Do you like the rain?  In the writings of the ancient near east, people certainly did.  In fact, they expected it:  once in the spring, again in the autumn.  They used the spring rains to plant their crops, and the autumn rains to prepare the soil for planting in the coming spring.  It was a rhythm woven deeply into their lives.


     Today, many Indians expect the monsoons to come with startling regularity, and are often able to predict the precise day they will begin.  Far, far above India's teeming cities, Himalayan mountaineers work within a carefully calibrated window of opportunity framed by the monsoon season:  they know that they must seize the time to climb.

     Although climate change has altered the rhythms of weather patterns all over the world, in some cases overturning them completely, it has not yet succeeded in jettisoning them altogether.  Maybe one day it will; maybe not.  Will the earth survive the human species?  I cannot say.  What I can say, however, is that, despite how human machinations and folly have undercut the predictability of earthly pattern, they will probably not end the life of the planet.

     Life, like the God who established it, is more than who we are.