Today was the perfect day for a rainy day lover. I sat on the porch during the sprinkles and watched the birds fill the bird feeder perches. It came a downpour and I had to go in the house so I sat in the lady den and watched three cardinals, two males and one female, just sit in the downpour and keep eating. I think the cardinals enjoy a rainy day, too. Maybe they enjoy listening to the yard symphony composed of rain drops and rain drips from the tree branches, accented with a few sparse claps of thunder. My grandmother had awnings over the doors downstairs in her apartment and the gutter drips play percussion on the awnings, adding a low pitched thumping beat to the yard symphony. During the light sprinkles, I could hear the songbirds singing along to the rain lyrics. I think I can find God in the silence of a rainy day, his love pouring from the heavens.

I slept with a window open last night and enjoyed the rain symphony lulling me to sleep and waking me this morning. Penelope and I got a walk in early morning and the sky was thick with gray and vanilla clouds, hiding the blue sky canvas and the sun’s yellow beams. The pageant of sunset was not to be today. The sunset was a pageant gathering of all the beautiful clouds in the sky, Mother Nature’s paint brushes stroking watercolors of turquoise and gray and purple and blue across the horizon and high sky, coloring a backdrop for the evening gloaming to settle over the landscape, so beautiful and peaceful in the twilight, the last romance of the day as the night began to wake.

Tonight Father Sky will be waking a full Wolf Moon. He better be careful when he reaches down to wake the moon, he might get nipped. He might need to wear sunglasses, too, as the moon will be 99% illuminated. He’ll have to drag the stars out of their covers, too, and pin them on the navy sky canvas.

I might do a few wolf howls off the back deck tonight to celebrate the Wolf Moon and scare the raccoons. Those little devils stole my porch scissors last night. I know I left them on the little table by the new bag of bird seed ‘cause I told myself to go put them up later and I didn’t. The trap is set with marshmallows and a sprinkle of Penelope’s chow, so maybe I’ll catch another one tonight.

“My favorite journey is looking out the window,” Edward Goree. I love sitting in a reading chair and watching out the windows. I pick on my grandchildren when I catch them not looking out the window of the car when I’m on a trip with them. I’ll spot something interesting and they’ll wish they had seen it, too. I’ve probably sat too long today looking out the windows but I’m intrigued by the birds happily flitting around the feeders in the pouring rain. Didn’t see any of the neighborhood squirrels. I’ve read they do come out in the rain and they use their tails as umbrellas. That’s pretty clever of them.

I think God can be a metaphor for rain, his blessing raining down on us, spiritually feeding our soul with his love and light. God commands the clouds that pour forth with rain. Deuteronomy 32:2 reads, “Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” Rain sustains life just like God’s love sustains us when we face times of droughts in our faith. We need to nurture our faith everyday, not just the times when we fall on our knees and pray for help with life altering situations.

Thankful prayer should be an active part of every day. Nothing is too trivial to take to the Lord in prayer. We ask and he will eventually answer. We may not like the answer he sends but as time goes by we realize he really does know what’s best for us. God also wants us to rain our kindness and understanding on others, using our actions and words to bring others to Christ, helping them find their way to be part of God’s family.

As you listen to the rain today, be thankful for all the blessings God has rained down on you and send God a simple prayer of gratitude.

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence … We need silence to be able to touch souls.” — Mother Teresa