Desert Rain

Back from Vegas where it rained six out of seven days and never went above 43 degrees. Strange. Glaring out of the hotel window it seemed depressing, like a dreary New England Spring where the ground is too muddy to walk on and air still bites with a winter chill. No crowds on the streets. No one with a rain coat or an umbrella. Most everyone resigned to hibernating in the gaming halls, restaurants, lobbies and hotels rooms.

Most times the arid climate leaves you looking for Chap Stick, hand lotion and sun screen; dodging intolerable solar glare and running between the havens of shadows. Then it struck us. What a treat. What are the chances of going to the desert and finding desert rain? Pretty cool.

How much of any day is a matter of how we choose to look at things?

Eleanor H. Porter’s wrote a series of eleven books about Pollyanna in Beldingsville, Vermont. We have taken her character’s optimistic attitude as a state of denial, calling excessive optimism “Pollyannish.” But we forget the thrust of Porter’s story was how the bright, sunny and sincere, disposition of Pollyanna brought gladness to a dispirited New England town.

I don’t think it is denial. It is how we choose to approach the situations around us. We can bemoan the rain falling in the desert, or see the unique privilege of walking through an uncommon phenomenon: desert rain.

What did Paul say? “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.”