The First Drop of Rain Read online

Just a two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride from Seattle is the Canadian island of Victoria. Part of British Columbia, Victoria is a busy tourist destination with its royal culture, formal buildings, high teas, and especially the world-renowned Butchart Gardens. Over a century old, these stunning gardens wend their way through the dips and rises of a massive abandoned quarry. There is a rose garden, a sunken garden, a Japanese garden, and an Italian garden. Butchart Gardens is a delight for any flower lover, but for my aunt Jill—whose connection to God’s creative character through gardening is deep—they are a dream. And I could not resist the chance to make her dream come true.

  It was mid-July. We boarded the Victoria Clipper at 6:30 in the morning, passports in hand—my mom, Aunt Jill (Mom’s sister), and I. The weather in the Pacific Northwest is usually temperate and rainy, but Seattle had been experiencing record-breaking temperatures in the 90s. We looked forward to cool breezes and milder temperatures in Victoria, even some soothing rain.

  But Victoria is located in a rain shadow. The rest of Victoria Island may have been cool and wet, but Victoria was nearly 100 degrees and sunny. We soldiered on, undeterred, despite my mother’s back brace and my aunt’s injured knee. In every available space, flowers bloomed, wilted but willing beneath the beating sun. While the rest of the island receives nearly 200 inches of rain annually, the rain shadow created by the Cascade Mountains reduces rainfall in Victoria to about a tenth of that.

  We had high tea in the old Butchart home. Maybe it was the tea, infused with rose petals and blue buttons and berries, that inspired us, or perhaps it was the experience of being transported into another country to what seemed like another century, but our conversation turned to stories from the past—and death.

  My grandmother Ophelia lost two little girls before the birth of my mom. The first little girl, Adrianne, died soon after birth because the doctor’s forceps had inflicted severe brain damage. My grandmother, a pastor’s wife already married for a year at the age of seventeen, had to endure this sorrow far from her family (she in Indiana, they in Texas). The second death was a new kind of sorrow. Little Marilyn was about eight months old when she became sick. The doctor shrugged, said she had a simple cold. Marilyn died days later. Grandmother Ophelia was pregnant, expecting my mom, at the time of Marilyn’s death.

  If there were the sound of water only

  Not the cicada

  And dry grass singing

  But sound of water over a rock

  Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees

  Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop

  But there is no water.

  T.S. Eliot

  In the Butchart tea house, we felt the weight of grief. We imagined what it must have been like for Ophelia in 1938, not yet twenty, as she awaited the birth of her third child with no confidence in the doctor and grieving in a way only the death of a child can break your heart. She seldom spoke about those days. Six years after my mom was born, she had another healthy girl, Jill. No more elaborate names. Then my grandmother was widowed at a young age and grieved again.

  My grandmother, who was a teacher, had an outrageous sense of humor. She hosted spontaneous “award ceremonies” where she would give a trophy (purchased at some secondhand shop) to her “favorite” son-in-law, fostering a hilarious competition among the men in the family to find outlandish ways to please her every whim and fancy. She could raise one eyebrow at a time, instilling fear or indicating mischief, depending on the situation.

  In her final days, when the past seemed more real than the present, it was her losses that rose to the surface of her memory.

  I look across the table at my mother and my aunt, my grandmother’s two surviving daughters, and think of the rain shadows that each of us has lived through. We each know the feeling of my grandmother’s tears.

  So often we begin a great adventure, expecting coolness and rain. Instead we encounter a rain shadow and the relentless heat of the sun, with no relief in sight. We scan the horizon, straining to see the first rain cloud, longing for the taste of that first drop of rain.

  to ponder

  What rain shadow seasons have you lived through? Are you currently in a rain shadow? If so, what is your experience like?

  Describe the moments when you felt the relief of that first drop of rain? How were you able to maintain hope that the rain would eventually come?

  I Longed for Shade

  Shade is a relief.

  Cool and dark,

  Shelter from the beating sun.

  If there is no water

  Then at least shade.

  After all,

  God even provided shade

  To Jonah

  While he waited in his wasteland.

  Searching the horizon for God’s burning wrath

  On the reckless city.

  (After the whale, the preaching, and the weeping)

  Jonah, the truth is I really can relate.

  I run, I hide, and sometimes

  I think God’s grace

  Seems gentler in another place.

  (God’s rescues sometimes feel like getting hurled onto a shore.)

  But back to shade,

  Silhouettes can entertain,

  Throwing their silent dramas on a screen.

  (I’ll take a diversion gladly, a moment of repose.)

  But shadows,

  These are different.

  Darkness only—that prevents the light.

