The Latter Rain

A Drink of Living Water

This is from June 1, 2009, but I just came across it again today, October 17, 2009.

The Latter Rain

I was just in Washington, D.C. for the two week

Doctorate of Ministry session at Wesley Seminary,

and was very happy to be there when the azaleas

were blooming.

Nevertheless, at times in the past few years

it has been very difficult for me to be there in certain ways. 

One of the problems is that I always have a list of friends

I would like to see, but often I am able to visit

with many fewer friends than those on my whole list. 

Since early May when I drove up there, however,

I was blessed to be able to visit with many friends

and family members from Washington, D.C. to Falls Church,

Vienna, Yorktown and Chesapeake, Virginia;

to Charleston, South Carolina.

Then, because of some car trouble over the weekend,

I was blessed to meet some very helpful people

and some who were eager to share stories of faith. 

What a joy that was even though my trip

was not going as I had planned!

I am finally very happy to be with Krista

and her family near Marietta, Georgia

on my way back to the central west coast of Florida where

my parents and my sister and her family live. 

I treasure every visit, and am very glad that

while I was in Washington, I was able to touch base

with two dear friends I hadn’t seen in ages. 

One was a fellow colleague in ministry

who had taken part in the Urban Ministry Track

at Wesley Theological Seminary with me. 

The other was a dear friend whom I met

three weeks before Krista was born --

thirty-seven years ago -- on the day I found out

that my mother’s father had passed away. 

While visiting with her, I was reminded me

of the late winter rains in Central Illinois.

A dark gray relentless overcast of clouds,

accompanied by heavily dripping, cold rain

was common weather during a late winter day

in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in the early 1970s. 

As a matter of fact, if you look up a definition for the word “dreary”

in certain dictionaries, you might find the extra reference,

“Go to spend some time in central Illinois in late winter.” 

That particular day in the first week of March, 1972,

matched the description completely. 

The barren fields of the South Farms of the University of Illinois

tucked in the Married Student Housing Apartments

on the south and west sides.  The northern border was

a sedate neighborhood with full-grown trees favored

by many faculty members of long-standing. 

And the eastern border was a newer part of town where

younger faculty members lived, sometimes in houses

designed by avant garde architects.

As usual for that time of year, the prevailing winds

bringing in new weather systems were beginning to shift

from the wintertime north or west to almost exclusively from the west. 

Soon the intermittent thunder storms of late winter

and early spring would begin, booming their way

across the central plains of the U.S.

My kids' father was my husband at the time. 

We could often hear the sounds of the storms

growing in intensity for up to an hour or so

before they came swiftly crashing over our heads. 

Then at times he and I would awaken

to a loud noisy crack above our heads.

The extremely loud boom would startle us out of sleep

because the noise seemed loud enough to break open

the flat roof under which we lived on the second floor

of the two-storied apartment building

in Married Student Housing.

At first the storms were terrifying to us.

However, when we had become accustomed to the noise,

and when we came to know the normalcy of the visitation

of those late winter and early spring storms,

we actually began to enjoy them. 

When the sound of the thunder woke us up,

we would wait out the storm by counting the time

between the lightning flashes and the rolling thunder. 

The lightning was visible on the edges of the open spaces

between the slats of the Venetian blinds over the windows. 

Even though the frame of the bedroom window was decorated by curtains,

the fabric was sheer enough to allow the light to shine through

The apartment was furnished, but we had bought the bedroom curtains

at a discount store with the money from inside our wedding cards,

along with a bucket and a mop, and many other household items

not fit for fancy wedding wrapping paper.

 

In the dark of night, we would first become aware of the coming storm

when we heard the distant rumblings echoing across the nearly flat land

to the west of us -- the great prairies of the central United States,

vast plains interrupted by rivers and only some occasional rolling hills.

The noise of the thunder came first without any light that was visible. 

Then, the closer the storm system came to us, the light flashes

became brighter as we counted an ever decreasing space of time

between the sounds and the light. 

We counted, “One one thousand, two one thousand. . .” 

And we imagined that maybe we could hear the thunder

all the way from when the storm was roiling over the Mississippi River

on Illinois’ western border with Missouri and Iowa.  But probably

we could only hear its noisiness from somewhere east

of the Sangamon River that wends its way through Illinois’ capital,

Springfield, a bit more than a hundred miles away from Champaign-Urbana.

By the time the sounds of thunder and reality of the lightning flashes

were almost simultaneous, we often gave up trying to sleep and

went into the living room to watch the powerful display of nature

from the big picture window. 

As the storm system majestically passed us, moving on toward the edges of the plains

in western Indiana, we marveled at the magnificent lightning displays.

By the time our living room window lent a frame to the beauty and wonder

of the power of the storm, we saw the jagged lights flashing

just ahead of our ability to hear the sounds of the tremendous thunder boomers. 

Our living room window faced south, so as we watched and listened

to the last of the thunder storm sweep past us to the left, we often

wondered how far it still had to go. 

The system might break up as the plains ended in central and eastern Indiana. 

Or maybe the deluge would lose its power as it reached

the approach to the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Ohio. 

The towering cumulus clouds might also completely be delivered

of their life-giving fresh water along the way, and die out,

never to disturb the sleep of the ever-increasing populations

further east of central Ohio.

Those late winter and early spring rains

prepared thousands of hectares of fields for spring plows,

making the dark rich soil ready to receive corn kernels,

soy beans, barley pearls, hayseed and ears of various grains.  

The truck gardens, farmer’s wives gardens, and

orchards would be watered, too. 

And as the seasons changed, their bountiful vegetables and fruits

found their way to tables in rural areas, in small towns and in cities of all sizes

either as fresh, canned or dried products.  Or the grains fed farm animals

in the area or were made into cereals, baked goods and other products

for people near and far.

I can still remember growing up in Chicago and seeing the huge

and numerous grain elevators at the inland port on Lake Michigan.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: 

his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain,

as the latter and former rain unto the earth.  [Hosea 6:3]



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com