If I remember correctly, he goes into some detail about this good lady’s event, recalling the watermelons and lemonade. It is easy to see that, for at least a moment, his memory had transported him home to “a place of refreshment, light and peace.”
The McLean household is affected by different wars, principally the great war on cancer. There are other stressors, too, of course. I have a morning routine dedicated to controlling “negative affect,” since I invariably wake up sad. Near-instant relief can sometimes be found, I discovered, by deciding to go swing-dancing that night. Even if I don’t go in the end, just the thought of it triggers the “happy hormones” of dopamine, serotonin, and very likely oxytocin, too.
I went to Mass alone on Sunday, for Mr McLean was not well enough to travel. My journey began with both sad and resentful thoughts. To put myself in a better frame of mind, I began thinking about the dance I had organised the week before. Just thinking about my church friends dancing with their children made me smile.
I pulled out my phone, turned off the sound, and watched the four-minute video Chronological Shorty George made during the ceilidh and sent to me. Sixteen pairs were enjoying the Canadian Barn Dance as the band (all young women: 2 violins, a guitar, a flute) played away. There was a different mini-event going on everywhere I looked.
A man in a kilt danced with his wife as she held their baby. They were followed by a man who held a larger child as he danced with his wife. Next was a tall young woman dancing with her little boy, who had his own original take on the steps. Another little boy danced with a little girl in a tartan skirt. A mother danced with her inattentive little daughter and led her back to the dance when she wandered off.
A pregnant mother of many danced with the four-year-old who will soon be giving up his “baby of the family” status. Behind her, her husband (tweed jacket) danced with their second-youngest. Across the room, their third-youngest son was dancing with his little sister; she was resplendent in a scarlet party dress.
Two other little girls in fancy frocks danced together, and another little girl in a tartan skirt danced with a little girl in a green dress. A big girl in a blouse and tartan skirt danced with a little girl in blue. Then another little boy danced with another little girl wearing a tartan skirt. (This was, after all, a ceilidh in Scotland!)
Another mother danced with her eldest (if still rather tiny) son, a baby strapped to her back. Her husband danced behind her with their smaller son. They were followed by a very elegant university professor leading her eldest son. Next came a tall young bachelor gallantly dancing with a Smurf.
No, wait! It was not a Smurf, but I, Mrs McLean, in the tartan circle skirt that cost Mr McLean a pretty penny last Christmas, for it was made by a proper Edinburgh kilt maker. I did not think I was so short and thick-waisted as that, but never mind. I have always been short, and age comes to us all—if God wills. In contrast, the young and willowy Sophia stood in the middle of the ring calling out the steps.
The band interrupted their Scottish tune to play (as I recalled when I was alone and put the sound on), a ceilidh-count version of “O Night Divine”, and when they stopped, there was general applause and, everywhere, happy smiles. It is still the season of Christmas; we delighted in dancing to Christmas hymns.
At one point the camera panned to both the band—the young ladies in their long skirts playing away as a little girl stood behind her flautist godmother—and the refreshments table. This was simply decorated with a paper Christmas cover—-like the matching paper napkins, half-price at Tesco—and any number of homebaked cakes and cookies, dozens of paper cups, and plastic jugs of squash or water, all three firmly labelled “MCLEAN”.
That thought just made me laugh (releasing endorphins). I mark almost everything I bring to a dance venue, including my mobile phone, and am teased for it. Like my Civil War relative remembering the annual Four of July picnic, I have just relived that joke–as well as those glorious four minutes of the “New Year’s Ceilidh for Parents who love the TLM (and their Bairns).”
Watching the video on the bus towards Mass drove away all “negative affect.” What I felt when watching all these lovely families, and all the wonderful young twenty-something volunteers, was love.
I have been a member of the Ravelston, Edinburgh TLM community for almost twenty years, and I have watched its demographics shift from the elderly old guard—mixed with Old Fogey university students—to the spiritual home of ever-growing young families. In addition, I have watched the wider “east coast” Scottish TLM community grow and thrive. Thus, the love filling up my heart (no doubt increasing the dopamine, serotonin, endorphins and lovely oxytocin) was not unmixed with pride and gratitude to God. And, as St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “if God be for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 14:31)
To be a Catholic who loves the Traditional Latin Mass in Scotland is usually to live some distance away from the others, especially when this entails buying a family home. There are not many opportunities to get together and celebrate as a community, apart from, of course, our beloved Mass. I began the dances as a way to foster community ties and—indeed—provide lessons in a useful social skill, one that youngsters can take with them to other communities that love the Traditional Latin Mass. Should they travel to Paris or Vienna, they now have some notion of the waltz. Should they find themselves at a Newman Guide college in Canada or the USA, they now know the rudiments of the Lindy Hop. As they live in Scotland, the ceilidh lessons are indispensable, especially for the homeschooled children, whose state-schooled compatriots learn them in P.E.
Indeed, the newly acquired love of partner dance has helped at least one of our men make new friends in his professional field and helped another get into the swing of things at his stateside college. A small, beleaguered community of co-religionists often runs the risk of becoming narrow and strange; this is less likely to happen if it shares the joy of dancing. Meanwhile, I sponsor only the modest dances my community prefers, and these are carried out with the “close-proximity” dance hold instead of a “contact embrace.”
Quarrels about dancing remind me of the early Christians in Rome arguing about old dietary restrictions. St. Paul knows that life in Christ makes the old rules of kosher irrelevant, even if some Christians are still greatly attached to them. He doesn’t care if people eat pork or not, or what day they keep the old Jewish feasts; he just doesn’t want Christians looking down on each other for their preferences. (See Rom. 14.)
And really, nobody should despise other Christians because they dance, and nobody should despise other Christians because they don’t dance. Such entertainments, if conducted with good intent and propriety, are morally neutral. As the Douay-Rheims transmits St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
16 Let not then our good be evil spoken of. 17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 18 For he that in this serveth Christ, pleaseth God, and is approved of men. 19 Therefore let us follow after the things that are of peace; and keep the things that are of edification one towards another [Romans 14:19]
In short, if dancing is carried out with “justice, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost”, as I hope everyone finds it at my parties, then there should be no objection. If, however, the “weaker brethren” find dancing a stumbling block, becoming “offended, or scandalized, or made weak” thereby, then absolutely they should absent themselves from such gatherings, as merry and innocuous as they objectively are.