As I struggled to get my car’s gas tank lid off with my carpal tunneled up arthritic hand this morning I thought, if was 40 years younger, I’d open a little gas station for old fogies. I’d pump gas for them, check tire pressure, wash the windshield, check the oil. You needed oil, no labor charge. I’d just charge for the can and put the oil in. You wouldn’t even have to get out to pay. I’d bring your change back to the car. If you were a regular, I’d let you run a tab till the end of the month. I’d even call you by name next time you drove up for gas. I remember these days of full service gas stations. My mother used to say a lady shouldn’t have to pump gas. She’d drive miles out of the way to have her gas pumped by an attendant. I wonder what killed these full service gas stations?

New Jersey is the only U.S. state where it’s illegal to pump your own gas. Drivers don’t touch the gas pumps in New Jersey. Pump your own gas and you’ll be fined $250 the first offense, more next time. When Chief and I got married Chief took me to his gas station and introduced me to the owner, Roger Hand. Roger treated us like family. We’d charge our gas and pay at the end of the month. Roger would come to the house if we had a dead battery or a flat tire. He kept our lawn mower and tiller in shape, our car serviced. He picked Chief up once in Dadeville when his truck broke down. Brought him home and went back to tow the truck to his service station. We trusted his guidance when it was time to buy tires or purchase a new car. Any time the engine light came on I’d just drop by and he’d tend to it. I told someone once I missed two things from Alexander City, my dearest friend Linda Ewing and my gas station man Roger Hand.

While I was thinking of building my gas station, as I sat perched in the porch swing, I noticed a beautiful butterfly flitting around my vegetables and zinnias. The butterfly, a large glorious gulf fritillary, dressed in a bright orange and black polka-dotted tutu, was dancing on the hot pink stage of a zinnia bloom. It’s tiny black legs doing a two-step as it batted its wings in time with the earth’s dancing music. I got my phone out and waited in the garden rocking chair, sweating my clothes out, watching for the butterfly to return. I captured the butterfly in a photo just as she stepped on the dance stage. Martha Graham speaking of ballerinas said, “Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.” I love to think of babies as little winged angels waiting in heaven for the Lord to send them here to dance into our families.

“Dancing is silent poetry,” Simonides. I could understand that quote as I watched the butterfly in the blazing yellow sun, dancing to God’s music. God gave us music as a gift to inspire us, to help us express our emotions when words can’t capture the feelings. We also connect to God through music in our worship services and through our spiritual practices. I think music can also comfort us and heal us. We can’t always control the music life plays for us but we can choose how to dance to it. “Dance is the timeless interpretation of life,” writes Shah Assad Rizvi.

We can dance through life with passion and joy, wide open to the electric guitars of life, or we can be timid and soulful, dancing to life’s music quietly when no one is looking. There is so much music in God’s creation — birds’ songs, wind rustling, thunder, croaking frogs, waterfalls, rain drops, ocean waves, cicadas, hoot owls, train whistles, wind chimes, bumblebees, katydids, and millions of other sources of earth’s music.

Music is the language of the soul, a form of communication with God. We’re all born with God’s music in our hearts. When God puts a song in your heart find joy in connecting with him. Psalm 100:2 states, “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing.” Whether you belt out the song or hum it under your breath rejoice in knowing God loves you.

“If there’s a song in your heart, sing it. If there’s love in your soul, show it. If there are dreams in your mind, chase them.” — Donna Roberts