"There will come soft rains"

“There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound.” Sara Teasdale, 1920

I first read this poem when I was in high school and never knew why I was drawn to it. I didn’t learn until many years later that it was about war and the extinction of mankind. No wonder Ms.Teasdale committed suicide.

 

When we were in Michigan camping in July, we had beautiful sunny weather, until Wednesday morning, when it rained for four hours. You know how I am about taking pictures, so I had to go out and document some after-the-rain shots to go with the pictures I had taken on Monday.

                        

After just so little rain, I found it amazing that the rivers had gone up this much. It makes me feel even more sympathetic towards those living in areas of our country affected by drought. You would think that in this great land of ours in the year 2012 we could ship them enough water to make a difference.

Hmm? Read all of Sara Teasdale’s poem sometime. In the world we live in now, let me know what it has to say to you.   

Where will you be going next?

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19 New International Version (NIV)

I don’t know why I am so fascinated with cemeteries. I suppose part of it is because I can envision an entire life around each headstone, making up stories in my head as to how this person died or how that person lived. Also, the headstones are sometimes works of art, as well as the other adornments throughout the older cemeteries.

Vacationing in the Michigan’s UP last week, we visited a few of these old cemeteries. The old graveyards seem to have a lot of fences around each family plot. I’ve been researching on line all week to discover the history of these fences, or borders as they are called. I thought that I read once somewhere that they were meant to keep bad spirits out or good spirits in. Pretty much all I found in my internet search is that one purpose the borders served was to discourage grave robbers.

(I also read that grave robbing was a popular crime at the start of the last century. Not the life of crime I would ever resort to.)

I think we are all curious about what happens after we die. As a Christian, I believe I will go to heaven, and don’t much care what happens to my body or where or how it is disposed of (I just don’t want grave robbers digging me up). The thought of my body lying in a casket buried under six feet of dirt really doesn’t do it for me. Yet I’d still like a headstone in a cemetery somewhere, a reminder to generations to come that this person lived from this date to this date and that she had a sometimes boring, occasionally interesting life in between.

Lord, thank you for giving me this life. I know that I complain about all sorts of things, but in general I am content with where I am. Guide me through the remaining years of my life and let whatever I leave behind be good. Amen