Father Daughter Dance
Father
Daughter Dance
"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and
daughters, says the Lord Almighty."
2 Corinthians 6:18
Saturday
evening was the night of the annual Father Daughter dance at our children’s
school. The anticipation by both Daddy and Daughter in our house for this event
in the weeks, hours, and minutes prior to the night of the dance was sweet. Him
wistfully joking that he might get a tux for this one, her considering,
reconsidering, then re-reconsidering what dress to wear, several mentions of
the flowers that should be bought, a visit together to the florist to get just
the right matching corsage and boutonnière, careful deliberations over his suit
and tie choices together, my daughter’s questioning from 10am Saturday morning onward
about the time and how long that meant it would be until the dance. Palpable
love. Palpable joy.
Each
year this event brings back a memory of the only school-sponsored Father
Daughter dance I remember well. The night was hosted as a dinner and awards
ceremony for eighth graders and their parents. It just happened to have a single
dance moment for Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters near the end. We
danced to a song that had become popular that year: Bette Midler’s “Wind
Beneath My Wings.” My father and I were both sappy, teary, messes by the end of
the song. In the moments of that song I didn’t ever want to grow up and not be
held and protected by his loving arms. Did
I ever tell him he’s my heeeerrrr-o?
Not enough.
As
I’ve grown and moved further away, I’ve slowly begun to recognize the movements
of a supernatural Father Daughter dance too. The mortal arms that have held me
are simply never enough, and I yearn to know that I am held, protected, and guided
by Eternal Loving Arms. It all gets to be a bit of another sappy, teary, mess
from there for me in terms of writing it or speaking it. That longing and
loving is beyond words and beyond measure, but the responses that fill it, for
me, have been remarkably musical, as though really in a dance with my Eternal
Father.
At
one of my darkest moments on Guam, I was compelled to stretch the arms of my
soul out with, Amy Grant singing Breath of Heaven. I began listening and
singing as if my life depended on the lyrics: “Breath of heaven hold me together… help me be.” Heavenly Father swung in with a few
responses. One response through a song I first heard at our parish on Guam, “…though I may journey far away from home, I
know I’ll never be alone,” a verse from Fly Like a Bird by Ken
Canedo. And I felt: never
alone. By miracles and wonders, the
composer of that response song just happens to be the music director at the
parish we moved to in Portland. Out of the billions of people in the world, the
various possible cities, we could have chosen, the many parishes in our area,
God moved us into this one musical director’s! Strong arms! Heavenly arms. Arms that reach from the
supernatural into our natural and yearn to dance with us even more than we sometimes
yearn for it ourselves.
After
the writing and sending of one of the earlier essays, I had a little lingering
uncertainty about it. But as I drove the kids to school the Wednesday morning
it went out, I put on a jazz station that I don’t usually listen to, and all
the way to school we heard an old jazz favorite of mine “God Bless the Child,”
and a feeling of confidence in “having my own” dance going with those Eternal
Fatherly Arms swept me off my feet for the rest of the day.
