The Dance Hall

An image shared by Margareta McKenna

The following vision came to me not in a dream but while I was awake. In it, I see myself in an old dance hall, of the very plain variety you would find in the Irish countryside a couple of decades ago. There is a row of chairs along one of the walls where all the women sit. The men are huddled together at the door. I sit on one of the chairs.

Surrounding me on the floor is the luggage I have picked up during my life. There are many suitcases and rucksacks and shopping bags and small handbags. They contain everything that makes up the person that is Margareta McKenna—all my memories, all that I have been taught about how to behave in this world, my thoughts on the
meaning of life, my emotional memories, my fears and doubts, my ideas about God. In my vision, it is extremely important for me to hold on to my luggage. I mustn’t lose it as I would then lose my identity. What would be left of me?

So I am quite happy to sit there minding my luggage. But then something unexpected happens. God comes up to me and asks me for a dance. I am, of course, flattered—and honored. But regretfully I have to decline the offer, for while I’m up on the dance floor,
someone might come along and steal my luggage. I don’t want that to happen.

God accepts my explanation but returns after a while with another invitation to dance. This time I reply, “Thanks very much, but you see. I’m not very good at dancing, and anyway I’m happy to sit here and watch the others dance.”

Once again, God accepts my excuse, but God returns again and again and again with furt;her invitations. In the end, I get fed up and I say, “OK God, I’ll give you one dance.”

I bend down and pick up all my suitcases and my bags. I have to bring them with me onto the dance floor, lest someone come along and steal them. But soon I understand that it is impossible to dance while carrying all that luggage, so I put them back on the floor.

I enter into the dance with the Dancing Partner who knows all there is to know about dancing and who patiently teaches me each new step. I quickly realize what a pleasure and a joy it is to trustingly allow myself to be led in the dance. I had no idea dancing would be such fun!

After a while, in my vision, I ceased to care about what happened to my luggage. For all I know, the next day, when the cleaners came to clean the dance hall, they found it where I left it and simply took it away.