He taught me to dance in my tiny grad school living room. We had to push the futon out of the way to have room. Sure, I’d “danced” before, but I never could get my feet to do the right things, and I was nervous. I’m not generally clumsy,1 but there’s something about someone being that close and paying that much attention to the movement of my body that just makes me nervous.
But he was nice, and not my type, so I let him teach me.
“What do I do?” I asked, as he put his hand on the small of my back.
“Just lean back,” he smiled.
“But what are the steps? How do I count?” I’m sure a look of panic crept into my eyes, despite my desperate desire to maintain my composure.
“Just lean back and let me dance you. Relax and look into my eyes. In this style, the guy does the work.”
So I put my arm around his shoulders and my hand in his. Then I took a deep breath and let go of myself. I had to be loose for this. I had to surrender, to let him hold me and look at me and move me. A few times I tried to pay attention and catch up and do the “right thing” and it just got me all twisted. For this dance to work at all, I really had to let him lead.
I was wearing ripped jeans and flip flops, but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so elegant or so graceful or so captivating. There was nothing between us but the dance, but oh, what a dance.
It was one of the most intimate moments of my life, looking into his eyes, being held so close, almost letting him carry me. It was pure and innocent and intense and I’m so grateful for that dance.
It’s a moment that comes back to me in prayer often, that ethereal half hour in the living room. There’s something so beautiful about that image,about the surrender involved in that dance.
I picture myself in the arms of Christ, just being held and adored. I spend my life doing and thinking and achieving, but here it’s enough just to be. There’s so much of me that wants to know what to do next, how to act, what steps to take, but that just makes me stumble. The beauty of dancing with a man who knows how to lead is that all I have to do is look into his eyes and trust.
And so in prayer and in life, I’m trying to lean back. I’m trying to let go of my plans and intentions and desires and to be caught up in his embrace. There, in his arms, I don’t have to do anything but let myself be loved. Dancing through life with him, I don’t have to know the song or the steps. I just have to let go of my obsession with being in control and let him lead.
For years, my relationship with Christ has been a romantic one. It’s the only way I can understand how consumed he is with love for me, the only way I can learn to live and move and have my being in him. Maybe this image of being held and loved and danced won’t work for those of you who see him differently–men especially–but, oh, what a gift it is to find him in prayer and to feel the beauty and the power and the intimacy of that living room dance session in his Eucharistic embrace.
More often than not, the song I hear is a setting of St. Ignatius’ Prayer for Surrender:
Take, oh Lord, and receive
All my liberty, my memory,
My understanding, and my will.
All that I am and all that I possess
You have given to me.
And I surrender it all to you.
Form it to your will.
Give me only your love and your grace!
For with these I am rich enough
And desire nothing more
How perfect.
Irregular
- That scar on my arm? I ran into the door. At the library. Just call me Evel Knievel. [↩]
Hi Meg,
What a beautiful post! Thank you. As for men relating differently to this, you’re right (though I’m a hopeless romantic and I think I have a hint of your perspective). From my point of view, as a man, I relate to this story in my hope to lead my wife that way, through our dance to heaven. It makes me want to run out and take dance lessons so that I can give Maria that same experience!! I pray that he leads me, through me, that I may lead my wife and children. To hold and lead is the desire God has given me as a man, but in order to do that well, I must also learn to let God hold and lead me. I must learn the dance myself with him as my dance instructor and I the student. Or perhaps even better, I must go to my Mother, Mary and let her teach me the dance; just like so many of us men learned to dance from our own mother’s, just before that school dance, holding on to her hands and knowing that her motherly love would teach me to lead when my turn came.
I needed to read this post today, and eventhough I am an old grandma…amd a secular Franciscan and praying that God would recive me into the Benedictine Oblates….I need to so believe that God is in love with me, just as I am. Sounds crazy, but I just learned that I need to loose my bottom teeth..I lost my top ones..and to someone as young and beautiful as you are..that may not mean too much..but it is a big surrender to the Lord. Please pray for me as I give my complete YES to the Lord and trust and believe that He loves me just as I am and He thinks that I am beautiful, even without teeth.
Colleen, I was praying for you in adoration today and remembered that one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met had no teeth–or legs. She was an elderly leper who radiated joy in a way that I still remember 10 years later. It transformed her so that you honestly saw her as beautiful and didn’t even notice the flaws. Now God’s going to start showing you that he’s captivated by your beauty even when you can’t be. You are worth so much more than your appearance–but even that, he loves. I’m praying for you!
I am sorry-I typed the post through tears and their are many typo’s
Meg,
I came across your blog last week sometime and haven’t been able to stop reading you older blogs getting caught up. I love how you look at things. This post spoke to me in a big way, I wish I could “let Him lead” and admire the way you trust Him and are following what He is asking of you. I have watched my son struggle with discerning what God is calling him to do and I sure wish he had the clarity you have in your decisions. But I have to believe and know that Sean is where God wants him at this time and Sean will figure out what God is asking of him. God Bless and I will keep you in my prayers.
Toni
Aw, thanks so much, Toni! I’ll be praying for you and your son, too.