Lingering in Happiness

It has been rainy season here since late May/early June. The appearance of the rains is always a source of refreshment, as there has been no precipitation since November, and March-May tend to be difficult months, relentlessly sunny, in the 100s most days, and hardly any cooler in the evening. We sweat through several changes of clothes each day. The dust and the pollution increase and it gets really tough to go out with kids on public transportation. Toward the end of April I start haunting the long-term forecast websites for any sign of rain, and I tend to get a bit too hopeful if I catch a breath of a breeze or see a darker-than-usual cloud. In the early mornings, the neighbors fill their water tank for the day, and the sound of it overflowing makes me start with excitement, till I realize that it is not rain.

It feels like a long wait, like an Advent of sorts, waiting for the rainy season to begin and cool things off. But it always comes; without fail God brings us rain, and when he does, we rejoice.

 

Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain?

Or can the heavens give showers?

Are you not he, O Lord our God?

We set our hope on you,

For you do all these things.

Jeremiah 14:22

Lingering in Happiness

After rain after many days without rain,
it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground

where it will disappear–but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;

and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.

Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early

 

all photos by Jim Randall