Dancing in the Sea (A Lighthouse Poem)

She was alone.

Not just lonely—

but alone.

Mid-fifties,

no calls,

no candles,

just silence

and the ache of being forgotten.

Her world:

four walls,

drawn curtains,

and the lingering bruises

of love gone wrong.

Invisible.

Uncelebrated.

Unheld.

He came.

Born to a borrowed manger,

raised in a forgotten place,

he knew the sting

of suffering,

He too was abandoned

a man of sorrows

acquainted with grief.

But he walked

with eyes wide open—

scanning the margins,

calling the ones

no one else noticed.

She was one of them.

And he saw her.

Not in visions or dreams,

but in a neighbour’s knock,

a warm invitation

to Lighthouse light.

There,

in the fragile beauty

of community,

her story began again,

as love began to do his work.

He told stories

of mustard seeds and lost coins.

He reached out—

to lepers, tax collectors,

the bleeding and the broken.

He touched the untouchable, and

Loved those who thought they were unlovable.

And still he does.

She sat at the edge—

trembling, watching—

until someone brought cake.

Her first birthday cake.

Ever.

Candles flickered.

The room sang.

She smiled—

and in that smile

the compassionate kingdom

came near.

He entered water—

the Jordan,

muddy and magnificent.

Heaven broke open.

Love spoke:

“My child.”

She entered water too.

And the past was washed away.

Not erased,

but held

by grace deeper than shame.

Heaven broke open.

Love spoke:

“My child.”

When she rose,

she wept.

And so did we.

And then—

the sea.

She’d never seen it.

Never stood where sky meets water,

never felt sand sift

between her toes.

We called it Filey—

a beach day.

She called it heaven.

And that day,

she ran.

Not walked.

Ran.

Shoes off,

heart wide,

laughter louder than fear.

She ran

like the resurrected.

Splashed

like a child reborn.

Danced

like joy had a name

and it was hers.

This—

this is life to the full.

Not riches.

Not fame.

But belonging.

Joy.

Celebration.

A voice reclaimed.

A heart revived.

A woman dancing in the sea.

He came for this.

And comes still—

through neighbours,

through cake,

through baptismal waters,

through the breaking waves.

And in the salt and spray,

we see him

smiling too.

- Rev’d Jon Swales