Just A Rock

He didn't choose Mars, named after the Roman god of war and ruddy in complexion.
He didn't choose Mercury, named "the messenger to the gods," and small enough to speed around the solar system earning that name.
He didn't choose Venus, though her name means "goddess of love and beauty."

He chose Moon.
Just Moon.
She has no proper name.  

She's just a rock, Moon is, with no stunning beauty except the beauty given her. She's just a rock, sometimes so dark in the night sky that her form isn't visible. But she's just a rock, and her only reputation hasn't been won by anything she's done on her own. Yet she's just a rock, chosen as the rock by the One God who makes such decisions.

Moon, she's as the bondservant of the sun. She's bound by the sun's gravitational pull and she serves his glory in his domain which includes all the planets in the solar system whether rocks Mars, Mercury, Venus, and even Pluto or not rocks. All are bound by his gravitational pull, but Moon is also bound by his beauty and by the good word of God Himself who refers to her as one of the "two great lights." He calls her "the lesser light," and He gave her rulership over the night.

Rulership. And she has no strength of her own. No pull.

Over unruly night. And billions of stars blaze and riot and fall from the sky, and  as many people do the same, when the sun tamely goes down.

I woke early this morning, went out back, watched the full moon go down and thought about these things. I thought how wonderful to see the moon full with sunlight, and to know that tonight he will pull her closer and closer to himself, by his strength, till she's not seen in the sky, yet she will be felt from one end of the oceans to the other just as strongly as when she is as she is now.

Marvelous that her effect on the tides on earth have nothing to do with her visibility, but everything to do with the sun's effect on her.

Maybe the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the tides on earth is enacted again and again, month by month, and year by year every night in the sky above to give those who look up the very evidence which assures them it's not foolish to hope for a place far and away better than this world which does riot in the dark. It's a heavenly hope, but there's reason of weighty substance given every night to hope for a heavenly shore where God's light will be the one light needed there and there will be no need for a lesser light.

Maybe this hope is also for those who look up into the night sky and believe the same one light-Light of the heavenly country-can so shine in the soul as the soul waits for what it cannot yet see.

I watch Moon this morning and think these thoughts.

The old hymn comes to mind-
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is what I understand while watching the sun's effect on Moon.

Moon, she's just a rock without a real name. She's meek, and the meek inherit the earth.

Me? I'm just me.

Jesus? He's Rock, too. He made Himself of no reputation,, took on the form of a bondservant, and was right to say, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

Just so. Seeing the moon, I see the glory of the sun in a measure which allows me to look at it full on and not go blind. Isn't this the manner of how I might look at the glory of God and live-to look fully on Jesus?

May I make myself of no reputation.
May I take on the form of a bondservant.
May I be bound by the pull of God's Spirit on my spirit.

I have no light of my own, and whatever pull I have on the tides on earth-waves of people on every shore-must belong to the pull of God.

He is the great Light.

His pull is strong.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

As A Child

May I be as a child,

With a heart that burns

In pursuit of Thine

Own heart at every turn.

May I be as a child,

Whose tempered will is trained

By Thine own desire,

My happiest constraint.

And as Thine own dear child,

Who has supped upon the bread

At Thy table, satisfied,

Though may I hunger yet.

As Thine own dear child,

Dear, as by Thine own deed,

Impress on me love simplified,

Is simply love complete.

So may I be as a child

Who, found by Thee, seeks Thee more,

Not meaning gain or good delight,

But meaning solely Thee, O Lord.

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

The Man Who Prays on the Street Corner

Once there was a man who stood on a street corner praying out loud. He did this because he wanted to encourage others to pray. He wanted to give them an example of what he knew prayer to be--communication with God. He did this several times a week for 15 years, and many people were encouraged. Some regularly  joined him. They knew when and where the man would be praying, and it became a part of their week to join him. They bowed their heads and their desire to draw closer to God increased. Their thoughts, activities, and relationships with God and their neighbors and loved ones changed for the better. 

