Electricity

Billy Elliot is set in the 1984 miners’ strike in County Durham; Billy is an eleven-year-old boy who wants to become a ballet dancer.

Eventually Billy auditions for the Royal Ballet School; he‘s asked what it feels like when he is dancing and sings ‘Electricity’:

I can’t really explain it,
I haven’t got the words
It’s a feeling that you can’t control
I suppose it’s like forgetting, losing who you are
And at the same time something makes you whole…

Inspiration: Billy found inspiration in something that was bigger than anger, frustration and the miner’s strike.

We need to find inspiration from something that’s bigger than the worry and weariness of Covid and Brexit; the constant anxieties of school, health, shopping and isolation.

And then I feel a change
Like a fire deep inside
Something bursting me wide open impossible to hide
And suddenly I’m flying, flying like a bird
Like electricity…

Transformation: What Billy found was transformational. He didn’t understand it, but it brought him a new freedom; he explained this in pictures – a fire, flying bird or electricity.

We need something to change us, that will free us beyond superficial, the drudgery of the mundane and the slog of daily existence.  

…But then I feel it move me
Like a burning deep inside
Something bursting me wide open impossible to hide…

Confirmation: Eventually Billy became a dancer. Dancing wasn’t just a dream, an escape or a nice idea; it was to be his way of life.

2021 may be tough; the only certainty is its uncertainty. We need inspiration that will bring hope, transformation to enable us to meet its demands and confirmation that will make our dreams a reality.

For me I find this in my faith in a God who in Jesus inspires me, transforms me and confirms that he will be with me through 2021 as he was through 2020.