The Dance (written as a toast at Jeremiah and Megan’s wedding)

Finding a spouse is like a dance. At first everyone is on the dance floor and it is a mixer. You are briefly with one partner after the next, all having fun, enjoying the dance, the crowd, the evening. You aren’t really flowing with any one partner because it is a mixer and the purpose is to be with everyone and no one. That is just what you do. The dances can be awkward, bumpy, even with trips and spills, but you haven’t been with one dancer long enough to learn, and you don’t care, because you are out there enjoying dancing, but with an eye for that one true partner.

The dancing and mixing goes on until you find a partner worthy of a Waltz, someone that you flow with easily. You waltz off to the side, slowly, falteringly. You aren’t smooth yet, but you are trying to see if you can waltz together. You, the man, lead with slight pressure and cues, and she your leading lady responds and follows. When the two of you find out that you can waltz together, you dance off to the side, to work on your dance alone, waiting for the big day to arrive.
When the day comes, you enter a grand ballroom where you are the only ones on the dance floor now, but dressed in white with everyone watching. Your dance is not perfect yet, but it is beautiful and everyone is filled with joy. After this dance you rush out of the room in exuberance to continue waltzing for the rest of your life. There are dips and bumps but you keep at it until you get better and better with the lead and the follow and the flow.

As the years go by, you will be dancing still, twirling with the flowing harmony of two dancers having learned to dance as one. Much later, decked in the silver mantle of years, the dance will slow but will be precious still in its beauty, until the dance in this life is done, and the grand ball in the next begins.

So to Megan and Jeremiah, God bless you in your waltzing for life!