Others heard him, though they did not stop to bow their heads. They heard his prayers as they passed by and they, too, were blessed. Increasingly they became spiritually aware and mindful to remember to pray. Though they didn't stop on the street corner to listen to the man pray as the regulars did, they were encouraged to pray and began to seek God in their own homes.

Still others, visitors to the city, travelers, heard the man pray. When they returned home, or traveled to another place, they talked about this man who prayed on the street corner. In this way, seeds were planted and carried beyond the city; and upon hearing the story some were encouraged to pray and seek God.

Many people profited and grew closer to God in their private prayers, and the man felt encouraged to continue his practice, though sometimes he felt confused by it. He remembered why he began to pray on the street corner 15 years ago, but something had changed. While many had begun to enter their own prayer closets and close the door behind them, somewhere along the way he'd begun to leave the door open to his prayer closet and now he was known as The Man Who Prays on the Street Corner. 

He became preoccupied with sharing his prayers, and the confusion he felt grew stronger. "Isn't this my ministry? Many people have profited by my faithfulness, so what is this confusion?" He was perplexed in his spirit.

He had no answers for his perplexed state. He continued to go to the street corner, but the prayers he could not share were those gaining the attention of his spirit. He remembered that the Holy Spirit groans for those who have no words for their prayers, and he remembered that his prayer closet had a door. 

So he spent private hours on his knees or sitting on his bench. God and himself, the two of them alone knew what was spoken in the prayer closet. He heard the only words he knew he could trust--God's words--and he began to pray them back to God. Like this, the word of God divided his soul and spirit for right discernment. It didn't happen at once, but his thinking began to be renewed and he himself to be transformed. 

One day the man realized that he hadn't been to the prayer corner in awhile. He didn't miss it, and wondered at that. He didn't miss being The Man Who Prays on the Street Corner, but wondered if others missed him. It seemed odd to him that he'd encouraged others to close the door to their own prayer closet while he hadn't closed his. 

He asked God about this, and God answered from Matthew 6:5-6, "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." 

He read about the difference between prayer closet and prayer corner and, as often happens when one's thinking is being renewed, a question elusively formed. How to ask it evaded him, and before he could find the words to ask it, God knew the man's question and answered it. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." He began in I Corinthians 12:4 and continued through verses 5-7, "There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all." 

The man read the following list of gifts, ministries, and activities. He read that to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, that the word of knowledge is given to another through the same Spirit, and then he read, "to another faith by the same Spirit."

"You have given me faith," the man spoke low. He had long desired the gift of faith, and when he nearly lost it to despair, his desire for it, and to share it with others, intensified all the more. "How will others profit from this gift if I do not bring it to my prayer corner?" He found the words to ask his question. 

Isn't that often the way it is? That words aren't found to ask some questions until the Word is found to answer them? 

God led the man to verse 31, "But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way." 

The man read that even if he had all faith, so that he could remove mountains, but had not love, it would profit him nothing. He read how love is patient and kind, does not envy, is not rude, self-seeking, or easily provoked. He read that love develops maturity. He read, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (1 Corinthians 13:11).

The man pressed his forehead head to the floorboards of his prayer closet, "I've become a man," he confessed in awe to the Father who raised him. 

"Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts;" the Spirit of God confirmed.

The man stood up and walked to his prayer corner in the city, but he didn't pray there as he had done in the past. He stood quietly. 

A widow stopped at the corner, as had been her practice for as long as the man had prayed there. She wondered why he wasn't praying out loud. He gave her enough money for food that day. He pursued love, and his faith removed her mountain.

A fatherless child stopped at the corner, as he did occasionally. The man stooped down till he was eye to eye with the boy and spoke to him as a father would speak to his beloved son. He pursued love, and his faith removed his mountain that day.

