My Golden Dancers

Nistar - Hidden Miracle

By Elita Sohmer Clayman

In a foreign language, the word nistar means several things. It means something like concealed or hidden miracle. It was used in the book of Esther in the bible when Esther was called upon to save her family from the evil doer.

We can have our own hidden miracles that may or may not be concealed from our conscious beings. Many of us do not know of our inner strengths or know of our inner abilities especially since we are getting older which is life’s process.

Have you ever thought how words can hurt or soothe you? My mom always taught us kids that if you could not say anything nice, say nothing at all. I notice as I grow older that others do not even attempt to do that.

I have a friend who emails her daughters daily. They both live out of town. She always signs the emails ‘with love from your mom.’ One daughter responds the same way with love from your daughter. The other one responds once in a while that way and other times nothing at all. The woman gets very upset when she sees this. She seems to need the other daughter to respond with the simple word of love to soothe her day.

I want to tell my friend that at this age in her senior life, she does not need the approval of this daughter. She knows she was a good mom and if this daughter cannot put down the simple word of love knowing that her mom craves this; then this is the daughter’s meanness to her aging mom. I tell her that she cannot let her daughter steal her life at this moment in being.

I was cleaning out some drawers and found a piece of paper from when I went back to get a college degree at age thirty-three. The Hungarian professor had quite an accent and the first day I heard him speak in the lecture room, I thought it would be hard to comprehend what he was saying. After the first time, I had no trouble and he and I became great friends.

When the semester was over, I sent him a thank you note for encouraging me, the oldest member in the class at age thirty-three. The rest were all teens, and I was the most attentive and productive classmate he had seen in a long time. One day during the semester I brought my three-year-old to class with me because his pre-school was closed for the day. The professor, Dr. Z. John Levay, looked at me and said that he did not think it was the appropriate place for a tot that day since we were discussing psychology and sex. I told him that if he misbehaved, I would leave immediately and that he could not understand what he was lecturing on.

At the end of the class, he came up to me and my son and said what a wonderful and well behaved child he was and at that moment Jeffrey jumped into his arms and hugged him. From that moment of hugging came a long and sincere friendship between our family and Dr. Levay’s family. We went to each other’s happy events and celebrated with joy those lovely times.

When he passed on six years ago, I gave one of the eulogies at his funeral ceremony in his church. I told of the time that Jeffrey jumped into his arms and how Dr. Levay had said to me on the first test essay paper-Mrs.Clayman: you can and will do better. He gave me a B on it and from that day forward, I attained all As and graduated from college with honor five years later.

The simple wording of you can and will do better encouraged me to excel. That is what we can all do in our dancing regardless of whatever age we begin to dance. Our teachers can instill in us the faith that we are special people taking on a lovely sport or hobby and that we will do fantastic things with it. We can compete, we can social dance and we will make many new dancing friends at the dance halls.

One day at the college before I graduated, I wrote a letter to the dean supporting Dr. Levay’s quest for his full professorship. The college was withholding it for some reason and I wrote this letter of what he meant to me in my life and to everyone whom he offered his hope to do well. Lo and behold, the college who had been suppressing the confirmation of the professorship in full awarded it to him.

He wrote me a thank you note and in it he stated:

To my star student Elita Sohmer Clayman who has earned my sincere respect because she has found herself and who, as an adult became a child again; a Child of God, by virtue of being a peacemaker.

That was in 1970. I had bridged the wide gulf between the school administration and their petty ways in withholding what was surely due this gifted scholar and teacher. The teens and I loved him and he introduced to all of us, regardless of age, that we were special and we could transcend any expectations we had of our schooling.

We can all be peacemakers if we implant the seed of learning to someone who thinks they cannot learn because of age or youth or even impairment. We fortify and embolden them that they too can be successful in anything new they attempt. It can be ballroom dancing, piano lessons, and sewing, anything they desire.

We who dance know that to dance is to enhance our life to the fullest. We reap benefits that one cannot imagine from dance. We have better health, we have extended our mind’s ability to think, we breathe better, we smile more often and most of all we have fun.

Fun helps to make us happy and health officials say that if you are happy, you possibly live longer. Like the daughter who does not put the word love down and she knows that her mom would be so happy to see it; we need not withhold anything from letting us assist someone to feel better. To be a child of God because we are peacemakers is probably the highest and finest ideal we can yearn for.

When we have become good dancers and we can show someone else that they too can be adequate doing this dear deed, then we will be a peacemaker. It will be a hidden miracle, a nistar and it will no longer be hidden. It will be displayed for everyone to view and mainly for us to be thankful that we ignited a flame in someone else who may not have had the thought to try.

Nistar miracle is surely something for us to adhere to because then we will surely be a peacemaker and become a dear child of God.

We then are at peace and we know that we accomplished something special because we allowed our hopes to extend to possibly a stranger and they were no longer strangers because we did not hide this dance love and it became a nistar, unhidden, alive and vibrant.

I heard this on a television show recently: May the road rise up to meet you and the wind always be at your back. May the sunshine warm your face and the rainfall softly fall on the field. Till we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

We, the people we are right today in this new year of 2009 can be a nistar miracle, a peacemaker and make the road rise up to meet folks who we try to encourage to ballroom dance for their health, happiness and overall heavenly happenings. We will be doing what we love-dancing and we will be extending that love to others to at least try. Once they attempt it, they will know that it is for them.

Life will change for them because they will be doing something so different, so special and most of all so rewarding. We will be the ones who get the dividend- we will have the prize most coveted by all. We now will feel absolutely that the road has risen to meet us and the sunshine will have warmed our face. We will be the peacemaker because we will have found our self.

Always keep on dancing.

You can email me at elitajerrydancing@verizon.net