The Divine Dancefloor

By Christopher Chok

Christopher Chok graduated from Durham University with a Master of Arts (Distinction) in Religion and Society on a Chevening scholarship from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2018. His research interests include autoethnography, liminality, sacred (virtual) spaces, procedural rhetoric, methodological ludism, and (video-)game design. He currently leads the learning and development (L&D) capability building efforts at the Learning Futures Group, Civil Service College, and together with his team, contribute at the intersection of L&D, evaluation and analytics, futures thinking, serious games and simulations, and innovation in adult learning experiences for the Singapore Public Service.

for Aaron, Obl OSB Cam

Monastery of the Risen Christ, San Luis Obispo

The widening circle gently beckons,

inviting us to thread tentatively

into the un/known; to trust the path where

pebbles and stones embrace, where sand and man

waltz in the whispering tune of sunlight.

Left and Right, East and West, the melody

pauses.

Then resumes.

Forwards and Backwards, North and South quickly

now and slowly. The wind smells of cider

nostalgia – whiffs of strangely familiar,

yet comfortingly foreign.

Permeable blockages and U-turns

reflect the footprints of the sacred; the

peculiarities of the imperfect,

circularities of the already

and not yet.

Finally with hesitant confidence:

the tempo wanes, the trees stay very still.

The arrival of rebirth, the divine

epicenter of Love. Hear the silence

that speaks of life: lives always becoming.