blowing through the windows as night settles in on my neighborhood. It’s the kind of cool breeze that whispers of a summer fading and the autumn to come. Short warm days, cool and dark nights, everything settling in its seasons.
Its been hot and dry and dry and hot for what seems like forever. The grass is dry, we all are dry, and yet the sky has been hard and brittle, yielding its life in dribs and drabs. Nothing of substance has fallen for days. A week without rain is a vacation. A month without it is a disaster in the making. Every promise of something good has been in vain. Every prediction has been in error. Every vision of relief is a mirage.
I, too, am hard and brittle, dry without and within for what seems like, well, who knows how long. I am tired and worn but not afraid. Sometimes overwhelmed but not conquered. Like the grass that turns brown knowing the rains to come will restore its lush and fertile green, I too, wait in my thirsty brown cover. I wait for the God who causes the rain to fall on the evil and the good to let his rain fall on me.
And as I write this the cool breeze of this night reminds me that even the fury of summer’s drought is not eternal. A few more days, perhaps, and the rain will come, for the world outside my little house in the city and, as God is merciful, for me as well. Until then I, and the hard brown world, will wait.
The Beautiful Path 