Stay Supple, Like a Reed

The hard and rigid
will be broken.
The soft and supple
will prevail.
– Tao Te Ching
(Chapter 76)

A tree that will not bend snaps in the first real storm. Reeds that bend all the way to the ground stand up again the moment the wind passes.

This chapter of the Tao Te Ching uses the body itself as evidence. A living person is soft, flexible, yielding to touch. A corpse is stiff, rigid, resistant to movement. Life, in this observation, is not defined by strength in the way most people define it. It’s defined by pliability. Rigidity is what death looks like, physically and metaphorically both, whether it’s showing up in a body or in a mind that has hardened into fixed positions it refuses to update.

This cuts hard against the instinct to treat strength as firmness, standing your ground, refusing to bend under any circumstance. That kind of strength works right up until it meets a force larger than itself, and then it doesn’t bend, it breaks, because it never developed the capacity to absorb pressure without shattering. Softness isn’t the absence of strength. It’s a different kind of strength, one that survives precisely because it never needed to prove it couldn’t be moved.

This applies as much to identity and belief as it does to trees and bodies. A person who cannot update their views when reality contradicts them isn’t strong. They’re brittle, waiting for the specific pressure that will finally break what refused to bend even slightly. A person who stays supple, willing to adjust, willing to be wrong, willing to move without losing themselves in the moving, is the one still standing long after the rigid position has cracked.

Nothing that refuses to bend survives long enough to see what comes next. Only what stays supple gets to keep growing.

– Pyramid Consciousness
via social media
August 29, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Oak and the Reed
• Flexibility and Flow
• Trusting the Flow
• Trust and Surrender
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• The Fatherly Heart
• Vulnerability Is Power
• Love as Exploring Vulnerability
• Love as "Quest and Daring and Growth"
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Move Us, Loving God

Image 1: Michael J. Bayly (September 2023).
Image 2: Michael J. Bayly (June 2009).

Kadeem Announces His Next Show

One of my favorite dancers, Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe), has recently announced a second live / live-stream show. It’s a re-imaginging of Act II of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker entitled “A World of Our Own” (For a review of Kadeem’s first show, “All the World’s a Stage,” click here.)

Following is Kadeem’s description of his December 19 show, along with his reasoning for encouraging folks to buy their ticket early.

__________________

I want to explain why booking early for my next show genuinely matters to me. My mission with everything I’m doing is to make ballet more accessible – financially, physically and emotionally.

I want to reach people who may never have seen a ballet before. People who have never felt represented or welcomed within ballet. People who love the art form but can’t easily get to a theatre because of where they live, accessibility, travel or cost.

That is a huge part of why I’m putting on this production in December. The Nutcracker is known around the world by even those who don't know ballet. This is an opportunity to really get the art form I love in front of so many people in a fresh (and hopefully exciting!) way.

For the in-person performance, I’ve deliberately priced 60% of the theatre at just £25 because I want a significant part of the auditorium to remain genuinely affordable.

The difficult reality is that, by doing that, even a completely sold-out theatre would only recoup around 35% of the planned production budget.

That means the livestream is an enormous part of making this possible.

The livestream this time isn’t an afterthought. It is central to what I’m trying to build. It means somebody thousands of miles away can experience the production at the same time as somebody sitting in the theatre, or even catch up for 14 days after if they can’t watch live but still want to be a part of this.

But because this is independently produced, many of the costs have to be committed to months before I know how many people will ultimately watch.

That’s why when you book matters almost as much as whether you book.

If you know you want to watch the performance, it would make an extraordinary difference to how much progress I could make towards funding the production if you booked right now.

It would give me the confidence to keep moving forward with not just this show but with what comes after it. More productions. More opportunities for artists. More accessible tickets. And perhaps, eventually, the opportunity to take this work to audiences in other cities and countries too.

So if you already know you’re going to watch, either on YouTube from anywhere in the world or with us at the theatre in London, I would be incredibly grateful if you booked early.

And I mean what I say about accessibility. If you genuinely want to watch the livestream but the ticket price is currently beyond what you can afford, please send me an email. I don’t want finances to be the reason somebody who wants to experience the production has to miss it.

Every booking helps me prove that there is an audience for a different way of making ballet – one that can be ambitious but still fairly priced and accessible at the same time.

