Things To Notice When It Rains

For sev­eral years I man­aged a cri­sis hot­line. I had a staff of four and well over one-hundred vol­un­teers. We received over thir­teen thou­sand calls per year. On days when the wind and dust would blow, we would get all sorts of seri­ous calls. The moment it began to rain, the calls would stop — espe­cially after mid­night. In West Texas it can go for months with­out rain­ing. The con­trast can be rather star­tling.
There is some­thing com­fort­ing about the rain. It is nature nur­tur­ing itself. It is like the morn­ing feed­ing of a puppy. It makes you feel like all is right with the world. There is also a reas­sur­ance for faith in these lit­tle weather cycles. One of mankind’s deep­est fears is that we might be liv­ing on a planet that is chaotic and can­not be trusted. Stone­henge was built in the hopes that the dark­en­ing win­ter days would begin to reverse them­selves and another sunny sum­mer would be in the off­ing.
We adults are like chil­dren. We need a sched­ule. Con­sis­tency is reas­sur­ing. Rit­u­als help us breathe a lit­tle deeper. We hope we are not alone down here. When we pray or set our hopes on some­thing, it is nice to think that there will be a pre­dictable response from what­ever or whomever might be lis­ten­ing or mon­i­tor­ing our hearts.
The day before the rain is gen­er­ally tense. Will nature only tease us? Are we one with the planet or just an annoy­ance to it? The rain sets in. We relax. Our dreams are peace­ful. New life is on the way. Old life is refreshed.