Rainy Day in Athens

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down—The Carpenters

Today it is raining. Sigh.

Some rainy days are met with relief, if you are a farmer and in the middle of a drought, or someone like me who is tired of doing yard work and are forced inside to take a nap.

Some rainy days are met with dread, if you are suffering angst from seeing flood waters creeping closer, or at your wit’s end because the kids are refusing to watch TV and play video games so you can get a few minutes peace and can’t send them outside, or like me who has put off the mowing for another day and the rain is causing the grass to grow exponentially.

Some rainy days are met with melancholy, like today. I don’t know why. Maybe because there are many changes taking place in your life, like retirement, like moving to another state, like getting older, like being the last one of your family left in a community that has lived there for about 240 years, like seeing so many painful changes in lives of people you care about, like thinking about people in places such as Afghanistan and Haiti who are going through so much suffering.

This rainy day, I am thinking about all of these things.

I took the above photo while Mrs. Big Surf and I were waiting out a rainy morning in the Acropolis Museum in Athens and looking up at this magnificent structure of antiquity. I think about all of the changes that have taken place in the lives of the Athenians since this structure was erected thousands of years ago. This helps me not to dwell so much on me.

I was thinking about the above song, about rainy days making me melancholy. Then I became more melancholy because Karen Carpenter isn’t with us anymore. I loved her voice, so rich and complex and pure.

It is ok to feel sad and melancholy, especially on rainy days. It is ok to think about those who are now gone and were a huge part of your life and miss them.

Maybe I have just been thinking too much and not living enough.

I will quote Job, who incidentally could have had the worst day in the history of mankind, while in the midst of his suffering and sadness said, “I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand on earth.” This gives me peace and hope in a troubled world and on a melancholy rainy day.

Cheer up world, Jesus our Redeemer lives. This Son will shine again.