Foreigners stopped at the corner, intrigued but cautious of being treated as unwelcome. Some of them had been sleeping on the street and they were as filthy as their bedrolls. The man told them where they could wash up and offered to launder their bedrolls. He pursued love, strapped bedrolls to his back and by the end of the day he had a mountain to launder. His faith removed their mountain.

Soon, the hidden neighbors dared to be seen at the corner. They were those who had been shamed and scorned because their problems didn't fit into the categories of acceptable problems in the neighborhood. The man was happy to see them, and told them so. He welcomed them, talked with them as he would talk with any neighbor, and invited them to come back. He pursued love, and his faith removed their mountains of shame that day.

Faith does things like this because faith does love. 

People didn't call him The Man Who Prays on the Street Corner anymore. Instead, he simply became known as a man of faith, who gave hope and, above all, who loved. 

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig 

When the "Where Are You, Christmas?" Question becomes a Blessing

The winter sun wears a crooked smile as it slants angle and warmly contrary through bare branches, across crunchy leaves, over my bare feet, and it grins wide open and as delighted as spring on my upturned face.

It's the day before Christmas.

Gingerbread Men are stacked on the kitchen counter. Thumbprint cookies rolled in toasted walnuts with dabs of fig preserves in the centers are wrapped in parchment and stored in the Christmas cookie jar painted all festive red poinsettias and green leaves on an ivory background. A neighbor friend gave it to me many Christmases ago when our children woke before the sun rose on Christmas morning. The cookie jar was filled with Christmas cookies then, and every Christmas since the jar has held a belly full of cookies.

The tree is lighted and decorated, and so is the house. Christmas music plays and gifts are arranged on the fireplace hearth.

"It doesn't feel like Christmas!" It 's not really a complaint, because who complains about Christmas. It's an observation. I've heard it many times this month from my own family and from the store clerk.

Songs like, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas," and "We Need a Little Christmas, Right This Very Minute,"play.

Well, I'm sitting in by backyard just bathing my face in 70 degree crooked smile splayed oblivious across the face of the sun and, yeah, it doesn't feel like Christmas. It doesn't.

Crispy leaves lift and skitter in the sun. A bee bumbles inches above patio stones and a cricket is swimming in the pool and,"Praise God! It doesn't feel like Christmas!" My Bell Pepper plant is still green and roses blush like the rouged cheeks of a woman advanced in years who just learned that she is expecting her first child.

I open my Bible and gentle gusts of warm wind help me turn worn aged pages to the gospel of Luke. I read about a certain priest named Zacharias who was visited by the angel Gabrielle who told him, "Your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John" (Luke 1:11-13).

He said to the angel, "I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years." I read it and I hear it the same way as I hear, "It doesn't feel like Christmas!"

"She's too old! I'm too old!" sounds like, "There's no snow! I'ts not cold!"

The angel Gabrielle muted Zacharias.

Elizabeth conceived, and what could Zacharias say? Nothing!

I decided to mute myself after hearing, "It doesn't feel like Christmas," one time too many, and agreeing one time too many.

"Christmas isn't a feeling," is how I choose to silently respond.

I'm feeling a warm sun and balmy breeze this morning, and "Praise God! Christmas isn't a feeling!" rustles through the likes of barefoot me.

Christmas Cookies

Elizabeth "Hid herself for five months," I read.

So, Zacharias is mute and Elizabeth is on retreat. How quiet! How quiet the preparation for the birth of the one named John who would prepare the way for the Savior. The very Prince of Peace!

"Thus the Lord has dealt with me," said Elizabeth in hiding, "in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people."

"Oooh, Lord," I quietly amaze. "Haaa," my breath draws up long and it's whole sentence. "Elizabeth delivered the baby, son of Zacharias, whose birth would take away her reproach among people."

I think of the Babe who Mary would deliver; the Son of God, born to take away our, your and my, reproach.

Jesus, only Jesus, can take away our reproach; our sin and shame.

This feels like Christmas!

