A few minutes ago the sky turned gray, the wind picked up, and it looked as if we might at last get rain. Soon, however, the sun was out again.
A severe drought is oppressing Florida. Here at our house what is left of the grass (which in the spirit of conservation we don’t water) crunches underfoot. Recently planted ligustrum (which we do water occasionally) is struggling to survive. It has been many weeks since the resurrection fern on our live oaks has been green. And the trees which not so long ago were showy with fresh spring leaves now appear dusty.
I have been praying for rain, but every day the sky is clear, except when a contrary wind brings us smoke from the gigantic wildfire in South Georgia or one of the multiple smaller fires in Florida. Then people who have respiratory problems struggle to breathe, and we seal with masking tape the large space between our warped double front doors. (I can only imagine what it must be like for those closer to the fires.)
When we do have real clouds, I go outside and raise my arms toward the sky, hoping somehow to draw down their moisture.
I share with you two prayers for rain, the first from the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and the second, for spiritual rain, from Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Prayer for Rain
O GOD, in whom we live and move and have our being, grant us rain in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal gifts we may seek with more confidence those that are eternal. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thou art indeed just, Lord
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum properatur? &c. (Jerem. xii 1)
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build–but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins