Good Morning My Confidants
I'm sitting here on my front porch and it's gently raining and the sound is so soothing. The coffee is good. I've got a citronella candle going. A new doll giving me company. It's very lovely.
Such a blessing is a day like this now that I no longer have to work. I'm such a blessing but I'm not working a few (more?) years before the average person gets to retire.
It's just raining it gets me to thinking like this. How much I love sitting on a porch and listening to the rain. In a cabin and listening to the rain on the tin roof. In a dining facility having a lovely meal we're just beyond, it's raining. But we're warm and safe.
But I wouldn't feel this way if I had to drive in this. Drive to work for instance. Get out of the car and get wet on my way in. Or if I was camping in a tent. I would be so miserable right now get my husband RBear would probably be considering packing us up, because he knows how miserable I am camping in the rain. I can't get dry. If it rains too long, begins to soak into the tent. We went camping once or we woke up in the morning and they would like two inches of rain in the entire tent and the blankets had whickered up the water and we were wet. And all our clothes are wet. We just brought a few clothes and a couple of backpacks, we were on camping for four days, and therefore the backpacks had soaked up the water. It was horrible.
But then.....
Of course, RBear is my knight in shining armor and took me to town and we dried out all our stuff in the dryer at a laundromat. Then when you got back to camp, this lady who was selling sarongs out of her motorhome invited us in and made us a hot meal and we got to a very good friends with her, and wound up selling her sarongs at Midwest Men's Festival. That miserable rain changed our lives.
That rain was the door to more than a hot meal, it was the beginning of a friendship, it was the beginning of us selling sarongs at Midwest Men's Festival, and through those sarongs, really making this a place with all those men.
....all due to the rain.....
Rain can absolutely ruin your day if you've been looking forward to a day at the beach or a picnic or Charity run/walk. It can cause flash floods. Power outages. I had a friend who drowned in the rain.....
Rain can absolutely save people. It can ensure good crops for farmers who therefore can give us the food that we eat. It can mean excess. There have been years where certain kinds vegetables were extremely cheap or extremely expensive depending on the rain.
It certainly affects my garden. It's the difference between a gorgeous plethora of flowers, and whole areas being practically vaporized.
I am meeting a friend for coffee this morning. She usually can't get together with me until a little after 9:00. The shop we normally go to has limited seating. If there's no seats inside, we can always sit outside. But here in Kansas City this rain is supposed to last until about 2:00. There will be no seating outside. I'm also going to have to run out to the car, I'll get wet, is it worth taking an umbrella to then be stuck with it? Wet and dripping? With a short distance I have to run to go to my car? And the short distance from the car into the coffee shop?
Well, there we go again. With the rain.
I'm feeling delightful sitting here on my porch. I will not feel delightful if I get wet. So I guess I'll deal with the wet umbrella.... wink
What the casual reader does not know is what my husband RBear does know. Ben has an interesting relationship with the rain. He has seen it made me miserable without end. He's also been rather shocked when I enjoy the rain.
See, here's the thing.
I can continue to look at things one way for the rest of my life. Or I can choose to grow and change.
I would have at one point in my life been sitting here telling you how deeply unhappy I am about the fact that I'm going to have to deal with this rain to go out and meet my friend. Who knows? I might have even canceled. At some point I began listening to the Still Small Voice that told me I had a choice. That I could change my attitude.
And attitude is the difference....
I share here frequently about the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth being that life can be miserable. But the Second Noble Truth tells us that our real misery (or lack thereof!) comes from how we react to the First. Either way I have the rain. The rain is going to make it a little difficult for me to do what I planned to do this morning. So do I let it ruin my day? Or do I remind myself that the rain is the rain, it is what it is. But my emotions on the other hand from I have something to say about those.....
It's not as easy as flicking light switch. It's not.
But with practice...by doing things like faking it until I make it...I can change. I have. I'm not that guy that RBear used to camp out with 20 plus years ago. Because around that time, I started applying the Four Noble Truths to the reality of rain....
If I get cold and wet, that's not pleasant. But if I send him to depression and anger and misery....well now it's REALLY not pleasant! I doubled or tripled my misery. So I started developing an attitude that would make it so that I didn't have to do both. I started finding ways to help myself not get cold and wet. I might have to deal with the drippy wet umbrella, but I won't be dripping wet!
There was actually a time in my life where I would have been upset about having to deal with a drippy wet umbrella!
If my ex-husband could only see me now.... He wouldn't know me. I wonder if I would know him?
Well, I've really rambled this morning, haven't I?
I think the big thing is that this rain is an allegory. A simple allegory about how anything could be good or bad, and that "good and bad" are simply labels that we apply to all those things that are simply "are what they are."
Do I choose to be miserable today?
Do I choose to make this day all that it can be?
My choice. I'm the captain of my ship guiding through the ocean of this world. I can't control the storm, but I can control what I can control.
Today I'm choosing to make this day all that it can be.
My hope for you is that you can do that as well. In fact, make it my blessing unto you.....
Namasté,
BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas
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