M: Moist Thanks for Steady Winter Rain

Yes, it rains a lot in Portland. It actually rains a lot less here than it does in many other cities, as I discovered last year when I blogged about Portland during April. I do not love the rain, but I do love the green we have in Oregon. And when I think about all the people in the world who lack water, I realize I need to be grateful.

Prayer of Reluctant Grumpy Disgruntled Moist Thanks for Steady Winter Rain

Listen, I know I would be crowing with delight if I were a farmer or a vineyard owner, and I would be beaming with pleasure if I ran a ski shop, because of course up in the mountains this is all snow, and all the water-resource professionals are gibbering with joy because we are filling reservoirs and stashing summer rives as winter snowpacks, but I am just a guy down in the valley and it has been raining steadily since Lincoln was president, and I am wet and weary and weary of wet.

My shoes are soggy, my jacket is moist, my cap has shrunk a size from all the soaking and then steaming dry by the fire, my pants have permanent jagged marks from a thousand splashes, the dog will never be fully dry ever again...

but I know this is clean free glorious generous water falling from the sky, and clean water is the story
of the future of the world, and I love this world, and love that this water will fill children with the best food of all, and I know we are mostly water, and that in the end this is the sweetest gift of the physical world, along with miraculous air and the seethe of soil beneath our feet;

so I curtail the moaning, and shuffle along trying to avoid the larger seas in the pavement, and thank You;

but tonight yes I will go through my photographs from last summer, yearning a little, okay? No disrespect. And so: amen.

Here's more information on why I chose this focus for the A to Z, and you can read all my 2015 A to Z posts here. I hope you enjoy the celebrations of the miracle and muddle of the ordinary! 

You can buy the book at Brian's favorite local bookstore, Broadway Books, at Powell's Books, or on Amazon. Brian's work is used with permission of Ave Maria Press.