I continue to read that after five months in hiding, the "sixth month the angel Gabrielle was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary" (Luke 1:26-27). The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

"This feels like Christmas to me, Lord." It does. This is the quiet, hidden, holy Selah pause which mutes and slows the foundation of my soul. Snow mutes and slows things like traffic and busy noise; but not the soul.

Leaves rattle, birds sing, yellow dog nudges me for a biscuit. We, rather yellow dog, goes to patio door wagging and panting all happy anticipation.

But I stop half-way across the patio. I stop because the wind builds suddenly and loudly. It rushed forward till bare Pecan branches and the full Junipers wave madly and pant with the exertion. I watch, half expecting to see a dove fly all white overheard. Something holy in that rush.

"Is this what it sounded like when Gabrielle spoke?" I wonder about wind and angels' wings.

Yellow dog insists, and we go inside.

Christmas music is playing. My Bavarian German husband has Christmas in his genes. "Silent Night" is playing as I come inside on this soul silent morning.

I've done all the traditional Christmas things.

I've braved the traffic and stood in line at the post office.

I've gone a little over budget, just a little, because I keep wanting to give.

I wonder to this Prince of Peace, "What does the exchange of gifts, the decorated tree, the trimmed up house, the baking, and the needy desire for snow have to do with unfathomable gratefulness that You were born to gift me with eternal life?" I honestly don't know because these things seem far removed from Elizabeth's five month retreat to ponder the miracle of the babe in her elderly womb; and from muted doubts, and from the overlapping nine months on nine months, Elizabeth's and Mary's quiet pregnancies.

Two babies would be presented and loudest baby cries wouldn't be heard in a ranting, rushing world.

What's a baby's cry to anyone but the mother who drips milk at the sound?

What are trees that breathe furious fast in a sudden wind that raises every branch in it's wake to anyone except those who somehow hear something holy in it all?

Who hears and who responds except those who listen for such things and can tell the difference between voices and winds that blow?

Elizabeth and Mary

Joseph had to go to Bethlehem by Roman tax decree. Mary join him, full of the Son of God.

"Did they rush to Bethlehem?" I can't imagine rushing a pregnant woman on a donkey across the wilderness.

The world rushed. Even then. The boarding in Bethlehem would be first-come, first-served, and no one wanted to be sleeping on the street.

"Who noticed the star announcing the birth of My Son?" He asks me.

Truth is, bright as that star was, the only people mentioned in the Bible who noticed were those calm enough to notice. Slow enough to look up, and quiet enough to hear an angel,

"The shepherds." I begin to answer Him, "and the magi came later, right?"  They watched and waited, and knew when to come.

I pause.

"Why not most of the people in Bethlehem? They were right there!" I'm picturing it and really, weren't crowds the same then as they are now? Elbows out. Heads down. Looking out for number one. Crowds are competitive like that, I think.

I want to be as shepherd. And as Elizabeth; and Mary. I do.

"You are hidden in Me." I know that's what He says. "I've given you sheep to tend with a quiet and gentle spirit." This is also what He says.

I'm hidden. Set apart to care for sheep, and I'm grateful.

I 'm pondering these things in my heart, as Mary pondered and, I'm certain, as Elizabeth pondered while in retreat for five months.

I'm preparing and delivering the Prince of Peace to a rushing loud world.

I'm redeeming time like this in a world where the days are long and time is short and I'm learning spend the time I redeem on Jesus, the Redeemer.

I'm striving to enter peace in a world that doesn't understand that the purpose for striving is to enter stillness. I don't know how it's done, but I do know it happens somehow in the practice.

I'm practicing on purpose today. I'm busy, yeah, and hurl fast down the freeway in traffic; and then crawl in a congested construction zone. I'm practicing stillness at 65 mph, well, okay, 70 mph; and practicing stillness in the crawl. Somehow stillness and rest have little to do with the speed of rush or of standstill.

