Rainy Days and Morning-After-Mondays Blues

We’re supposed to get a bunch of rain over the next few days. At least we’re not getting all this rain inside just one day, or worse, within a few hours. But we’ve been there, and probably so have you. Seeing all that rain come your way, so quickly, is not just intimidating, it’s literally overwhelming! And many places simply can’t cope with all that water!

Rain is a mixed blessing. Many of us remember that old saw, “God makes it rain on the just and the unjust.” Actually, that’s from the Bible, worded a little differently than that, but it’s still there. When you’re in the middle of a wet season, like my region had last fall, a day of heavy rain like this doesn’t seem like a blessing at all! Levies were breached, river banks overrun, bridges either under water or washed away completely, communities cut off… it was a mess in a good bit of eastern Pennsylvania and New York State. And many parts of the Midwest seem to see floods like this every spring, and it seems like parts of the New England states and mid-Atlantic region have been repeatedly flooded over the last few years. Los Vegas has been nearly washed clean of its sins (OK, that’s not happening, but some of the trash got swept by floods out of the city streets) in the last year or so. Parts of Californian get soaked pretty often. Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi…. who can forget Katrina and the other hurricanes that have flooded the Gulf coast or major parts of the east coast?

But actually, when you live in the desert, or an arid region, rain is usually a real blessing. Even in moderate climates such as where I live, the gentle rains of spring are very welcome, and even the thunderstorms of summer, with their quick soaking load of water, are usually greeted happily by the farmers. Much of the Middle East is arid, if not actual desert, and that’s the context of the proverb. Rain is a blessing God shares liberally and without prejudice over the region, as the seasons come, and both the sinner and the religious are blessed by it.

Rain is often a matter of perspective. We may get upset when our weekend plans are rained out, but a farmer who has gone days without rain rejoices. And somehow food ought to be more important than our day at the golf course or amusement park!

Sometimes, as I alluded to before, rain can be “too much of a good thing.” We learn that as we age, our lifestyle slows, but our appetite does not. Our stomachs start to bulge, we put on the pounds, we lose that trim shape we once took for granted. Oh, some have always had to work at it, but we all one day find that what we could get away with when we were younger is not so careless a pleasure any more!

Rain is like that. “When it rains, it pours,” is often said when we are struggling with things in life. “We just can’t seem to get a break,” we might be heard to murmur. And the Jews in the desert, after leaving Egypt, did a lot of complaining! Not always under their breaths, either, and God could always hear them, no matter how much they tried to whisper! They murmured about water. They murmured about no food. Then it was about no meat. Then it was too much quail, but God warned them they’d get sick of quail when they wanted meat! Maybe they should have asked politely for a little variety in their diet, instead of just manna – which was a perfect food, by the way – and since they couldn’t ask nicely, but complained about it, God was “exceedingly generous”! Watch what you ask for – or demand!

So what’s up with Monday? Nothing much, really. Just wanted a catchy title for this blog post. I was thinking of the song, “Rainy days and Mondays get me down.” Actually, I often like rainy days. I work at night, and sleep comes a little easier when the sky isn’t bright and there is that gentle patter of rain in the background…. And people often have a “morning-after” blues… the day after something goes well, or they’ve won a big game, gotten special recognition…. then comes the morning-after blues. And isn’t there a song, “Blue Tuesday”? (Or is that “Blue Monday”? No matter, really…) Yeah, Tuesdays can be a tough day of the work week for many people. When I work overtime, it’s not the first night that is the hardest, but often the second night – and after my weekend off, it’s not Monday night that’s the hardest to work, but the Tuesday night.

Yesterday – a Monday – wasn’t that bad of a day for me. Oh, I’ve got what seems like a little cold. Once I went out in the morning and bought some cough syrup, and took it, I slept well for about six hours. Then I woke up, and when I got up, the coughing returned. A dry, intermittent cough, and that slightly sore tickly uncomfortable throat. Slightly sore eyes. And I lost my grogginess, and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Too drained to read, I finally decided to put on a movie. One of those shoot-em-up special forces soldier action flicks. I’ve got a bunch of them in my DVD collection, mostly cheap bundled sets.

