The Sky Is White

There’s this verse in Hosea that talks about rain—it begins: “sow with a view to righteousness, reap in accordance with kindness. Break up your fallow ground,” which may mean, don’t be like the unreceptive soil in Jesus’ parable of the sower which cannot receive good into it. Fallow ground is a poetic reference to the places in our lives where we are refusing grace. Fallow ground is the unfruitful part of your soul that is “choked with the worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14). Hosea says, break up the unfertile areas of your life and the last clause says why: “break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you.” The thought that causes me to pause when I read this verse, is when it describes the righteousness that comes into a person’s life when they pursue wisdom. It rains on them.

It rains in Manhattan. It rains on streets where there is nothing growing. When I walk down the grey streets in the rain I think that somewhere there is a flower unfolding into the rain—nourished. Rain is indiscriminate. It falls on the just and on the unjust. I wonder if when I receive good into my life if that righteousness doesn’t just nourish my soul, but also those around me. Now when it rains, it reminds me how connected we all are, how my actions affect those around me and the world and how I too am touched by them.

It rains in on the streets of Manhattan.
It rains where nothing is growing and I think that somewhere there is a flower unfolding into the rain—nourished.