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The fall rain has begun: not just in my immediate zip code, but also, as the radar map on my computer readily reports, in the broad region stretching for several hundred miles around. The autumn rain is never a surprise hereabouts, a dry fall being far more unusual, nor is it entirely unwelcome even though it is not hard to hear rainy day complaints. I expect that a rainy season fills most people with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it leaves school children dripping water and mud on floors, lockers, books and papers; on the other, it prepares soil and plants for the winter ahead; dogs shake their wet fur all over the furniture, but outdoors the trees are singing in the rain. As long as climate change doesn’t turn these rains into annual floods, I suspect that they will always bring mixed feelings.
A light, steady rain often reminds me of camping trips when on rainy days one of my children would interrupt my disappointment and self-pity by saying, “This is really great weather, isn’t it?” Then, when I would look around with the eyes of a child instead of the eyes of a parent trying to locate jackets, umbrellas and dry clothes, I would invariably agree: this is great weather. It’s true, the world is quite beautiful in the rain.
I’m sure there are many ways to describe how rain changes one’s perspective and perception of the world. A comparison with music comes to my mind. I’m thinking now not so much of the obvious loveliness of leaves when they are wet, of the way branches and flower stalks bend gracefully under a steady rain, or the way water truly does seem to laugh and play as it flows in rivulets and tiny streams down streets. I’m thinking rather of how music that is not all sunny and bright still has a way of bringing joy. Like a rainy day to children. It has something to do, I think, with the way both rain and more tender music have a feeling of intimacy about them. The world gets smaller in rain. The next street over is obscured, as the outline of trees and houses blurs with the falling rain; the vast blue endless sky disappears behind the clouds, and the world becomes more personally sized, more intimate. Rain is like those hymns and anthems that don’t seek to move you with grand majesty but with tender intimacy.
A day doesn’t have to be wall-to-wall sunshine in order to be a beautiful day, and joy doesn’t have to be all whooping laughter in order to fill your heart. In other words, one can sing for joy in the rain.
Peace be with you,
Pastor Bruce Benson
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