Rain
It is raining. The rain is pummeling the earth and all upon it.
I can see a street light through the window. It shimmers as the rain abates and thickens. This is noisy. The skylight drums and thuds. I hear the puddles forming and being replenished. Everything outside is adrip.
The garden, I know, loves it.
I, too, love the rain. Yes, It gets me wet when I venture outside. It spoils picnics. So, should I build a smoldering resentment to carry about with me? Should I curse God and nature? Do I really want to adopt the discomfort of arrogant cosmic management? Resentments hurt me. Anger hurts me (and others). Any negativity within me causes my body to be poisoned. Do I want to be poisoned, or should I not come to cherish the inevitable rain? It cleanses. It nourishes. The garden loves rain. I am learning to love the rain.
Somebody once said that with the rain, God is pissing on us. That doesn’t seem very likely.
I once heard that rain is the weeping of God. I didn’t know that God wept. But, symbolically, He just might grieve over the foolishness of His earth-children when we stray from His path. How can we reject something so wonderful?
And it is written that the sun and the rain fall upon the just and the unjust alike. I used to think that was not very fair. Should not the unjust receive cosmic punishment? Should they not shrivel in deluge and freeze in sunlight? It seems that cosmic justice is not meted out through nature. It is written also that natural disasters can be used, though, to punish tribes or nations. It seems, though, that nature is without national discrimination in troubling our lives with floods, drought and earthquake. I think it is best that we look upon nature as the benign effects of consistent and impartial causes.
There must be a zillion atoms of water on the earth. Most of them are in the ocean mixed with salt and other stuff. From there, some evaporate to become clouds. They travel for miles and miles. Then, conditions of impurities in the air and temperature cause the vaporized water to condense into droplets, to combine into drops, perhaps to freeze, then to fall to earth.
As a consequence of their fall, each water atom commences the trip to return to the ocean. Some atoms return apace, falling right back into the ocean. Others join into streams and rivers and get right back. Some fall into lakes, which are really just isolated oceans. Others are absorbed into plants or humans or concrete or rust or who-knows-what. The ones that get attached don’t return to the ocean for a long time, but they always do - eventually.
As I see a drop dancing upon the end of a leaf I wonder if it has a name. I conjecture how many times it has left the ocean to nourish the earth. I wonder where it has been, what forms it has taken, what stories it might tell. Which mountains has it eroded away? How many icebergs have been its frosty home? Which stones has it formed? Which trees has it erected? How many times has it been eaten? Whose lips has it caressed, whose wound it has dressed, which hairs it has curled?
In its cycles is the atom of water being perfected in some unknown way? I wonder.
Is there a parallel between the atoms of water and the souls of men? I wonder.
Rain is certainly useful. Am I?
Bless the rain, it is not troubled with questions such as these. It follows its destiny without denial, belligerence or dereliction.
I suspect I am not all wet in these thoughts, that much is to be learned here.