A lesson from rain

I'm just sitting here with my feet up in the Conservatory. I was recommended that to deal with the spraining of my ankle associated with the earlier Piper-kicking, the best bet was frozen peas and elevation. But to be honest the peas tasted disgusting. And then I got bored going up and down in the lift after half an hour. And when your foot is a bit poorly, you don't really want to go jumping on and off a Paternoster lift anyway.

But the thing about being in a conservatory on a day like this is you get to meditate on the rain.

Rain is one of those phenomena that show you just how perfectly-placed and beautifully-sized this planet is. That water can go through an endless "cycle", as we learnt interminably at school, means that even plants on the tops of hills get access to water. That the drops that fall on the gravel outside will percolate their way, via the brook and then the Ouse, all the way down to the Wash and out into the Great North Sea- that's quite a thought.

Rain is one of those illustrations we use for the Holy Spirit. Most famously, in that way that Pentecostals have of assuming every latest thing is the definite sign of the Apocalypse, is the use of "The Latter Rain" as a metaphor for the end-time pouring out of the Spirit - as, for example, here. Like the Holy Spirit, rain brings newness. It washes away dust. It brings life out of barrenness. It freshens and enlivens. Little wonder, then, that most of us get under cover the minute it starts. Well, you wouldn't want to get wet, would you? Or, if there's too much rain, out of your depth.