The cars on the exit ramp to a shopping center spill onto freeway lane. The ramp isn't long enough to hold them. Christmas shoppers, mostly.

Sometimes I feel like a stranger in a rushing world. I just don't fit in when I think things like, Why do we give gifts to everyone but the One whose birth we are celebrating?

Who does that? Who celebrates the birth of a loved one by giving gifts to one another and forgetting the one who the celebration is for? It's an elbows-out kind of question that jostles. The answer is that I know no one who celebrates birthday's like that; unless they're celebrating the birth of Christ. I know. It jostles kind of hard.

"It's not because we give gifts, or decorate, is it?" I ask God why we forget His Son when we celebrate His birth and the question makes me sad.

I think about this Son of God, Jesus, for whose birth Mary gave herself. She gave up so much. Her reputation, her hometown, her body, her lifestyle, her sense of security. I

I think about the presence of the Son of God. His presence, undeniable as Mary's belly swelled and divided her family, Joseph's heart, and the entire town of Nazareth before He was born.Divisions like these are awkward, and painful, ostracizing, and terrifying. Those who wanted to believe the best about Mary, wanted to believe that the Holy Spirit was the father, must have had a crisis of faith. Maybe they reasoned, "Mary is either highly favored of God, or Mary is lowest sinner deserving to be stoned to death."

Joseph woke from a dream with holy reassurance and direction.

Elizabeth believed. She carried Jesus' predecessor, John the Baptist.

Elizabeth and Mary, what a pair!

Elizabeth delivered a baby who grew into a man who ate locusts and honey and wore camel skin and lived a rag-a-muffin rough life in the wilderness. I can only imagine what he was like as a boy! "Mommy! Look!" And Elizabeth would gasp as little Johnny dipped a locust in honey and popped it into his mouth.

Mary delivered a Baby who would become a Man who was also God and who would save people from hell, and would raise people from the dead, and who would be raised from the grave and hell Himself. I imagine Him as a boy. "Mommy! Look!" And Mary would quietly ponder with maybe a worry wrinkle as little Jesus practiced carpentry with two-by-fours and nails and hammered together a crucifix. I don't imagine one of his sister's dolls hanging on it; no, I imagine it empty and His sister's grateful.

Mary yielded, and was freed from the confines of all she gave up. Isn't that what happens when we listen for, and prepare to yield to, the Spirit? I can't say Gabrielle has visited the likes of me, but the Holy Spirit has.

Isn't the breath of the Spirit, the holy exhale of everything all "God is Alive and God is Good" vapor between the choice of yielding to my will or to God's?

Maybe the breath of God is heard by those like Mary and Elizabeth and the likes of Zacharias who hears that his prayer has been heard and then doubts it because, "Surely God isn't that good; is He?" Isn't it a blessing when God just shuts our mouths mute?

Maybe the breath of God is heard by those who choose a quiet life tending sheep till they begin to look a bit wooly themselves, in a world that demeans the humble.

Maybe the breath of God is heard by those who lean in close enough to kiss His cheek; and close enough to hold Him.

Maybe His breath is felt by those who strive to enter rest in a world that strives restless.

And isn't there tension in breathing? In holding breath as thin as the surface tension of the water Jesus was baptized in by John the Baptizer? In the not-my-will, but-Yours matters as rough as Roman hewn wood, iron nails, thorns, whips, salve, and a hundred pounds of embalming ointment made from myrrh and aloes? In the matters of linen swaddling cloth and burial cloth, and of a large stone only angel strength can roll away?

Isn't there tension in the matter of preparing to celebrate the birth of the Savior, Jesus the Christ, the Prince of Peace who is Emmanuel-God with Us. Mary felt it for sure, and maybe it's still felt. Seems to me it is. Seems to me that's a good thing if it's the holy tension felt in striving for holy still all Selah pause because the birth of Christ stops the heart and soul and feet.

