Talking Like the Rain

Thomas Merton listening to the rain (from Raids on the Unspeakable):
I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain...The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.
The image that grabs me is the picture of grace in the rain. "[A]ll that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside..."

I'd like to learn to talk like the rain.

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5 thoughts on “Talking Like the Rain”

  1. "I'd like to learn to talk like the rain."  Me too, Dr. Beck.  Thank you for the introduction to Thomas Merton.  I must read more of this fellow's writing.  :-)

    Rain as grace...gentle, peaceful and healing/cleansing.  Yes!

    Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a guided tour of my church's religious art (e.g., stained glass in sanctuary, sculpture in narthex; mural in fellowship hall.)  The artist/tour guide pointed out that the architectural design of the sanctuary symbolizes the womb.  My pastor has directly spoken of his intentional hope that the church would be a sanctuary of peace.  I have always felt that atmosphere of peace there, even before I heard the words.  Being surrounded by a gentle rain has had a similar effect on me, when I can slow down to appreciate it.

    I'm also remembering the reading of the poem "22 7 2011" by Aksel Hennie at the National Memorial Ceremony in Oslo.  Listening to the YouTube video without English captions sounded like rain-as-grace to me.  Deep meaning -- beyond all language.

    I lament that I often fail to simply listen to the rain-talk and stand under its grace...  "The grief is a hard material."  The wailing and gnashing of teeth can be deafening.  ~Peace~

  2. Reminds me once during a very trying transition in my life I was camped out at the beach within sight of the surf, seeing how every wave broke a little differently, thinking of all the breaks up and down the coast, up and down time, wanting to see and cherish each one. My experience of a peace that passes understanding.

  3. Christian mystics who are poets bless the world with their expressions of delicious spiritual insight. Thomas Merton is always probing and exposing these truths that stimulate and bless thirsty hearts...verities no empirical measurement can ever fathom.

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