I really hope we can keep building that together! ❤

Kadeem

Are you interested in supporting Kadeem beyond purchasing a ticket to his new show?

Well, you can join me in making a one time or recurring donation. Another way is by purchasing a copy of his most recent creative project. I’ll let Kadeem say more . . .

My new coffee table book The Pointe Of Passion is now available for you to have in your home. I hope that this book can serve as a reminder of perseverance and passion and can maybe insipire at least one person to find their passion – whatever that might be 🖤

Trust me, it’s a beautiful publication. My copy arrived in the mail just last week!

Here’s more about the book from Kadeem's website:

The Pointe of Passion is the first true photographic archive curated by Kadeem En Pointe, bringing together more than a decade of images captured in locations around the world. It is printed as a premium 98 page, 8 × 10 inch hardback coffee table book.

From the earliest photographs en pointe in public to the work being created today, this coffee table book traces an artistic journey through pointe shoes, tutus, public spaces and more. Alongside already shared images are never-before-seen photographs, offering an intimate look at the evolution of a project that has challenged perceptions of who ballet is for.

More than a collection of photographs, The Pointe of Passion is an exploration of becoming. It asks who ballet has traditionally made room for and what becomes possible when those boundaries begin to shift. It is a celebration of passion and the belief that beauty can be found and created in the most unexpected places.

Unlike many coffee table books, The Pointe of Passion has been published entirely independently. Every stage of its creation – from curating the archive to designing, printing and fulfilling each order – is funded and managed by Kadeem, allowing the project to remain true to the vision that has guided it from the very beginning. Every purchase directly supports the continued creation of independent ballet projects that seek to make the art form more accessible.

Signature and personalisation will be added to the first blank page on the inside, unless otherwise requested.

Click here to purchase The Pointe of Passion.

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).





For previous posts about Kadeem, see:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance
• A Mesmerizing Performance


See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• Dancer Calvin Royal III: Stepping Into His Light
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer


Image: Photo by @mandyleft

A Mesmerizing Performance

I mentioned previously that I had purchased a ticket for the live-stream of All the World’s a Stage, a performance by dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe) and a number of his creative friends that took place last Friday, August 14, at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, London.

I’m happy to report that it was a great show, and I offer heartfelt thanks to Kadeem and all who worked and performed with him in producing such a wonderful gift for the world. Along with Kadeem, others who performed in All the World’s a Stage included dance artists Mercedes Prevatt and Rebecca Chan, singer and musical theatre performer Eve Shanu-Wilson, creatives Mandy Izquierdo, Two Thunder, and Storrveldi, performer Xavier Thomas, and choreographic duo Bloom Collective.

The live-stream of All the World’s a Stage took place at 1:00 p.m. in Minneapolis, as we’re six hours behind London. I invited two chaplain colleagues, Barson and Charity, to watch the first twenty minutes or so with me on a computer in the Spiritual Care office of the hospital at which we work. Like me, they were mesmerized by the beauty and skill of the show’s diverse range of performances.

Kadeem is already planning a second performance to take place this winter. The best way to stay informed about this event and other projects and performances by Kadeem is by following him on social media. To get started, visit Kadeem’s official website and sign-up to his mailing list. Kadeem is also on Instagram and Facebook.

The following performance of The Dying Swan by Kadeem is from September 2020. In describing this dance when it was first posted of YouTube, Kadeem said the following.

Choreographed by Mikhail Fokin for Anna Pavlova in 1905, the piece I dance here – The Dying Swan – is a staple of classical ballet, performed by ballerinas the world over. Maybe my interpretation is not as great (I am not a professional dancer, I only do it as a hobby), but I had fun shooting it and I hope it inspires some people to go outside of their comfort zone – it wasn’t easy to dance in public, add taking your shirt off, putting on pointe shoes AND a tutu . . . need I say more?

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).


See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Kadeem En Pointe: Finding Freedom in Dance

I’m looking forward to this Friday and All the World’s a Stage, a performance by dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe) that’s taking place at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, London.

Thankfully, I don’t need to travel to London to experience this performance as it’s being live streamed. (For information about the show’s live stream and watch-on-demand tickets, click here.)

Following is “A Note from Kadeem” as published in the show’s programme booklet.

