I just realized the last line of the previous post could have been read in two ways: 1. You could think that I will continue my thoughts tomorrow; 2. You could think the rain causes people, specifically me, to procrastinate. Either way you read it, you’re correct. But let’s move onto my third thought about the rain in Portland.
The rain makes me think about a poem. If you’ve ever started to read the Psalms, you’ve come across this idea of a man being like a tree. A tree needs water. A tree needs sunlight. A tree needs dirt. A tree needs strong, deep roots. When you look at a tree rising up toward the heavens, what you often don’t think about is that there is a whole lot going on below the ground. We don’t have to be botanists to know this is the case. For trees, and for us, much of life is going on beneath the surface, below what the eye can see and beyond what the hands can touch. This hidden life is hardly known by anyone else, but, in some ways, it determines what we see going on above the ground.
Life above the ground is active as well. But this part is visible to all. Here, we see the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the fruit. We see the weather, too. Sometimes, life is harsh. The snow is weighing down on the branches, causing a snap. Maybe it’s been raining for weeks or months at a time and as much as we don’t want others to see it, they see it. It’s all over our countenance. We hear it in each other’s voices. We know what seasons people are going through.
But let me ask a question, when are we growing? Only in the sunshine? Or are we growing in the rain, too?
Omer Redden 