Reconnection-The Pattern

I don’t have a lot of connections to people who knew me prior to my life as a Television News Anchor. After high school and college my relationships somehow got misplaced with many of these people. It was not something I tried to do it just seemed to happen.

Facebook has opened a world to my past I never knew I missed. I’ve reconnected with many of you over this modern relationship rebuilder.

This past week two friends of mine from the past and I met at our home at Mt. Hood. David Schranz and I were great friends back in my high school/college days. He told me he was coming to Portland over the holidays and I invited he and his wife Rhonda up for a night at our home. Let me stop just for a second here. This is not something I normally do. Despite how I may come across I don’t just do stuff like that, but in this case I did.

Prior to our trip all sorts of barriers surfaced tempting us to cancel our trip to the mountain. I wanted to see David and Rhonda but “Life” was getting in the way. Kathy and I ignored “Life” and stuck to the plan and I can’t tell you how glad I am that we pushed through the crap.

I kept thinking to myself, God has a reason for this meeting and I was right.

David, Rhonda, Kathy and I talked for hours about life, God, the past and so on. David reminded me of a Rick Dancer I lost. He showed me who I was before my career and that can help me define myself now that that part of my life is over.

It was like a breath of fresh air. Here was a guy who remembers that I always asked hard, deep questions of my friends. I thought that was something I learned not something I simply “Was.”

David reminded me of moments I’d lost when new memories took their place. He reminded me of a guy I’ve lost touch with, myself.

My journey in life involves a little leaving, a little coming home, a little swimming, some soul searching and some shedding of who I think I am. It involves some grieving the losses of people, careers, races and my past.

Miranda Lambert has a song out right now that talks about you can’t go home. She sings of the house that built her. What she’s really speaking of is foundational moments that formed who she is. No, you can’t go back to what you were but you can’t hide from it either.

Life is about winning and losing. It’s about happiness, joy, peace and great sadness. For this man it takes a trip to the past to find the vacancy that occupies a part of my soul.

I’m so glad we didn’t allow “Life” to get in the way of living. I’m so glad my friends David and Rhonda became part of my life and the process of finding my past.

God, I really do appreciate all that you do for me. I thank you for bringing things back and burning things up. I can’t wait to see what you have planned in all of this.

Oregon Duck Fans Flash Mob Dance…Official Copy.

It’s here. Recently Oregon Duck fans flocked Crescent Village with a Flash Mob Dance. It was the most amazing event. Sit back and watch this video. Our company http://www.rickdancer.com was hired to produce the video. We had lots of help. Seven photographers, an editor and a producer. Not to forget all those fans. Enjoy and pass this on to your friends.

Fight it out with God

There is no sense trying to battle out the issues of my life with anyone but God. If the truth were known I’m a bit afraid to step into the ring with God not because I see Him as a mean creator but because He knows me better than I know myself. God doesn’t put up with my crap and He sees through all my games.

What if the two of us (Rick and God) climb into that secret place and He calls me out? With you people I can use my best public relations tools to manipulate the fight and increase my chances of winning.

Oswald Chambers puts it this way: “I must get the thing settled between myself and God in the secret places of my soul where no stranger intermeddles, and then I can go forth with the certainty that the battle is won.”

The reason the battle is not won and I keep fighting this thing over and over and over again: I try to fight it out in the seen world when the true battlefield is in the recesses of my spirit.

The King’s Speech

There are a handful of movies I  remember that touch that deep place in my soul and cause me to urn for better understanding of myself.

Amazing Grace is one such movie. Watching that film over and over again drove me to run for political office. I still think it was the right thing to do. I still think I can do amazing things for people in public office but wonder that the confines of politics in America would destroy my spirit.

Yesterday Kathy, Jake and I went to see the movie “The King’s Speech.” It starts off a bit slow but by the end I was choking back tears and finding something deep in my soul touched by what I was watching.

After the movie Kathy and I talked for a long while about what we had just watched in the theater. For me, the thing that got to me was a theme that always stirs my life. We all have a voice and God intended us to use it. Sometimes life, systems, institutions and our own issues, impose impediments in an attempt to stifle any greatness wishing to surface.

As the movie shows, some of us need help finding our voice. Sometimes we need a coach who can stand beside us and help calm our minds, push us past the dam and reveal to each of us the voice inside.

I wonder that impediments are designed not to stop us but to more clearly focus our efforts. I come away from the movie last night with a new appreciation for difficulty and wish, hope and pray God will use mine to push me deeper into communion with Him.

As I finish writing these words I find great peace in the journey we each find ourselves on. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that God designs the circumstances and the resolution in our lives. We fail to remember that impediments can be the catalyst that drives us to His feet and our greatest destiny.

Different Christmas.

There is something Different about Christmas this year. Change is in the air and I wonder that Different won’t become the theme of our lives.

All of us have learned something about life since the bottom dropped out of the economy. We, hopefully, will never live the same way again.

At the Dancer house the change hit home when our youngest, Jess left in my car for the coast to visit the new, most important person in his life. What happened to the day when Kathy and I were the one’s he spent Christmas with? I miss him already but we love his new girlfriend Kirty and all that she adds to our family.

Another huge Difference is my mom is home for Christmas, but that means I can’t see her. She died in March of this year so it’s the first time in my 51 ½ years on this earth that we’ve been apart for the holiday. I still have the stocking she made me for my first Christmas.

A cancer diagnosis last January makes this Christmas Different too. Somehow when you see the end it gives you the choice of finding a new beginning. Our small Christmas Eve with our family grew into a party of friends, food, drink and a dance lesson courtesy of Xbox.

Change is not easy but necessary. Different takes getting used to. Sadness, in small doses, is just part of life. So, Kathy, Jake and I will put on our new Christmas stuff, head to a movie, go say hi to Kathy’s brother Chip, come home and have a nice dinner together.

We will mix tradition, the familiar and different creating a new reality.

Life is not a chapter in a book that you read over and over again. Sometimes, as you write the story of your life you must put a period at the end of a chapter and move on. So, turn the page and allow what was and what is to become what can be.

Merry Christmas

The Gift I Never Noticed

I started meeting with a running coach at Hayward Field. Leon is from the gym we go to and asked my wife and me if we’d like to train running the stairs at Hayward Field.

When you hit 50 (or more) something happens that tells you to try the things you’ve never tried. When you get cancer you realize you’ve got nothing to lose and find yourself saying yes to things you’d never thought about before.
As Leon was coaching me today, showing me ways to run correctly, my speed started to increase, my style grew better and my times decreased. At one point Leon looked at me and said “Rick, you can run.”
I haven’t felt like that in a long time. Perhaps I’ve never felt like that. Like what you might ask? I don’t know. I really can’t explain it.
As I ran as fast as I could up the stairs at Hayward my lungs burned and quads screamed for relief and I just kept pushing them. I told the: “You belong to me and you don’t get to run my life, I run you.”
I kept saying a time over and over in my head as I ran and I beat my time every time. I was in a zone. Not my zone or a least any zone I’m familiar with. I loved it. I think I like running. Leon took off and I took another lap. As I ran past the statue of Bill Bowerman I felt something I’ve never felt before, I belonged here.
I’m not planning to head to the Senior Olympics or anything like that but when the next All Comers Meet happens at Hayward Field I’ll be ready and maybe, just maybe I’ll run.
I wonder that we don’t all have this huge pile of gifts in our lives just waiting for us to open. It’s like Christmas but most of us are too busy or too scared or too something to open the gift. Next time someone asks you to step out, just do it.