___________________

All the World’s A Stage is, at heart, a celebration of the many people a performer becomes in the pursuit of their craft.

Performing artists invest years of their lives learning how to transform into characters, stories, emotions and ideas. We train our bodies to communicate things that words cannot always express, often presenting the finished result as though it came effortlessly. Behind every moment onstage, however, is an enormous amount of work, vulnerability, repetition and courage.

Although this show contains more than dance, dance is its central pillar, so I want to take a moment to discuss something that has shaped both my relationship with the art form and the work I create.

Because dance is something that is watched, a dancer’s body can quickly become something that other people feel entitled to assess. Our bodies are discussed, compared, corrected and judged. We are told what shape we should be, how we should move and what we should wear. Over time, the body can begin to feel less like the home of the artist within us and more like the property of the audience (in the theatre or even more difficult to handle – online), the institution or the tradition.

I believe this has turned many people away from dance, particularly ballet, before they have never had the opportunity to discover what it might mean to them. When you spend so much time looking into a mirror, it can become difficult not to view yourself through the imagined eyes of everyone else.

Those experiences reach beyond body shape. Ballet has long carried strict ideas about gender: boys perform the large jumps, girls dance en pointe; boys lift, girls are lifted; tutus belong to one kind of body. Race, class and access create further barriers. For many people who are not white, wealthy or able to follow a traditional path through professional training, ballet can appear to be a world in which they were never meant to belong.

As a gay Black man from Trinidad and Tobago, dancing in pointe shoes and tutus in public places, I found freedom in going against what people expected ballet – and a ballet dancer – to look like. My work began as a way of creating space for myself within an art form I have loved for most of my life.

Over time, that personal act of freedom became something larger. It became a way of showing that ballet can be more than what we have been taught to expect.

I have never followed the traditional professional route. I dance because I love it. That does not make the joy, discipline or passion I find in ballet any less real.

Although ballet sits at the center of my journey, this programme aims to show much more than that. Every performer you see tonight has brought something of themselves to this work: their experiences, their imagination and their relationship with the stage. [NOTE: Along with Kadeem, others in All the World’s a Stage include dance artists Mercedes Prevatt and Rebecca Chan, singer and musical theatre performer Eve Shanu-Wilson, creatives Mandy Izquierdo, Two Thunder, and Storrveldi, performer Xavier Thomas, and choreographic duo Bloom Collective.]

I hope you will see more than technique or physical appearance. I hope you will see people following what makes them feel alive.

Whether you are here in the theatre or watching from somewhere across the world, perhaps something tonight will encourage you to begin (or return to) something you love.

Finally, a million thank yous to every one of you for supporting my work. By being here, whether in person or online, you are helping me to continue growing my mission of bringing ballet to more people.

Thank you for sharing this evening with us.

– Kadeem En Pointe
August 14, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).

See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Trouble with the Male Dancer – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Awakenings

If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is illusionary and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

– Laozi

Notice as human beings eliminate the need for illusions within themselves, forces of illusion are neutralized throughout the world. This occurs as consciousness expands. Our personal renunciation of fear, doubt, negative thoughts, words and harmful acts is reflected in the perception and experience of greater harmony everywhere.

– Liara Covert

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• Don’t Go Back to Sleep
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Peng Roden Her
• Awakening
• An Extraordinary, Precious Opportunity
• The Task at Hand
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Shining On . . . Into the New Year
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Awakening and Turning

Image: Tyrel Dulvarie in Bangarra Dance Theatre’s production of Dark Emu.

A Message in Dance That Challenges, Inspires and Liberates

This year’s Wild Reed “Queer Appreciation” series focuses on the grace, verve and message of British dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe).

It’s a message that is challenging, inspiring and liberating. Which makes it queer in the truest sense of the word (as I discuss in the first installment of this series).

It’s a queerness that continues in this second (and concluding) installment. Enjoy!

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).

See also the following dance-related Wild Reed posts:
• Kadeem
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Power of Dance
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Kadeem

Since 2009 I’ve shared at this time of year a series of what I call “Queer Appreciation” posts.

Each series is comprised of a number of informed and insightful writings to mark Gay Pride . . . or, as I’ve preferred to call it since 2011, Queer Appreciation.

