On a Rainy Day

I’ve been reading “Pray for Joy,” by Martin Franzmann and I enjoy the way he writes. It is a collection of prayers he wrote in a poetic form. I thought I would share a few of them here and there over the next few months. This one is called, “On a Rainy Day:”

O Lord,

according to my definition

of good weather

this is not a good day:

The world is flat gray-green

and discouraged brown.

The trees drip.

And the houses hunch up

their slate shoulders

against the wet.

There is only

a shallow sky to look up to,

smeared with rag ends of cloud.

And my feet are dampish.

And the bottom of my trousers

cling dankly to my ankles.

And every building I go into

smells of wet cloth.

And people don’t look

very good to me either,

today.

Forgive me, Lord, this insolence

that puts me

at the center of the universe

and makes me

judge of all things,

including your weather;

that blinds me

to Your steady benevolence

towards us,

the ungrateful and the evil;

that makes me impatient

with this gracious saturation,

this liquid life that overruns the world,

this clean cadence of fertility,

this cool caress of water on my cheek,

this spread on streets,

this mirroring transfiguration

of our pavements.

Why, its a great day, Lord.

I thank you.

My favorite line, the one that sticks out to me, is “Forgive me, Lord, this insolence that puts me at the center of the universe and makes me judge of all things, including your weather…”

I often need to pray that prayer of confession.