Rain

When I arrived here in San Salvador almost a month ago, I discovered to my dismay that my house didn't have hot water. The weather was warm and I figured that maybe this was just how things are here, that I needed to adjust myself. As long as the weather was warm, I did okay with cold showers. But in the last week, temperatures cooled and I found myself gasping. 

I had mentioned the issue once as a problem and a few people came and fiddled with a few nuts and bolts, to no real effect. I thought I was stuck with cold water and have been trying to muscle through it (I do fully realize that I am privileged in naming this as a struggle when any access to water is such a huge problem for so much of the world's population). Then a couple days ago, our General Director checked in with staff and asked if there was anything we needed help with, as far as our living situations were concerned. I took a deep breath and sent a tentative request for some help. The results were instantaneous. Yesterday, a maintenance person arrived at my door and, in half an hour, told me to come check my shower and see if it was sufficient.

After twelve years of intermittent water pressure and 3-minute showers in India, I now have a massive rain shower head and took a half-hour shower this morning. I won't make a habit of it, but I couldn't resist after the mornings of shivering. I've been smiling all day because it felt so extra good. Today's word is Rain. The shower felt so rich and undeservedly luxurious, like the arrival of the monsoon when the clouds just break open.

It rained almost all day here. I sat looking out of the windows and thinking about the old idea that rain does not fall only on the deserving, and that we all long for it, as I longed for my hot shower. I remembered Portia's famous monologue from the Merchant of Venice that I used to have up in my first classroom in Atlanta:

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. 

This then made me think about the nature of real leadership and how very much, in this strange and difficult season, we need for mercy to season justice...even in the smallest daily interactions or applications of policies. This is a season for mercy and we need it like we need the rain: in other words, we can't survive or grow without bountiful mercy.