I usually try to include in each series a diverse range of writers and topics, and in general the writings I share are positive, proactive and celebratory.

This year’s Queer Appreciation series will be comprised of just two posts, both focusing on the British dancer Kadeem Hosein (known as Kadeem En Pointe).

I love this guy as a dancer . . . and his mission to confound expectations and disrupt conventions, which is what queerness is ultimately all about.

I understand that to be “queer” is to attempt to expand or go beyond (in thought, word or deed) the parameters of gender, race, heterosexuality, patriarchy, and other socially-constructed (or manipulated) concepts. Laurence Coleman, in discussing vocalist Dusty Springfield as a queer icon, says that embracing this understanding of queer “denotes a spectrum not only of identity and practice but also inquiry.” Accordingly, to be queer is to be a questioner and subverter of what Michael Warner has called “regimes of the normal.” And, as I've already noted, not just in matters to do with sexuality and sexual expression, but also in matters of gender, class, and race.

Now, don't get me wrong, my sexuality is a very important aspect of my life, but I'm more than my sexuality. To my mind, “gay” refers to sexuality, whereas "queer” encompasses sexuality and all the other aspects of one's life and experience, aspects that may well have been shaped in profound ways by one's sexuality. For example, my perspectives on religion, spirituality, politics, economics, and issues of racial and social justice have all been greatly influenced and shaped by my experiences as a gay man. For me, the term “queer” acknowledges this reality, this journey; one that has taken me beyond a solely sexuality-based (i.e., “gay”) understanding of myself and my place in the world.

Also, my understanding of myself and my journey as a seeker and embodier of the Divine Presence is always evolving, which is another reason why I'm drawn to “queer.” For as Annamarie Jagose suggests, “queer is always [a multi-faceted] identity under construction, a site of permanent becoming.”

Actor and singer Alan Cumming shares a similar view when, in a 2009 piece in Rolling Stone, he advocates replacing the word “gay” with “queer” when talking in broad terms about our evolving collective experience.

Cumming expresses concern that the creation of “gay culture," a culture based on identities defined solely by sex and sexuality, has “led gay people to self-ghettoize" and to lose the status quo-challenging creativity and individuality that were once associated with being “different."

“Queer isn't just about same-sex wedding tackle,” Cumming writes. “Queer is about sensibility. You don't need to be gay to be queer. Indeed, some of the queerest people I know are straight. . . . I think if more people embraced their queerness, we'd all be the better for it.”

I have absolutely no doubt that Kadeem would agree! . . . As evidenced by the following inspiring series of memes he recently shared on his social media platforms.

NEXT: A Message in Dance That
Challenges, Inspires and Liberates

Related Off-site Links:
Kadeem’s Official Website
“Being a Ballet Dancer Is Years of Hard Work, But It’s All Worth It” Says Kadeem En Pointe – Stuart Norval (France 24, February 26, 2026).
Men en Pointe: Ballet Dancers Kick Against Gender Stereotypes – Matilda Martin (The Guardian, March 10, 2021).


The Wild Reed’s 2025 Queer Appreciation series:
• What the Bible Really Says About Gender Justice
• Remembering the “Out, Proud and Vivid” Sylvester
• Exploring the Meaning and History of “Two-Spirit”
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives


The Wild Reed’s 2024 Queer Appreciation series:
• “Let Us Be the Incarnation of Inclusion”
• Durrand Bernarr, “a Genre-Bending Talent”
• Kyle Kvamme, Advocate for LGBTQIA+ Refugees
• Remembering Paco Jamandreu, Evita’s Gay Friend and Confidant
• Christina Cauterucci on the Olympics Moment That Shows Where the Anti-Trans Movement Has Brought Us
• A Powerhouse Performance of One of the First Gay Liberation Anthems


The Wild Reed’s 2023 Queer Appreciation series:
• Angela Kade Goepferd on the “Manufactured Controversy” Targeting Gender-Affirming Care
• The Bigger Box of Crayons We All Deserve
• Transgender in America Today
• Accounting for the Backlash
• Celebrating Every Body
• Three Radical (Religious) Ideas for Queer Liberation
• In St. Paul Schools, “Trans Advocacy Is Always Advocacy for Everyone”


