Each month Undaunted Joy will feature a guest post. It is good to look at joy from a different view than just mine and it is good to hear those who have made Undaunted Joy a community of voices.
This week Undaunted Joy features Paul Lutter. Paul and I met through social media and our vast common friends. Paul and I have enjoyed talking about all things God, Literature and Writing on Zoom.
Rain
I scramble from silence. The room has not yet lit. The first sound of the day: my puppy, whose small body tangles in blankets from inside her crate. I stand upright, yet my eyes are still closed. I’ve never been a fan of morning, early or otherwise. My ears are first to wake: the click-click-click of the long blades plays hide-and-seek with the chain from our ceiling fan, a mere apostrophe in the sentence of the day, enough of a beat that creates a rhythm from which my heart improvises life. I stumble until I hear raindrops hurl themselves toward the skylight in the next room. I listen and lean into the silence until a few words from Joy Harjo sneak in and cradle me. Praise the rain, her poem invites. The phrase swirls around me, like a lingered song alive in my ears. The word, praise, startles me into being. Why raise my arms and unfurl my fingers all to give thanks for streaks of rain across my lenses, Rorschach prints against my shirt, lilted pages of a notebook clutched in my rain-soaked hand? The pound of rain grows stronger as I look at my outline in the mirror. I leave the lights off, so I can have a conversation with the rain with no interruption. Why, I ask the rain? There is no answer. I look up and around, safe from the force of rain against my skin. Still, the rain plays on. The melody, the rhythm reaches out. When I arrive at the screen door to the deck in our backyard. I make my way outside, in the rain. The drops surround and fill me. Praise the rain, I heard again, and I am stopped. I lean my head back and my arms out, with my fingers fully unfurled. I close my eyes. The question raised in me no longer is to the elements, but to myself. What will you receive now that you are here? I’m not sure. I lean in, and linger, and listen. The distant song of a robin floats from a nearby tree. Water fills flowerpots and surrounds dry patches of grass. Tires glide across pools of water standing in the streets. Water splashes up and over curbs, onto sidewalks, under the paws of dogs who live out their morning liturgy. Faint conversations between a woman and her dog raise a smile on my face. From behind a fence, I answer the question she asks. Why does it have to rain, she asks? Because we need to breathe, I said. I couldn’t see her, but I imagine my response made her jump a little. What did you say, she asked her dog? For their part, I imagine the dog looked up, through the rain, and made a motion that suggested they could reserve the philosophical conversation for after they are inside and dry and full and stretched out for their afternoon naps. Praise the rain, I whisper to myself. Praise.
***
Paul Lutter is an essayist, poet, teacher, and pastor. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN in 2022. His work has appeared in Christian Century, Working Preacher, and other publications. He lives with his family in Plymouth, MN.
If you would like to write a guest post, send me your submission. Perhaps we can find a home for it! With over 1100 subscribers, I’d love to use this Substack to share some new joyful voices.
Good to see you here Paul! We met at the last in person Festival of Faith &Writing. Seems like a lifetime ago. Hope we can catch up in 2024.