  Evoking Fear—

  Raising tiny hairs that line the neck.

  Penumbra shadows,

  More diffuse, obscuring shapes,

  But filtering light.

  Known objects take on vaguely familiar

  But unrecognizable forms.

  (My house, my favorite tree, that open door thru which I can’t quite see)

  Appearing in hospital corridors, vacant rooms,

  Lonely halls and silent city streets,

  Creating darkness—light retreats

  Umbra shadows—

  These are darker still.

  Sun cannot be seen,

  Like an eclipse.

  I’d choose the beating sun

  To this abyss.

  I longed for shade—

  Not ever this.

  vapor rising

  The awful daring of a moment’s surrender

  Which an age of prudence can never retract

  By this, and this only, we have existed.

  T.S. Eliot

  The first mystery the author of Genesis explores is this: “God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird over the watery abyss” (Genesis 1:1–2).

  One of the first mysteries Jesus explores is this: “Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom” (John 3:5). Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, a devout Jew studying for the ministry who knew all about the creation story.

  I was thinking about Nicodemus recently. We had spent the evening at the home of Rabbi Daniel Lapin and were on our way home. Rabbi Lapin and his wife, Susan, along with two of their six daughters, had invited us to join them and some of their Jewish friends for Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath). The Lapins, while deeply rooted in their Orthodox Jewish community, are an open door of hospitality to followers of Jesus. Jewish tradition encourages hospitable community.

  They live on Mercer Island in a neighborhood defined by faith. Because all labor is forbidden on Shabbat, everyone who attends synagogue must live within easy walking distance. We drove to Mercer Island from downtown Seattle and felt strangely conspicuous slamming our car doors as the other guests arrived on foot.

  We gathered around the candlelit table and engaged in a ceremony of worship as we ate. There are special rituals for the washing of hands and a period of silence, followed b
y the breaking and blessing of the bread. Hebrew is the predominant language of worship, but our hosts graciously included English commentary. There is wine and a blessing.

  During the meal, only one central conversation is cultivated; no side comments or one-on-one talking with those seated near you is allowed. I was gently scolded for drifting off into an impromptu conversation with my neighbor.

  Rabbi Lapin sprinkles the meal with wise homily based on Torah readings and Jewish tradition. The meal is simultaneously scripted and spontaneous. The order and timing of the meal are disciplined, but that produces a strange freedom. Listening so intently in a group, engaging together as the Rabbi directed questions to each of us with the entire table listening in, created a higher level of conversation.

  For Christians, the Shabbat is clearly the precursor to the Communion meal in which Jesus becomes our bread and wine, poured out of God’s heart for our sake. The unity of the meal is the very essence of the body of Christ, deeply rooted in who God was, is, and ever will be.

  Christians and Jews share the conviction that God’s creative spirit shaped and is shaping our world and us. The attention and devotion to matters of the spirit during Shabbat call us to a new awareness of God’s Spirit—quite a challenge in our world of busy materialism. This seems to have been the crux of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. There are realities of the Spirit you have become blind to, Jesus tells him. Submit again to the original “wind-hovering-over-the-water creation,” a baptism into a new life.

  Matters of the spirit are mysteries that dwarf us. I often find myself, like Nicodemus, procrastinating with questions, hoping to put off my moment of decision. Or worse, responding to the mystery of God’s kingdom like the Israelites in the wasteland on the edge of Canaan: “a land that swallows people whole” (Numbers 13:32) and “we felt like grasshoppers” (verse 33).

  My fears and flaws demand my full attention. They insist that I ignore matters of the spirit—whether past, present, or future. They maroon me in the wasteland, far from food and company—when what is available to me is a table laden with bread and wine and companions for the journey, if only I’ll let myself be directed by the Wind that hovered over the water of creation. I want to see God’s creative spirit brooding like a bird over the abyss of my fear, but sometimes all I can see is the inky blackness.

  Pools of rainwater warmed by the sun evaporate and rise into the heavens. Jesus said it was good that he go to his Father in heaven because he would send his Spirit, the friend who would be our guide—the very Spirit of truth—to all that Jesus did and said. Like the invisible vapor rising in the air all around us, he won’t draw attention to himself, but will honor Christ, giving us God’s gift of himself (John 16:5–15).

  Recently I was sitting at the front of a hotel ballroom, lined up behind a conference table with four fellow board members from our condominium association. We faced about a hundred of our neighbors engaged in a robust disagreement over our recommended increase in monthly fees. We all bought our apartments when the building was nothing but a hole in the ground with a marketing brochure promising “service as an address.” For many in the room, this building was the promised land.

  Just six months into our shared life in this high-rise community, there were promises unfulfilled, systems not yet working, unpleasant discoveries, and work yet to be done. An unlikely board member (I’m a mother raising my sons in the city), I felt conspicuously inadequate when the tone of the evening became adversarial. I’ve served on my church board and on nonprofit boards, but this was a different role. I wanted to be a good neighbor, to shape the culture of this community, and to make a difference. But on this night, as I listened to conversations about “due process,” “bait and switch,” and “tenant’s rights clauses,” I began to shut down. What did I think I had to offer? Fear overwhelmed me as I stood on the edge of a new life.

  Fear feels like heat. I was cotton-mouthed, clammy, and weak. I tried to turn my attention away from the escalating dialogue in the room and toward God. What about this process is important to God? Is my role silence or speech? Is my presence significant or insignificant? God’s Spirit seemed to have evaporated in the heat. I sensed that I was alone in the desert.

  I snuck out. It was either that or give in to the temptation to crawl under a table and hide. I pushed through the hotel’s revolving doors and out into the damp Seattle night. Three deep breaths pulled life into my constricted lungs. Around me the city hummed. People were living their particular lives, like I was living mine. Taking a final breath, I reentered the hotel and walked toward the ballroom to continue the dance.

  As I reentered, I spotted my husband and two boys in the back row. They lit up when they saw me. The boys waved artwork they’d created during the meeting. They seemed untouched by the strident voices and intense proceedings. “Unless you return to square one and start over like children,” said the Spirit brooding over the chaos of my life (Matthew 18:3). “This is the right road. Walk down this road” (Isaiah 30:21). I took a deep breath and walked to my seat. I listened.

  The sound of rain can just barely be heard.

  to ponder

  Have you ever felt marooned in the wasteland by a preoccupation with your own flaws and fears? What specific fears demand too much of your attention? What flaws do?

  Have you ever felt yourself procrastinating when you sense the leading of God’s Spirit in your life? What action could you take now in obedient response to God?

  what the wind is doing

  “What is that noise?”

  The wind under the door.

  “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”

  T.S. Eliot

  My friend Arlys and I were talking. A mutual friend was in trouble, and our collective wisdom was coming up short. We mulled over some options and proposed a possible course of action. But there was a problem. That action would force us to change some much anticipated plans. We hesitated. Then Arlys, in a moment of clarity, said, “Well, I think we’re supposed to be blowing in God’s winds anyway.”

  Later I was driving through Seattle, just beyond Pike Place Market near the waterfront, and I happened to pass a looming umbrella sculpture. It stands in the middle of a street, planted on a divider between busy lanes of traffic. This red metal umbrella has been blown inside out by the wind. Set on a pivoting base, it swings in the wind, blowing in one direction and then another.

  I immediately identified with it. God’s winds begin to blow, and I whip out my umbrella for protection and try to resist, only to watch the umbrella be whipped inside out, rendering me vulnerable.

  Mark’s account of Jesus out on the stormy Sea of Galilee with his disciples is captivating. After a long day of teaching, Jesus climbs aboard the boat and falls asleep as the disciples head across the water. I know that feeling well. After a day of speaking at a conference, my adrenaline crashes like clockwork, and the sleep that follows is a deep, unnatural, groggy stupor.

  Jesus seems to be a bit grumpy when the disciples wake him in the midst of an unexpected storm. Every mom knows that feeling. The kids awaken us from a moment of desperately needed slumber with an “urgent” need that seems quite incidental. Jesus speaks to the storm like a mom might speak to her unruly children: “Quiet! Settle down!” Mark tells us that “the wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass” (Mark 4:39).

  I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I’m happy again.

  Arthur Freed

  I feel powerful when my children obey me instantly (as they do, well, most of the time). But Jesus has authority over both the wind and the sea, something that astonishes the disciples—and me.

  I get the point—Jesus is truly in charge. So why do I still have such a hard time with the storms in my life? So often, panic seizes me. Right now, my beloved father-in-law is in the grip of illness and seems to be sinking. My husband, the youngest of three sons, his father’s namesake, is drowning beneath waves of insom
nia, worry, and grief.

  I know God is in charge of life and death. But here in the boat, water is pouring in and the waves are building. How can I help my husband? My umbrella is inside out. I taste the rain. I feel the wind.

  Lord, the sea is so wide and my boat is so small. Where will the wind blow us?

  to ponder

  When have you experienced the winds of life blowing so hard it was as if your umbrella turned inside out and you had no protection?

  Can you identify any place in your life where you are blowing in God’s winds, allowing him to redirect you? What specifically do you sense God asking you to do?

  Looking Up

  Clouds do absolutely nothing

  To call attention to themselves.