Manger and Cross

"Where are you, Christmas?" I may ask because some things are absent and I miss them this time of the year. Or some people are distant. Or gone. Or some circumstances are far too close to home for comfort at this time of the year.

I ask God, "Make my heart large enough to contain the holy matter which is the stuff of Your life, not mine." I don't know how else to put into words the blessing I'm experiencing by the absence of whatever things aren't the same as they were in Christmases past.

I ask, and somehow the "Where are you, Christmas?" question becomes a blessing felt for real and in real time, because the answer is free from what's absent. So I say, "Praise God! Christmas isn't a feeling! It's just an outrageously holy rush all joy and worship and cheer that has everything to do with recognizing the gift He is.

He who knew not the confines of skin and bones and flesh,was born and wore it.

He who wore glory, wore skin.

He who wore holiness, wore sin.

He who saved mankind, was Son of God, crucified.

He who slept in manger hay, is manger in whom I long to rest.

I pray and somehow the prayer which flows from my heart comes out in rhyme-

Son of man, God and flesh; Son of God, my righteousness. And sin more bitter than gall, is purposed that I would fall. Perhaps sin's calling is high;  what else is strong to fell my pride? And sin's condemning power, compelled me toward salvation's hour!

The stair rail is wrapped in lighted garland and red bows. White lights weave between red vases filled with red poinsettias and the nativity figurines youngest daughter made many years ago are arranged on the dining table with candles. Candles are everywhere.

Yeah, I like decorating for Christmas. But I do it differently now than I did in Christmases past. I stop decorating before I'm done. I stop when I hear in my spirit, "That's good. Stop." I strive to stop. It's not easy to stop before I'm done, because it's difficult to yield. But when I yield, something marvelous happens.

I am freed!

When I yield to the Spirit, I'm freed from my will.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

(reprint from 2015)

They're Just Bell Peppers

Psalm 92:12-15
"The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”

They're only green bell peppers, not palm trees or cedars.

They're not planted by streams of water, but by my driveway.

They're old, for bell pepper plants anyway.

Psalm 1:3

"That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers."

The leaves are withered, but still these are the verses I thought of this morning after the freeze last night; after I noticed six peppers fresh and green dangling in the cold air from sturdy stems but beneath the withered and weathered sag which happens with age in this strip of garden.

And in this bit of me.

It happens in the courts of nature but somehow, sometimes, fruit flourishes even still. Even in old age.

I peel wilted thin leaves from fresh plump fruit, and watch cold air catch my breath and hold it before it thins and vanishes and I breathe again.

The cold, it thins.

I hope to bear fruit in old age-even as my skin thins.

I hope to be found delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on it day and night. Maybe this, too, is a thin place in a world thick with noise, information, wealth and poverty and plans and desires for more.

Maybe cold air is a thin place where the courts of God are glimpsed through frost-bitten foliage.

I touch a pepper fresh and green, and remember what God says about faith and hope. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

I feel it like this-I hope to flourish in the courts of my God.

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

Thicket and a Ram

Isaac, Abraham,

Worship the I AM;

Thicket, and a ram,

Submit to His plan. 

Do I, as some say,

Hold tight what I should slay?

Raise high, elevate,

Not knife, but my way?

Wood, rope, fire in hand,

Angel spoke, "Abraham!

Your hope is My plan,

Use the rope on the ram!"

Ram's horn caught in dread,

Sin's thorn crowned the head,

Raised sword drew up red,

Guilt blood in Isaac's stead.

"I give what I love,

Now lift, offer up

Ev'ry gift, it's enough;

And live in My love."

"Father, here's my life,

Offered day and night!

Spared for heaven's light,

Suffer me this right!"

Isaac, Abraham,

Thicket, and a ram,

Tasked with His command;

"It is finished!" cried the Lamb.

