My house sits on a rise.  When I look out my window this morning, I see vibrant green of many shades, the result of recent heavy rain that now has fallen for more than 48 hours.  Although none is falling at the moment, we are promised that it will soon resume its relentless quest to soak the earth beyond its capacity before moving on to the storm’s next destination.  For two nights now I have listened to the rain as it has beaten against my windows.  They are nice and clean now; and we won’t need to take our cars to the car wash any time soon.  The street glistens, partly with the moisture that catches the early morning light, but partly with pure cleanliness, since all the surface dirt and pebbles have been washed away in the makeshift river that has run down the hill.  I sit in my house on the rise and think of the blessings of water and renewal and fresh, clean landscapes — all the things that delight me about a good, soaking rain.

Last night I had the need to leave my perch and venture out through the streets to a gathering.  Everywhere I drove the same thing happened.  My smooth sailing would end as barricades blocked my way, warning me to detour around the standing water that made the road ahead impassable.  After taking the new and winding route, I arrived at my destination with some very different feelings about the rain.  My house on the hill may be pristine and clean and my yard may be lush and green, but in the low-lying areas where the rain collects, standing water has dropped a small disaster on my neighbors.  Every pebble, every leaf, every speck of dust that has washed away from my home has been carried down the hill to a temporary pond.  As the water lies there, it drops all the debris to the surface below.  When the water recedes, someone else will have to clean up my mess.

Life is like that sometimes.  When you sit on high ground, where everything is clean and green and beautiful, it can be hard to imagine that somewhere else there is a mess to clean up — maybe even one that you contributed to making.  We trust the wisdom of Mother Nature when the rain seems to be a bit too much.  We try to remember that even though it creates messes for us to clean up, the earth we have altered may need this soaking in order to find the balance that sustains life.  We, too, should look at the storm and learn a lesson in balance.  We need to remember that one man’s clean-up may be another man’s disaster.  The balance is delicate, and each of us has a part in trying to share the responsibility for caring for us all.