One of the great things about being Presbyterian is that I get to have friends all over the country.  I am in pretty constant contact with folks who are also Presbyterians.  It is a nation wide community of faith.  We have things in common and we have places where we differ.  Of course, life has changed a bit in the last few years.  Contact with people is no longer a problem.  Whether it be email, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Skype... you name it, we have the media to stay in touch with one another.

I’ve been listening to my friends for some weeks complain.  It seems that it is raining quite a lot around the country.  Every time I sit down at the computer, I am inundated with frustrated folks who desperately wish a little sunlight would shine on their heads.  Then I turn and look out my office window at the parched and dusty brownness of our part of the world.  I think about the number of people I know and love who are praying almost ceaselessly that the rain will come.  And there are others who are praying equally as hard that  the clouds would part and the rain would stop.

Although our community has largely become a part of the tourist industry over the last couple decades, we still identify ourselves as a ranching community for the most part.  At least the older families around here still hold on to their land and still have a good herd of cattle hanging around on the place.  People make their living off the land and rain is a large part of what keeps all of that going. But we are stuck in the middle of a horrible drouth and the conditions outside are frightening.

I also hang around with a group of good folks who volunteer as firefighters.  All of us have jobs and lives outside of the department.  All of us gather several times a month for business and for training and do what we can to help when the time comes that someone in our community needs us.  There is a real sense of dread about what might be coming if the rain does not begin soon.  We had the brief promise of rain a couple of weeks ago and all we got was 22 wild-land fires caused by lightening strikes.  That was an unprecedented number of fires even though it is a very typical event this time of year.  We dread what is coming.  The time away from our families, our jobs, our friends, and our churches is never easy, but part of life way out here in the wild, wild west where we cannot afford to pay people to help those in need.

So how is it that I justify these two sets of friends?  One group, geographically distant from me, complains about rain.  The other, so very close to me, worries that the rain will never come again.  Some worry about their homes being lost to floods.  One old college friend in Houston has been fighting a roof leak for some weeks now.  The other group worries that their homes will be taken over by fire or economic hardship due to drouth.  Irony!

As a very young man, still in seminary and preaching each week at a little church in Rocksprings, TX, I had the frequent opportunity to visit with a man named Brooks Sweeten.   Brooks was in his late 90‘s when we met.  He and his wife had tried to move into a nursing home but the rules would not allow them to share a room.  After three nights of trying to sleep apart from one another, they came home.  Being separate after over 70 years together was simply not an option for them as they approached the last days of their lives.  Brooks had been a founding member of the Angora Goat Breeders Association, a successful goat rancher, a staunch supporter of his little church, and one of the most generous souls I have met to this day.  One day I tried some small talk with Brooks and mentioned the need for rain.  With a very fatherly demeanor, he assured me that there were “two things that always come back, young man.  That’s mohair and rain!”  He trusted in that truth and that portion of the conversation ended there.

There are a lot of things in life we can control.  Weather is not among them.  Some of us will pray for rain, others will pray for the rain to stop and God will decide how that all balances out.  All we can do is stand on the hope that there is one outside of us and over us who understands it all and will finally redeem.

In the mean time, may we all pray for the faith that comes from 98 years of wisdom and a man named Brooks Sweeten, and the promise of faith in Christ.... and mohair and rain!