Dance Then, Wherever You May Be
The new instrument at hand
In the bathroom of my parents’ house you’ll find a poster from 1974 announcing an event taking place in Maidstone. The soloist performing? My mum.
Once, her voice could fill cathedrals.
But it’s been decades since she sang like that.
The reality of what changed matters far less than the profound silence that followed. My mum’s instrument was more than a skill: it was part of her identity, part of the fingerprint she left on the world. The voice that taught my sister and me to harmonise in the back of a Mitsubishi Space Wagon as we rolled through Essex blasting out the latest Amy Grant cassette.
She got to decorate the lives around her with melody, and when words failed, she would sing. When it abandoned her, she didn’t just lose something others admired: she lost part of her ability to grieve, to express joy, and to serve others.
On her 75th birthday, the family gathered to celebrate, and my brother Michael pulled out his phone and played a recording. It was my mum, singing at a friend’s wedding in 1987.
To spend a few minutes with the composer of my childhood was, all at once, a reminder of what’s been lost and a sacred moment.
Recently, my wife, my son, and I went on a cruise with my mum and dad, and one evening I heard singing drifting in from the balcony.
It was soft. Unhurried.
I turned to see my son sat with his Nana, as she sang to him as she once sang to me.
It wasn’t the voice I remembered. The soaring clarity and raw power of the old days hadn’t returned. There was no healing here, this was something new. Rougher. Deeper. It caught on certain notes, carrying a gravelly texture it had never possessed before.
And it was beautiful.
My mum isn’t the singer she wants to be, but in her hands she holds a new instrument. It might not fill cathedrals, but what does that matter? This voice serves a new audience, carrying comfort, joy, love and grief as it always did.
And it can create new, beautiful memories for me and my son.
Instruments old and new
To live under the bitter weight of what we deserved, how things should have turned out, or what we’ve lost, is to raise the wall between who you are and who you’re called to be right now.
To live frozen in a story that has no right to control what you do next.
The tide will not return what’s been washed away: it won’t repair what’s been broken, fulfil the prophecy, or restore lost confidence, energy, or the career you were promised. It’s why your calling isn’t back there. It’s right here, right now, in the very next step. Whatever you’re facing.
If you wait for restitution, you’ll wait forever, and the new instrument you already hold will be left unplayed. And years from now you’ll say ‘I missed it, again’.
My mum sang regardless of the circumstance, the lost gift, and the grief of it. She sang without asking whether she was good enough. She sang to the person in front of her, simply because it felt natural to do so. She sang, not in the absence of the challenges she’d faced, the wounds she carries, or the things she’d lost, but despite them.
And you can too.
Remember, there is nothing to add, no external validation you need, and no flaw that’s deep enough to stop you from beginning.
Lord of the dance
In 1963, the English songwriter Sidney Carter penned a hymn that echoed through damp school halls and village churches for decades: Dance then, wherever you may be.
It sounds simple, almost naive. Yet beneath it sits a fierce, pastoral defiance.
To dance wherever you may be is to reject the idea that your contribution depends on some kind of external validation, permission, or the ideal conditions. It is the refusal to wait for a fair market, a supportive boss, a perfect platform, or an unblemished record before you begin.
You are called to dance wherever you find yourself right now. Not when the grief has stopped burning or the scars have vanished. Right here, in the middle of this mess.
So many of the practitioners I meet are still mourning the instrument they thought they were supposed to play. The corporate climb that ended in redundancy. The specialist career that fractured into a dozen unremarkable jobs. The exit that felt like a summit, but left them with too much time on their hands and not enough money in the bank. The business that built an audience but cost them their peace.
They look at their chequered history and find a verdict that confirms that they were not enough. Their voice too rough, too gravelly, too broken to fill a cathedral.
But nothing is wasted.
And your voice has not been silenced.
The failed climbs, false starts, and quiet years of rebuilding may have lowered your register, but they have also left you with a unique voice. One that catches on the hard notes, that fumbles the poetry, that drifts off key and yet carries a depth and an authority that technical perfection can never fake.
That rougher edge is not your disqualification. It is your resonance. Your invitation.
The right voice, for right now, and the people who need to hear it.
Found, not chosen
Just this week I sat with a founder who had achieved what many spend their careers chasing: an exit. He built something, sold it, and stepped out of the performance.
But performing for the dashboard, his team, and the company’s valuation, had kept him busy enough to avoid the question waiting on the other side. Who am I without the role?
He’s facing it now.
And in the conversation, almost as an aside, he shared an idea. Not a business plan. Just an instinct. To gather people for a dinner. Not to revel in the mythology of headline exits and catastrophic failures, but to serve those in the unremarkable middle: building something real, without fanfare, who need to know they aren’t alone in it.
He offered the idea as if it belonged to the future. The act of an artist who must wait until he’d found a new way to generate revenue. But the right instrument isn’t somewhere out there ahead of him, it’s already in his hands.
His challenge, and ours too, is to take action with what we’ve got instead of waiting for permission or certainty or what we deserve. When we finally serve the work in front of us we’ll find the next step, even if it’s not the one we expected.
Because our best work is found, not chosen.
Finding your feet
You’ll never find your feet in the story of who you should have become. Your ability to dance is found in accepting who you are. Incomplete, imperfect, and exactly what the work requires. That’s when years past stop feeling like chains, and become harmony lines in the song you’re composing today.
And around that campfire, you’ll notice the audience that needs you now.
It may not look like the life you trained for. It may not win the applause of the crowd or satisfy the people who measure human worth by the size of the bottom line. But it is enough.
You do not need to wait for the old soaring clarity to return. You do not need to claw back what you deserved or make up for what’s been lost before you are allowed to serve.
Take a breath. Feel the weight of who you are beneath your feet.
And dance then, wherever you may be.
Today, my mum gets the final word. This is The Servant Song by Richard Gillard, performed by Heather Dowman in 1987.
Lyrics:
I would love to be your servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant too
We are pilgrims on a journey
We are travellers on the road
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load
I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the nighttime of your fear
I will hold my hand out to you
Speak the peace you long to hear
I will weep when you are weeping
When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we’ve seen this journey through
When we sing to God in heaven
We will find such harmony
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony
I would love to be your servant
Let me be as Christ to you
Pray that I may have the grace
To let you be my servant too
Practice Note
Three small reflections to carry into your week:
What are you still mourning? Name the old career path, project, or version of yourself that you are waiting to recover before you allow yourself to begin.
What is the new instrument to hand? Look at your current circumstances - the scars, the generalist background, the small audience. What unique texture does this give your work today?
Who is on the balcony with you? Stop looking at the auditorium. Who is the single person right in front of you who needs to know the comfort of your voice this week?
Where We Are:
This is Week 19 of a year-long practice.
Movement 2: Empathy - eight weeks exploring kindness and respect for self and the power genuine connection.
Dance Then, Wherever You May Be ← You are here
Personal Brand is a Cult
The Power of And
Community is the Great Leveller
Think Like an Artist
You Can’t See the View When You’re in the View
Click here to read the Overture and Movement 1.
The balcony over the recording, every time. Some of us only have the recording. Thank you for this.