Let It Move You

I hear it driving down the street,  pull into a parking lot, turn the volume knob to the right. Listening to the lyrics, I let them sink in deep, massage the uncertainty and fear over all the trouble in the world, all the unknown that I can't fix. My fingers, they drum the steering wheel, I lean into the beat of the message. And my thoughts, they drift like swirling snowflakes, back to my beloved neighbor, she who passed away in 2011. How my heart ached sad with the missing. How the priest stood in front of the mourners at her service holding a plastic bottle of liquid detergent, a knowing smile spread across his face as he spoke about my dear friend.

Joy. She had Joy. She was Joy.


What would she would say about the news, all the chaos and division in the country, all those children and oh, those dreaded weapons? And I see a smile washing over her face, trust sparks causing a glow across her countenance, a chuckle that would make your shoulders drop an inch or two, just because. She loved Jesus and Mary authentically, loved others on purpose, not just on Sundays. I think God quite clever to send her to earth on the fourth of July, what with all those celebrations and blazing light shows.

I download the tune at home, wonder what kind of music they play in Heaven. And I play it again and again, drowning out the buzzing noise of fear, letting joy steal the joy, letting it move me inch by inch closer to God.

"Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing, for to miss the joy, is to miss all."

~Robert Louis Stevenson~