Today, I welcome rain falling to the sidewalks, plants, and streams. I wish for shelter for all in need.
As a Californian, who has often lived with drought, who sees the fights for water rights to green the lawns of desert, grow food in dry valleys, and dam great rivers for electrical power and to drink, I always welcome rain. As someone who has worked with the homeless population of San Francisco off and on for 20 years, I am ever aware of those who sleep outdoors, on scraps of cardboard, under makeshift shelters, or simply rolled in a blanket on concrete. Rain makes stark the needs of land and people.
There is injustice here, and issues too myriad to trace without years of thought and long conversations among friends. There is also a reflection of our place in things. What in our lives is both a blessing and bringer of discomfort? What do we desire that may cause pain? In interlocking, flowing systems each thing affects another. What is our relationship to this flow? How do we live and move in joy when we must eat? We find a way. We acknowledge that we must do our best to be in right relationship and that this will never look like perfect activity. There is no purity here in this gorgeous manifestation. There is only the ant, carrying a crumb back to the hill. There is only the child, born into love and strife. There is only the tree, growing proudly from polluted soil. There is only you, finding a way to live, today.
Let’s choose to live our best in every moment, as we can. Let’s free ourselves from punishment and shame.
Enjoy what you can, and work to heal the rest. Both are vital.