Water

18 of 40

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land—by the Oceans passed.
Transport—by throe—
Peace—by its battles told—
Love, by Memorial Mold—
Birds, by the Snow.

Emily Dickinson

Weather has been replaced with Climate. Weather happens to you, or me, there, or here. Climate is the world’s.

But weather happens.

Last night our first Selectperson’s latest round of robocalls announcing the weather that will get her re-elected were dire, as usual. They could all be true. But there is no change in us.

The rains came and our swamp is a lake. Revealed in the predawn.

Water was always there, but now seen without tides. Air was always there, revealed by birds. Wind was always there, revealed by wailing in the black.

We are always here, too. Revealed in a baby’s smile, a hug, a death.

What is is not always known – until it cannot be avoided. We could not avoid the rain, it was weather – and for some, the climate that is the weather.

We try to be the trigger. We bring flowers to become love. We make music to hold our heart, I write these – but the world is there whether seen or unseen. How do you discover existence while existing?

But revealing happens. Water was revealed last night. My Selectperson hoped to be revealed. Buildings, words, rituals and music try to reveal God. But they do not. They reveal us to ourselves.

God is just there. The base element of life, the singularity of essential love is virtually as invisible as the air. And as overwhelming. And the truth. But we do not see it.

The bird in the air, the rain in our swamp, the battle that ends does not trigger, they reveal.

Jesus revealed. We take his essential love and word and ritualize it into the robocalls we discount, because we want to trigger, but we are no-so-good at revealing.

Hundreds of rains reveal nothing. If you do not look up, or if the TV is on, no bird or wind is seen or heard. We live in weather, but our climate is there, unseen. Until it is.

Death reveals, because, like climate it is unavoidable. All the Sunday brunches are just the services we have to trigger the reality of our lives. And those triggers stop when we cannot pull them. Then lives become life.

“I am…the life.” Said Jesus, before he, too, died. This was not a trigger, this was the reality of God that we can see, like the bird revealing air. His life after dying is, of course, as debatable as the climate.

But not the weather. There is no debate in weather, like love. Love is pervasive, inexplicable, and the reality of God because we did not, can not, make it. Love, God, is just revealed to us, whether we like it, or not. The revelation happens now, or when now ends.

Love is now, too. But love never ends. Not even when Jesus died.