Forgive And Dance

 We’re having a program tomorrow night.

K-1 students will be singing songs about family,

And I will be hoping that no one falls off the stage.

 

Because of tomorrow night’s program,

I’m having K-1 music class in the auditorium this week.

This is a new experience for K-1 students.

The auditorium is huge and daunting,

And the seats are not assigned!

 

As students file into the auditorium,

They simply sit in the next available seat on the front row.

After a brief welcome and explanation of how to stand on the risers,

Students file onto stage.

We practice.

Then we go back to our seats.

 

Now. Do I really care which seat a student sits in when he/she returns to the front row?

No. But to lessen chaos, I tell students to go back to their seats.

Some students remember their original seat.

Others do not.

And yet others intentionally try to switch.

That’s what happened on Monday

And it caused a Kindergarten-sized crisis.

 

One girl wanted to switch seats so that she could sit beside her friend but the other girl did not want to switch seats because I had told them to return to their original seats.

They argued—with little bodies sitting on each other and little mouths claiming the seat.

Realizing that the seat switch wouldn’t be good for behavior,

I told seat-switcher that she needed to go to her original seat,

Which was only one seat over.

She burst into tears.

While other happily kids did “The Freeze Dance,”

She sat and wept.

The other girl watched.

After the song was over, the girl who refused to move talked to the seat-switcher.

I don’t know what she said, but the next thing I knew,

They were smiling and hugging it out.

And then they danced.

 

Dear God: Help us to learn from the Kindergarteners. Help us to stand for what we believe in, to grieve when we are upset, to have the courage to speak to those whom we have upset, and to have the strength to forgive those who have upset us. And God? Help us to dance. Amen.