Right?
We may as well “let” it rain rather than hate it, wish against it, or try to pretend it isn’t raining. Rain happens and I usually choose to suppose that the rain happens for a reason. Then it’s not only neutral, but it actually feels positive.
Decades ago, whenever there was a thunderstorm, my mother would turn off and unplug the television. As the storm approached, she’d go to the den and start playing songs on the piano. We’d all be in the den in no time once we heard the piano. Before we knew it, we’d all be singing at the top of our lungs. My siblings and any neighborhood kids who happened to be in our yard would fill every seat in the room and laugh as the thunder clapped and the lightning flashed. Some of the neighborhood kids would get permission to come to our house before a storm started, because they were more fun at our house!
Sometimes we’d say that the angels were bowling in the sky and the really BIG crashes were strikes. We sang and laughed and even shrieked when lightning struck really close. We’d count the seconds between the flash and the crash. But I never remember anyone panicking. Singing through the storm and laughing when a shriek interrupted a verse, we road out many, many storms.
When we were older, my mother explained that she was terrified of lightning storms and that for all those years she was trying to keep herself distracted with the piano and singing. By doing so she taught most of us to “let” storms be storms. Some of us even like storms – even 50 years later!
When it comes to those things we cannot change, we can always change our mind. Or as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said…
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