The Wild Reed’s 2022 Queer Appreciation series:
• Cassandra Snow on Reclaiming the Word “Queer”
• Tian Richards’ Message to Queer Youth: “Every Part of Your Identity Is a Superpower”
• Gabbi Pierce on the “Evolution of Gender”
• Afdhere Jama’s “Love Song to the Queer Somali”
• “Creative Outsider, Determined Innovator”: Remembering Berto Pasuka
• “Queer Love Is My Divine Companion”
• Dyllón Burnside: “For Me, the Term Queer Just Opens Up Space”
• Tarot: A Compass For Journeying Toward the Truth of Who We Are and Who We Can Be


The Wild Reed’s 2021 Queer Appreciation series:
• “A Book About Revolutionary People That Feels Revolutionary Itself”
• Remembering Dusty Springfield’s “Daring” 1979 Gay-Affirming Song
• Zaylore Stout on the Meaning of Emancipation in 2021
• Maebe A. Girl: A “Decidedly Progressive Candidate” for Congress
• The Art of Tania Rivilis
• Lil Nas X, the Latest Face of Pop’s Gay Sexual Revolution
• Kuan Yin: “A Mirror of the Queer Experience”


The Wild Reed’s 2020 Queer Appreciation series:
• Zaylore Stout on Pride 2020: “What Do We Have to Be Proud Of?”
• Francis DeBernardo on the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Title VII: “A Reason for All Catholics to Celebrate”
• Mia Birdsong on the “Queering of Friendship”
• The Distinguished Rhone Fraser: Cultural Critic, Bibliophile, and Dramatist
• “To Walk the World Without Masks”
• What We Are Hoping and Fighting For


The Wild Reed’s 2019 Queer Appreciation series:
• Raquel Willis: Quote of the Day – May 31, 2019
• James Baldwin’s Potent Interweavings of Race, Homoeroticism, and the Spiritual
• John Gehring on Why Catholics Should Participate in LGBTQ Pride Parades
• A Dance of Queer Love
• The Queer Liberation March: Bringing Back the Spirit of Stonewall
• Barbara Smith on Why She Left the Mainstream LGBTQI Movement
• Remembering the Stonewall Uprising on Its 50th Anniversary
• In a Historic First, Country Music’s Latest Star Is a Queer Black Man
• Historian Martin Duberman on the Rightward Shift of the Gay Movement
• Queer Black Panther


The Wild Reed’s 2018 Queer Appreciation series:
• Michelangelo Signorile on the Rebellious Purpose of Queer Pride
• Liberating Paris: Exploring the Meaning of Liberation in Paris Is Burning
• Stephanie Beatriz on the Truth of Being Bi
• Queer Native Americans, Colonialism, and the Fourth of July


The Wild Reed’s 2017 Queer Appreciation series:
• Our Lives as LGBTQI People: “Garments Grown in Love”
• On the First Anniversary of the Pulse Gay Nightclub Massacre, Orlando Martyrs Commemorated in Artist Tony O'Connell’s “Triptych for the 49”
• Tony Enos on Understanding the Two Spirit Community
• Making the Connections


The Wild Reed’s 2016 Queer Appreciation post of solace, inspiration and hope:
• “I Will Dance”


The Wild Reed’s 2015 Queer Appreciation series:
• Vittorio Lingiardi on the Limits of the Hetero/Homo Dichotomy
• Reclaiming and Re-Queering Pride
• Standing with Jennicet Gutiérrez, “the Mother of Our Newest Stonewall Movement”
• Questions for Archbishop Kurtz re. the U.S. Bishops' Response to the Supreme Court's Marriage Equality Ruling
• Clyde Hall: “All Gay People, in One Form or Another, Have Something to Give to This World, Something Rich and Very Wonderful”
• The (Same-Love) Dance Goes On


The Wild Reed’s 2014 Queer Appreciation series:
• Michael Bayly’s “The Kiss” Wins the People's Choice Award at This Year's Twin Cities Pride Art Exhibition
• Same-Sex Desires: “Immanent and Essential Traits Transcending Time and Culture”
• Lisa Leff on Five Things to Know About Transgender People
• Steven W. Thrasher on the Bland and Misleading “Gay Inc” Treatment of the Struggle to Overturn Prop 8
• Test: A Film that “Illuminates Why Queer Cinema Still Matters”
• Sister Teresa Forcades on Queer Theology
• Omar Akersim: Muslim and Gay
• Catholics Make Their Voices Heard on LGBTQ Issues


The Wild Reed’s 2013 Queer Appreciation series:
• Doing Papa Proud
• Jesse Bering: “It’s Time to Throw 'Sexual Preference' into the Vernacular Trash”
• Dan Savage on How Leather Guys, Dykes on Bikes, Go-Go Boys, and Drag Queens Have Helped the LGBT Movement
• On Brokeback Mountain: Remembering Queer Lives and Loves Never Fully Realized
• Manly Love


The Wild Reed’s 2012 Queer Appreciation series:
• The Theology of Gay Pride
• Bi God, Somebody Listen
• North America: Perhaps Once the “Queerest Continent on the Planet”
• Gay Men and Modern Dance
• A Spirit of Defiance


The Wild Reed’s 2011 Gay Pride/Queer Appreciation series:
• Gay Pride: A Celebration of True Humility
• Dusty Springfield: Queer Icon
• Gay Pioneer Malcolm Boyd on Survival – and Victory – with Grace
• Senator Scott Dibble’s Message of Hope and Optimism
• Parvez Sharma on Islam and Homosexuality


The Wild Reed’s 2010 Gay Pride series:
• Standing Strong
• Growing Strong
• Jesus and Homosexuality
• It Is Not Good To Be Alone
• The Bisexual: “Living Consciously in the Place Where the Twain Meet”
• Spirituality and the Gay Experience
• Recovering the Queer Artistic Heritage


The Wild Reed’s 2009 Gay Pride series:
• A Mother’s Request to President Obama: Full Equality for My Gay Son
• Marriage Equality in Massachusetts: Five Years On
• It Shouldn’t Matter. Except It Does
• Gay Pride as a Christian Event
• Not Just Another Political Special Interest Group
• Can You Hear Me, Yet, My Friend?

20 Years of Saying “Yes” to the Charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet

Earlier this evening I had the honor of delivering the “Jubilarian Reflection” at the St. Joseph Day celebration at Carondelet Village in St. Paul, Minnesota. This year marks my 20th anniversary of being a consociate member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet – St. Paul Province.

Right: With fellow CSJ Consociates Kathleen Olsen and Rita Quigley – March 18, 2026.

Left: Making my Consociate commitment on May 16, 2008. With me are the two inspiring women who served as my companions during my two-year consociate candidancy (one that started in 2006) – Rita McDonald, CSJ and Marguerite Corcoran, CSJ.

Consociates are men and women of diverse ages, faith traditions, and backgrounds. What we all have in common is an expressed desire to live the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph (CSJ). A charism is a spiritual gift from God for the good of the church and the world. The charism of the CSJs is the “love of God and the dear neighbor without distinction.” In short, consociates live this special calling and gift of the Sisters of Joseph within the context of their own lives.

My reflection was preceded by the reading of an excerpt from Dorothy Day’s autobiography, The Long Loneliness, in which she writes about the “revolution of the heart.”

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Good evening. My name is Michael Bayly and I’m happy to say that I’ve been a consociate member of this wonderful community for 20 years. I’m honored to have been invited to share some thoughts with you during on this special day for us.

When I was first told of the title of this evening’s event, my first thought was, Oh, how poetic! – “God relied on Joseph to do the really tough things, to which he quietly replied, ‘Yes.’”

As I pondered these words I realized that, like all true poetic words, there’s a timelessness to them. This is because they reflect the eternal spirit of hope and trust in the midst of the many uncertainties and upheavals of life.

I see this spirit of hope and trust in the life of Joseph of Nazareth, and in the spiritual community that bears his name. I’ve witnessed countless example of Sisters and Consociates choosing, like Joseph, to be fully present in the moment when faced with uncertainties and challenges; choosing to wait trustingly for God’s guidance; and choosing to respond with a “Yes” born of compassion, courage, and trust.

Throughout our history as a spiritual community, we have done, and continue to do, some truly remarkable and inspiring things as a result of our saying, time after time, “Yes!”

Left: With Marilaurice Hemlock and Char Madigan, CSJ – March 18, 2026. Char is the founder of Hope Community in Minneapolis.

We have established and maintained ministries and programs, projects and collaborations that have changed lives; that have challenged systems of oppression and inequality; and that have embodied the “Good News” of justice, community, and liberation that Jesus lived and taught.

We have, like leaven in bread, infused the world with our presence and made a profound difference; we’ve lifted people and causes, we’ve taken risks, learned hard lessons, recalibrated and changed course when necessary, and kept going because we keep listening, trusting, and saying “Yes!”

Right: With Mary Ellen Foster, CSJ – March 18, 2026.

I’m sure that each one of us acknowledges that doing all of these things was and remains tough. But faithful doing is always predicated on faithful being – being still, being centered, being open to the flow of the Divine in and through both our individual and our communal lives. Being is just as tough as doing. Sometimes I think it’s actually more tough. There are just so many distractions, so many voices demanding busyness and productivity and results that to take time out, to cultivate quietude and wait upon the still small voice within, just seems crazy; a waste of valuable time.

But then I remember Jesus wandering off into the wild places to be alone. I remember Joseph holding back from acting rashly upon hearing the news that his betrothed was mysteriously with child. I remember Mary making sacred time and space to ponder all the uncertainties swirling around her and then choosing to trust the God of her Magnificat, her revolutionary canticle of praise to Divine transformation and a world liberated from hierarchy, injustice, poverty and shame.

The Magnificat’s revolution is an outer revolution, one that begins, however, as Dorothy Day reminds us, within each one of us as a “revolution of the heart.” Dorothy’s words remind me of a statement attributed to political and feminist activist Emma Goldman: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

In our community’s embodiment of the “revolution of love,” we definitely allow for dancing. I sense we intrinsically know that, in the words of Gabrielle Roth, “We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things.” Some of my most memorable experiences in our community have involved movement and dance.

Some examples . . .

• Being uplifted by Florence Steichen (above), Rita Quigley, and so many other Sisters and Consociates as they danced the history of the CSJs at the River Center during our 150th anniversary celebration;

• Watching Susan Hames joyfully dancing with her young nephew at this same event (left);

• Being inspired by the mindful and graceful moves of Rita Foster, Susan Oeffling, and Cathy Steffens as they practiced and taught tai chi;

• Marveling at the skill and stamina of each and every one of Brigid McDonald’s Irish jigs (right, in 2016);

• Being mesmerized by the beauty of Ansgar Homberg’s creations of oil and brush and the slow, graceful dance of her hand;

• Feeling valued and accepted in watching the rainbow-inspired gestures of welcome from Linda Taylor, Mary Ellen Foster, Ruth Brooker, and so many other Sisters and Consociates as, year after year, they moved with joy and grace in the Twin Cities LGBTQI Pride parade (left, in 2010);

• Dancing to the ABBA classic “Dancin’ Queen” with Kathleen Olsen and the McDonald Sisters at the Ministries Foundation Gala (below, in 2014);

• And, of course, there’s dear Rose Tillemans’ memoir, I’m Still Dancing.

So, yes, there’s dancing of all kinds in our revolution of love – physical dancing. But there’s also always been a deeper type of movement, a symbolic dance; one that we can all partake, even if we can’t physically move and dance to the extent that we’d like.

This is Dorothy Day’s “revolution of the heart.” And I’ve come to understand it as beginning with an internal movement involving four steps:

1) The decision to cultivate stillness. Now this might sound odd, given that we’re talking about dance. But as Henry Miller reminds us: “To relax is the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is the first thing any one of us has to learn in order to fully live.” But it’s tough, because it means surrender.

2) An “active waiting” in the words of Henri Nouwen, for the voice, the flow, the rhythm of the sacred;

3) The saying of “Yes!” to what we hear and feel, be it in the form of guidance, clarity, or the call for further stillness and listening;

4) The realization that intrinsic to this process is a growing capacity to “recognize what is true, aligned, and life-giving, and to distinguish it from what is imagined, projected, or misaligned.” Shamanic teacher Mary Newstrom reminds us that throughout cultures and spiritual traditions, this capacity is called discernment. It is through our active cultivation of this capacity that we begin what’s been called the “great awakening within,” or as Dorothy Day names it, the “revolution of love.”

It’s a beginning that invites us to go beyond the inner realm in which our dance of revolution is born.

The next steps of this dance, and they can be tough ones, involve connecting with others, sharing what we’ve discerned, seeking counsel and community so as to realize and express ever more fully the “true love” that imbues and empowers the dance.

It’s a love that gifts us with vision to see things as they really are, and this might seem like new vision if we’ve become accustomed to seeing things with the ego and its obsession with falsities of separateness, brokenness and lovelessness. That’s not the vision of God. And we know this in our heart of hearts.

Left: With Jane McDonald, CSJ – March 18, 2026.

We know it too from our experiences – especially our experiences of community. It’s community that protects us from slipping back into old habits of ego thinking and seeing; it’s community that keeps the music and rhythm of the dance in our ears and in our hearts.

Our dance as Sisters and Consociates of St. Joseph of Carondelet has a very unique and beautiful rhythm, one which makes us move and flow in very unique and beautiful ways. One way of identifying this rhythm is by recognizing that it is what we refer to as our charism: To love God and the dear neighbor without distinction.

That’s how we move in the world. That’s our dance, our expression of love.

For twenty years I’ve been honored to share in this dance, to embody it with you and with many who are no longer with us as they have danced their way into the sweet unknown. Yet their essence continues to be felt, continues to inspire in and through the rhythm of our shared dance.

Long may the dance of our “revolution of love” continue. And when our feet tire from the dance, which can and does happen; and when we struggle to hear the rhythm of our dance above the world’s noise and chaos, may we again say “Yes!” to the tough thing of both being and doing what it takes to reinvigorate and continue our shared dance of revolutionary love. Amen.

– Michael Bayly
March 18, 2026

Above: With Cathy Steffens, CSJ – March 18, 2026.

Above: Part of the beautiful mural at Corondelet Village that honors the history of the Sisters and Consociates of St. Joseph of Carondelot – St. Paul Province. Featured in this part of mural is Rose Tillemans (top right), founder of Peace House in Minneapolis. Also featured are two of the four McDonald Sisters (Kate and Brigid), Marguerite Corcoran, CSJ and Rita Steinhagen, CSJ (foreground). All for four Sisters are pictured protesting the School of the Americas at Fort Benning Georgia in 1998. Rita Steinhagen was a founder (along with Marlene Barghini, CSJ) of The Bridge for Youth in Minneapolis.

See also the following chronologically-ordered posts:
• Beginning the Process (2006)
• The Inspiring Brigid McDonald, CSJ
• Reflections on Associate/Consociate Programs by Joan Chittister
• Remembering Rita Steinhagen, CSJ – 1928-2006
• Making My Consociate Commitment (2008)
• A Visit to the Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet – St. Louis Province
• The Vatican and U.S. Women Religious (2009)
• Joseph of Dreams
• Honoring Kathleen Judge, CSJ – 1935-2013
• In Wintry Minnesota, An Australian Afternoon Tea
• Three Winter Gatherings
• Celebrating the “Sisters of Peace”
• Remembering Rita McDonald, CSJ – 1922-2023
• Remembering Kate McDonald, CSJ – 1929-2024
• Two Responses to Today’s Mass Shooting in Minneapolis

See also the following dance-related posts:
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• The Soul of a Dancer
• “Then I Shall Leap Into Love”
• Love’s the Only Dance
• We All Dance
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• The Dance of Life
• And As We Dance . . .
• Our Dance
• “I Came Alive With Hope”
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Power of Dance
• Finding Balance in the Presence of the Beloved
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• Flexibility and Flow
• Move Us, Loving God
• A Prayer for Dancers
• Trusting the Flow
• Aristotle Papanikolaou on How Being Religious Is Like Being a Dancer

Related Off-site Links:
Radical Sisters – Anne Hamre (Minnesota Women’s Press, June 2, 2007).
Peace House Mosaic Mural in Danger – Sheila Regan (Twin Cities Daily Planet, June 23, 2011).
Minnesota Sisters Who Became Sisters Made a Habit of Fighting for Peace and Justice – Kathy Berdan (Pioneer Press, March 21, 2019).
Peace House at 40: A Mission of Presence – Marty Roers (2025).
Showing Up: An Act of Solidarity – Marty Roers (2025).