There’s a storm brewing amidst supposedly happy plans. It started tonight when my sister Mir, her fiance Brian, and both sets of parents met to discuss the upcoming wedding.

Mir dropped the bomb then: she wanted to dance at the wedding reception. That might not seem like such a big thing to most people, but being the socially conservative Christians that they are, my parents did not take this very well. In fact, Mom had a huge fit. And the only thing Dad said was that this was not a tradition at his wedding or any other Christian/relative wedding he’d ever attended.

The first thing that came to mind when I heard THAT was that this wasn’t about his wedding or someone else’s - this was about my sister’s. Their daughter’s. My mother maintains that because my father is a minister at his church, to dance with his daughter at her wedding to any sort of music is too worldly. I merely told my parents that I disagreed with them on this issue and left it at that; to give my full opinion would have meant having to sit through a Lecture and getting lots of Looks, and I wasn’t in the mood to receive either.

And what’s my opinion, anyway? Well, I’m not a dancer - the first time I’d ever been on the dance floor was last June at a friend’s wedding, which was an experience in itself. And this is not my wedding. I did have fun and I wouldn’t mind dancing at my sister’s wedding, if that happens, and ultimately, I don’t see the harm in dancing, period, to Christian music or otherwise. Of course, now that I think about it, dancing to Christian music would be weird since the lyrics are supposed to be about God in some way…

Anyway - we seem to be an impasse here. Mir’s unhappy, my parents are unhappy, and there’s no telling at this point who’ll throw in the towel first, them or her. (IMO, I don’t think it will be Mir.)

As to dancing itself - is that so bad or is this just a misunderstanding between the socially conservative elders and not-so-conservative youth of the respective families and churches? I wish I knew.

P.S. The dancing that’s being referred to here is not the sexually provocative kind that might be found at high schools. I mean the kind that’s done for fun. Just so you know.