When we step out
of the tight legalistic boxes
with suffocating lids
that have all our lives
forbidden us to ask questions,
we watch, transfixed,
as those box walls collapse
flattened into shining dance floors.
God emerges,
the Dance Master,
eager to teach us
to hear His voice
and celebrate life
in the safety of His Almighty arms.

Come join me on my dance floors.
Let me take you by the hand
and coax you into
the steps that entice my feet
to glide
to bound
to leap
. . .
Let's celebrate together!

My Dance Floors

Each page on this site represents a lifetime of depth and breadth of interest and study on a different topic. I was already dancing, joyfully, amid the pillars of such knowledge~ and expereince~ long before I stopped thinking of dancing as an outside-the-safe-box idea..

What I've included in the pages of this site, are the ideas and insights that have challenged and perplexed me and given me great joy~ all at the same time! I wish the same for you as you join me.

Writing
"True ease in writing comes
from Art, not chance, as
those move easiest who
have learned to dance."~Alexander Pope

History
"The work of the historian is to reconstruct the past out of the debris that is cast up by the sea from the wrecks of countless ages." ~Herbert Butterfield

Arts
"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things." ~Pablo Picasso

God
"You and I were fashioned from the clay of the earth and the kiss of [God's] mouth." ~Brennan Manning

Dialogue
"You and I agree on many things--more than you care to admit." ~Amiel Hirsch

*         *        *

I have so many things I want to share with you that it will take me awhile to get it all posted. And I keep discovering new things all the time. New quotes, new resources, new ideas. . . So,

Come, dance with me

right here on my web site

again and again and again. . .

Hi!

Once upon a time, a friend built me a web site to showcase my books and tell the world where they could come and hear me speak.

This time, I want to add something ~ with you in mind.

It sort of began on Memorial Day weekend 2001 when I attended a writing conference ~ not as a teacher, but as a conferee. Something I hadn't done in years. Deep down in my soul, I had felt a nudge and so I went. On Saturday afternoon, the poetry teacher sent us off to do an assignment. I sat alone on the edge of the high desert that ties Mexico with California and asked myself what was I here for? and what was there for me to write about?

Again, I felt that nudge... and realized with a pang that somewhere in my being were a lot of bound-up places just waiting to be released. How could that be? I'd accepted Jesus into my heart when I was a little child. Hadn't that set me free for a lifetime?

I want to tell you the whole story. Don't worry, it's not some psycho-emotional saga about the healing of buried memories, but all about gaining new perspectives and learning the dance of life ~ Click here for the story

Right now, just know this. In the years since that weekend near San Diego, I've begun to learn what was bound up, what kept me walled off from others around me, what collapsing a lifetime of box walls could do to make me a whole person.

So this time around, my website is more than just a showcase. Oh yes, I will tell you about my books, because I have a passion to pass on the perspectives I've gained over time. But I also want to share with you some things that have never made it into my books ~ a wealth of information and delight I have discovered out on my dance floors.

If you, too, sense a tugging in your soul or suspect you have any bound-up places in need of freeing, then you've come to the right site. Come inside and take a look!

Welcome!

Ethel

What's New?