Then I watched a second movie, more of the same, and as the day faded I finally was able to take a nap. Just a short one, before I got moving on this and that again, and didn’t get much of anything really useful done, I guess, but then it was time to go to work. And I’m still not sure if I was glad to get back to work after four nights at home, alone, except for my cold… and now I’m home, it’s Tuesday morning, and I need to post this and get off to bed.

If you’d like to comment, well, I dunno…. I don’t remember what my settings are for BlogSpot. On Facebook, you can comment below the post. But you probably already knew that. You can always send me a personal message if you must – you probably have my e-mail address already!

Hope your Tuesday isn’t a cold, soaking, dismal day, but a thirst-quenching, refreshing one! God blesses you just because He’s that Good! Isn’t that great?

"Pappy"

So, my daughter and her boyfriend invited me to sup with them the other night... several topics came up, but the important one came to the surface when she handed me a greeting card. Enclosed was a small picture.. a sonogram. I'm going to be a grandfather!

The timing is a bit off, I said, but I didn't get angry. Why she thought I might get angry, I'm not sure. She knows my belief about premarital sex, about teen pregnancy, about unwed mothers. But it never is the baby's fault how it was conceived, and every child is still a gift from God. And when we consider how highly God values life, and when we consider the potential inherent in every person, clearly we must celebrate each new gift of life.

The reality of this new life will take a while to sink in. Even with an ultrasound, this child is still just an idea to me. Perhaps as the pregnancy progresses, and the "baby bump" shows itself, it will become easier to grasp. Too, time to think about the baby will help me make the mental adjustments. It's a good thing for humanity that pregnancies take nine months in us, because over the full term we can reflect on it, and as the reality becomes obvious we can prepare ourselves.

Especially for a father, a first-time father, the whole process is a real mystery. The woman declares she's pregnant, and yet for quite some time there are only a few signs for the father to notice. Most obvious are things like morning sickness, new appitetites for foods (sometimes unusual choices at that!) and the "nest-building" instinct of a mother-to-be.

It is still early, and still quite unreal for me. Perhaps Christ, the father, has a greater appreciation of the reality of this pregnancy. Somehow, I doubt it. Still, I'm not worried about his perceptions now, but mine.

I'm going to be a grandfather. A grandfather? How can that be? In many ways, I don't see myself as a grandfather. I'm not old enough, I'm not mature enough.... It's been said that most guys, no matter how old, mature and "macho" they seem to be, feel inside like they are little more than twelve years old. We don't really feel like the grown-ups we claim to be. We are "acting" like adults, as best as we can, and trying to be mature, making wise decisions and facing life's challenges. Yet, inside us the little boy is screaming, "I can't do this! I'm not old enough to do this!" and we hope that nobody can see through our mask and find us out.

It's been said that the difference between boys and men is the size of our toys. And as we look around us, we see that Donald Trump is playing Monolopy and, instead of castles in the sand, is building with steel and marble. Bill Gates kept playing with computers, as did Steve Jobs. Some guys play with dump trucks and big machines, other creative people imagined worlds and entertained the rest of us with their stories, movies, even paintings and music. But to some degree, we're all playing with toys. And sadly, some guys treat women like toys, too, swapping one out for a new model every so often.

So, I struggle myself with feelings of inadequacy. What does it mean to be a grownup? A father? Or now, what does it mean to be a grandfather?

My memories of my grandfathers were of older men. My maternal grandparents waited to get married and have children, choosing to have a good financial footing before starting. In fact, my Granddad always paid cash for his cars, and kept them as long as he could before replacing it. He was not young when I was born, and as I became a teenager he was late in life and great in years. My paternal grandparents didn't wait so long to begin their family, but they were also well into mid-life as I entered my early teens. Pappy retired and was working honey bees most of my teens, as I recall, and as I entered college he was winding down that second "career" and as I ended college he had cancer that took him only months after I graduated.

My image of a grandfather is of somebody a good ten or twenty years older than I am --- yes, many today are grandparents by the time they are forty, but I was nearing thirty when I married. And I thought -- hoped, expected -- that I still had time before my first grandchild.

And so, I am unprepared for the title of Grandfather -- "Pappy" ....

Yet, here it comes... the future is now!