by Tom Towns

GUEST COLUMNIST

An unusual rain fell one morning last week as I drove to Tooele United Methodist Church. The rain exuded a sweet, fresh scent, like rain in the Midwest, where I grew up.

The rain that morning was unusual, because oftentimes, when it rains in this area, the Great Salt Lake stirs up, filling the air with the scent of a stagnant ocean slough. Since moving here years ago, I learned to predict when rain would fall by noting the air's marine smell. Sometimes the odor grows very strong, especially out here west of Salt Lake City.

But not that morning.

The chilly, engaging spring air transported me back to those memorable mornings when I sat in my elementary school classroom and watched the rain fall day after day after day. It's not lush and green in the Midwest for no reason. It rains a lot, and tremendous thunderstorms roll for days on end. And when it rained like this on spring mornings as I walked to school, I would pull the hood of my yellow raincoat over my face, listening to one enormous raindrop after another explode upon me. Sometimes, a raindrop might burst on the edge of my hood, splattering my face with cold, clean rainwater. In my yellow raincoat and my rubber boots that buckled all the way up to my knees, I felt safe and experienced the storm as if protected from all harm.

That's the way it was where I grew up. Nature boomed, making everything blossom. No one feared Mother Nature, but rather learned how to live under her rule. We had every kind of weather apparel, ready for rain or snow, ice storms or hail. We learned how to carry out our lives regardless of weather severity. It was a safe and secure place for me as a child. I learned how to stay focused amidst thunder and blinding bursts of lightning. I learned how to fall fast asleep at night, especially when thunder blasted, rain pelted my window pane and lightning flashed across the sky.

How amazing it was that morning, being out here in the desert, but remembering a time when the notion of a desert came only from the World Book Encyclopedia. Back then, to learn about a desert's aridity, I would need to look it up, because the humidity in the Midwest never lets up, and it's never arid. And here I am in a place where rainstorms last but a short while -- never more than a day -- and my bath towel actually gets dry within hours of when I used it. It feels like a spring shower, like the ones I once knew so commonly.

That morning, as I recalled this memory and pulled into the church parking lot, I realized how safe and peaceful I felt. Here I was, a middle-aged, busy and distracted man, who just found himself at complete peace. It did not take reading an endless pile of self-help books. Nor did I need any expert advice from self-proclaimed gurus. When I parked in the church lot, I simply said softly to myself, "Wow!" I sat back in my seat and let the calm of my childhood memory flood through me. It was then I understood that by re-living those mornings as a child walking to school in a sweet, fresh Midwestern rainstorm, I had no anxiety today -- no worries. All was right with the world, and I blessed the Lord for being alive.

The lesson in the rain that morning will stay with me for the rest of my life. That lesson is: When we feel out of touch with our life, we can do something as simple as remember a past experience -- a time when we felt safe and at peace -- to bring that safety and peacefulness into our present moment.

The lesson in the rain sounds similar to what the Psalmist teaches us in Psalm 146: 4-6: "My spirit is overwhelmed within me. My heart is appalled within me. (And so) I remember the days of old. I meditate on all Your doings. I muse on the work of Your hands. I stretch out my hands to You. My soul longs for You, as a parched land."

Remembering days of old, days when we felt safe and at peace, like a child walking in the rain to school, can help us in these current and modern days, when we might feel anxious and out of sorts. By remembering our sweeter life back then, we can get it back now. And so, today I encourage you to take a moment to remember a sweet, safe and peaceful time in your life; a time when all was right with the world, a time when, like this morning, we can learn the lesson in the rain.

Sweet memories, Tom