The tender young Cape Jasmine leaves in front of the older leaf take on the appearance of a prayer for rain in front of an altar. As you can see, the prayer worked. The Almighty finally sent us rain. Showing us that His sense of humor is yet intact, He teased us with several near misses the previous seven days, leaving a lot of us rather testy.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Here in LA (lower Arkansas), up until August 12, 2011, we had endured one of the longest dry spells in well, a spell. On top of that, we endured the absolute longest stretch of 100-degree plus weather in any one's memory (at least anyone with whom I'm acquainted). I was reminded of the drought conditions dramatized and set to music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in his renowned oratorio, "Elijah."

The Biblical source for ol' Felix's composition is the book of Jeremiah. Seems the children of Israel had more or less forgotten who the boss was, so the boss decided to get their attention. The opening chorus and recitatives of the composition sum it up.

Help, Lord! wilt Thou quite destroy us?

The harvest now is over, the summer days are
gone, and yet no power cometh to help us! Will
then the Lord be no more God in Zion?

The deep affords no water; and the rivers are
exhausted! The suckling's tongue now cleaveth
for thirst to his mouth: the infant children ask
for bread, and there is no one breaketh it to feed them!
 

The words with the music are powerful:  

They finally cleaned up their act and got the soaking of their lives, and one presumes, trod the straight and narrow until the next really cool temptations came along, a societal behavior pattern that is still practiced today. When will we ever learn?

Seeing wet leaves through one's kitchen window is a refreshing sight, given the fact that the bush was beginning to show signs of stress. The raindrop hung-on just long enough to get the shot.

When people talk about rainy days, some permutation of the word gloom usually peppers the conversation. When the rains finally came, the gloom transmogrified to grins, guffaws, and giggles. This is opposed to the grouching, griping, and grumbling earlier this year when we endured a misplaced monsoon season. That said, we see the reminder that we live in an imperfect world and a universe in which we are not in charge. There is only one thing of which we are fully in charge. That is our mouth. What goes in it and what comes out of it are purely our discretion. Would that we could successfully control it.

PS: For those of you not overly familiar with Bro. Mendessohn, he wrote this:

N O T E S:  
Nikon D300, AF Micro-Nikkor f2.8D, ISO 200, tripod mounted, all. Praying leaves, 1/2 sec.@f16; Drop on leaf, 1/25@f20. Post processed with Photoshop CS5 Extended.

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