Hummingbird Shower

Saturday August 12, one of my two weekly lawn-watering-with-a-sprinkler days, I had an old-fashioned ring sprinkler going in the back yard. The water sprayed up gently in a circle and fell in a crown. I started to step out on the back porch for something, and stopped, not daring to move. A female Ruby-throated hummingbird was playing in the sprinkler. She hovered just eight or ten inches off the ground, where each arc of water fell and spread into a shower of droplets. She moved in and out, between the showers, turning to let the cool water fall on her back and then front. Only once did I see her stoop and sip a drop off the glistening grass. We have seen her at our birdbath, though seldom; usually she is at the hummingbird feeder, sipping the bright-red syrup. Who knew that hummingbirds would like sprinklers? I was enchanted.

We have been praying for rain for weeks. Even last week the mayor of Abilene asked all the churches to pray for rain. We had two tenths of an inch last Saturday evening, and fifteen hundredths on Sunday evening. It may have showered a little in the night Monday, but I was back to the watering routine today. Twice today we heard thunder, and someone got some rain, but we didn't get any here on our side of town. That's what the weather forecaster means by "isolated thunderstorms."

When I went out this morning at sunrise to bring in the newspaper and water the potted plants on the front walk, a light shower was passing off west of us, moving north. A wide rainbow glimmered softly in the early light. It covered the whole western sky, except right at the top, where it faded out. At the south end, a second rainbow hovered just outside the second. My neighbor across the street to the east was out pulling weeds. I called to her as I walked toward her: "Look! a rainbow!" She staightened up and ran out into the street, and as we stood there she prayed, "Isn't God good? Isn't God good? Oh, thank you for the rain we have had, but please send us some more, not just for us and our yards but for the farmers and ranchers with their horses and cattle and goats and sheep." I said, "Amen."

We went back to our respective tasks, and I watched the rainbow for another 20 minutes as I moved around the back yard tending to the garden and the potted coleuses. What a silent mystery it is, and how immense. I thought about the words of the Old Testament -- God set the rainbow in the sky. What is it like to see the first one you ever see? What if the first one you ever saw, you saw as an adult? I thought about little children I know, about my little friend Jaxon going to preschool for the first time today -- would he remember the first time he saw a rainbow? I don't think I remember that. But when I see one, a familiar feeling of awe and security arcs over me.

Joy is a fountain. It rises in praise and falls as a blessing.