The Choice of Joy: Day 25, Rainmaker Possibilities

In spite of the best efforts of my Protestant Sunday school teachers to instill into my soul the many and varied Bible verses for which my memorization was required, when I am in my darkest moments, it is the story of The Rainmaker that most offers me rays of light.

I have read many versions of the The Rainmaker story.  Basically it is about an observation by Richard Wilhelm when he lived in China as he told to Carl Jung.  Jung considered the story important enough to repeat several times.

Wilhelm was observing the plight of a village as its inhabitants experienced a severe drought.  Crops had failed and the supply of drinking water was dangerously low.  All manner of efforts had been made to conquer the drought, from prayers of supplication to religious ceremonies to consultations with various gurus.  Nothing worked.  The village seemed to be collectively experiencing the Book of Job.

Finally the village chief called in The Rainmaker from a distant land.  The Rainmaker stepped into the village and sniffed the air.  He instructed the village elders to set up a hut for him on the edge of the village and every day leave food and drink for him at the door.  Most importantly, he was not to be disturbed until he emerged from the hut.  The elders did as they were instructed.  At the end of three days, The Rainmaker stepped out of the hut, clouds formed and the rain fell.

Fascinated, Wilhelm asked The Rainmaker how he brought the rain.  The Rainmaker replied, “I did not bring the rain.  When I arrived in the village I sensed that someone was so outside their self that the condition had permeated the entire village.  I sensed the discord and disharmony.  So I had to go inside myself and pull myself back in, to balance, to attunement, to the Tao. By doing this, I allowed the rain.”

With all humility, it is a story and a process more known to me by my failure at imitation than my success at achieving the Tao.

Still, the story brings me joy to the possibility that one’s own inner attunement could in some way allow the outward rain, that within each of us there is the possibility of The Rainmaker.