Thing is-
Some say
of something they know should be let go, "A trial like this
feels like it's
title fits
my Isaac." Word is writ, of ram in thick, of Abraham's pile of sticks;
And I must say,
there's no way that I am as Abraham!

written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig

Not Too Deep for Bare Feet

I'm feeling it, the tug, familiar except it has that broken-in feeling like the weathered rope which young boys shimmied up the pecan tree and rigged there some twenty years ago. Back then the rope was young and taut just like the suntanned little boy chests puffed out all proud, "Look daddy!"

And daddy, well I think his chest puffed out a little proud, too. He strutted, yeah strutted, to his garage with two sweaty boys in tow, following his every move and mannerism. "Now, men," he looked several feet down his 6'4" frame at the men.

"Yes, daddy," the men jumped like grasshoppers.

"Think you can can roll that tire on out to the rope?"

The 3'2" men flexed and that tire, wobbley, rolled round about and maybe daddy steered it just a little bit. Maybe he made the tire just a little lighter-just enough for his little men to think they did it all by themselves. Maybe. It depends on who tells the story.

These days the old rope seems to long for the day when it can set the tire down on the grass a few inches away, and rest.

Sometimes I straddle the tire and lean back till my hair sweeps the ground and my eyes sweep the sky and the wind sweeps, too.

Sometimes I tug that tire swing up to the trampoline, hold on tight, and I don't know which of us gets the bigger thrill, the tire or me, but we gasp together in swing and spin; and because a crash to the ground is about as far away as a freshly mowed blade of grass is tall.

"What is this broken-in tug I'm feeling?" I've tied a few knots in the rope to shorten it because though it's ready to stretch out full and retire on the grass, I'm not ready for it to do that just yet.

I'm not ready for me to do that.

I'm broken-in, and it's a comfy kind of feeling to wear my skin loose because four children sort of stretched me this way and that in the tug toward their adult years.

There's still some stretch left in me. Still enough slack to make more notches and I don't mind that the hips I supported babies on just aren't there anymore, because I don't need them anymore.

Joy applauds blessings. It does.

I hear applause when pecans pop-pop on the ground, loosed by scrambling squirrels, old tire swing sway, an autumn rain, and claps of thunder, too,

Joy applauds like that.

Once two small barefoot boys in matching swim trunks ran into the summer rain and sailed their paper boats down the alleyway where rain water swirled high toward storm drains just right here behind the house.

I wonder how often joy is so near-if we would only run through the rain to get it. Blessings, too.

Joy and blessings-they're not too proud for back alleys, paper boats, and bare feet.

Two little boys splashed-just splashed into joy.

Tires splashed, too; but not into joy. Cars stalled in bothersome rainwater coming down faster than storm drains could swallow.

Funny how the same rainfall engulfed tires, but wasn't too deep for bare feet.

Thing is, joy and blessings aren't missed because they've gone missing but because they're not met. Are they overlooked because they're not looked for? Not found because who thinks to search the alleys? In the rain?

Curious George and the man in the yellow hat, they raced paper boats. 

My two little boys, they heard the rain on the sky light just above the green couch where paper boats raced across pages; and they applauded, "Can we make paper boats?!"

That's how it began, meeting joy that day.

Maybe it's how to begin meeting joy everyday.

Maybe delays and stalled out engines and sometimes even umbrellas-inconveniences and conveniences alike-hint at joy so near it nearly tugs our shoes off, turns umbrellas inside out, soaks through dress suits worn by those kicking the tires on their stalled vehicles till they look down an alleyway and would give anything for a pair of swim trunks and a paper boat.

Maybe joy begins like that sometimes.

I wore flip flops that day.

I ran through the rain; chased my two boys, paper sailboats, joy. I chased joy down the alley to where it was deep.

"Let's race our sailboats!" The boys called to each other across the river, and the rain applauded.

They splashed and joy soaked them. Soaked me.

And blessings, the everyday kind? They're deep enough to stall a line of cars, but not too deep for bare feet.

I'm kicking my shoes off!

Where's my paper boat?

Back alley blessings and deep joy. Today.



written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig