The Tender Rain of Christian Teaching
Teaching As Tender Rain
A Meditation on
Like gentle rain it falls,
Day after day, unbroken, soft,
Unlike the thrashing whip
Of myriad liquid buckshot, swung
At angles like an ax
Against the tender daffodils.
No thunder, lightning, nor
A change, or slightest swing of wind.
Straight down it falls, each drop
A perfect plumb from heaven’s hand,
As if infinite care
We’re being taken there, for how
It falls and where it lands,
Until the middle of the night.
Then silence, moist, and deep,
And steeping tiny roots in brown
Life-giving broth, and by
Some holy spell transforming soil
Into a blade of grass,
Into a blade of greenest green.
And in the cloudless day—
Who knows if from the finished rain,
Or is it dew?—bright drops
Distilling all the broad blue sky
Ten thousand times into
As many globes, and every one
Encompassing the Name,
And shining out the glory, and
The greatness of our God.
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