Rain, Rain, pease DON'T go away...

So I know a lot of people have been complaining about all the rain we've gotten in Colorado this summer, but I've LOVED it. I've written previously about how I feel sort of spiritually tied to rain, about how it speaks to me of God's love, about God's desire for abundant life for all--for me, for you--so I won't repeat myself here. It has rained so much this summer. So much. And it has rained each and every time I have been on retreat. It rained during that first retreat after I woke up from awful nightmares. It monsooned during a mini-retreat I took in Santa Fe while I was at Trinity House. I can still remember the sound of the rain pouring down, the smell of the rich earth, saturated with rain. Then it POURED while I was at Koinonia House during the one day that I spent entirely in retreat. I laid in the grass and watched the rain fall--huge drops, huge lines of water pouring straight out of the sky. I let it soak me, totally. It was the only time I felt COLD while I was in sweltering Georgia. I let that water just run all over me, totally soaking me through and through, watering me like it watered the huge tropical flowers, the crops, the abundant life bursting all over the place in GA. I played in the bright red dirt, now soaking wet and slippery. I danced in it, filled my hands with it, jumped up and down in it, covered my arms and legs and hands in its squishy delightfulness, letting it squelch and spuirt between my toes. I just let myself rejoice in the world--at least in the parts of the world that support and sustain life, the parts that grow food and huge tropical flowers, in the rain that pours out of the sky to water them, give them even more than they need for survival. I felt deeply connected to the soul of God--the core of God--this life and love that runs through our world just as surely as (hopefully more surely than) so many death-affirming things do. It just POURED. And during this last retreat of mine it poured again--the skies opening and just bursting forth with floods of water until the world around me smelled of rain and fresh pine needles and sweet pine bark.

Here during this last retreat, when I am so desperate to know that God still loves, can still be found, the oppressively hot afternoon cools off and the air feels soft, pearly, light against my skin. I breathe deeply, breathe in this mountain air, this space, this love. And I DO feel loved, so loved. Unconditionally loved.