Then the lame shall leap like a deer. ...For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert. —Isaiah35:6 (nkjv)
Last summer there was a drought in Missouri. I was walking downtown when it finally started to rain, so I ducked under a store awning. A car parked in front of me and a young father got out. He popped open his big, blue umbrella and held it over his little girl, but she would have none of it. She twirled out from under the canopy and began leaping and dancing in the heavenly downpour, her wet, black hair hanging down like a tail and her pink T-shirt clinging to her stick-figure body. She was laughing hysterically, and her father gazed at her with envy.
All at once I had a powerful urge to join her in the rain dance, to return to my childhood when rain was a miracle and not a bother. But before I could get up my courage, the rain suddenly stopped.
The next day I was walking when, again, it started to rain. I had no umbrella and there were no store awnings handy, so I just kept walking. It felt utterly wonderful to be soaked to the bone after a summer of dry heat. My shoes began to squeak, and I was laughing so hard that other walkers were staring at me.
Somewhere on my way to adulthood, my sense of adventure got crowded out by things like propriety and dignity. Maybe it’s time for me to step out from the umbrella of maturity and do something a bit daring now and then, like go with my granddaughter on that roller-coaster ride or volunteer for that pie-throwing contest at the PTO.
Who knows what joys await me outside the range of dignity?
