Saving the World

He walks in the rain to save the world. His people are from the desert, but he walks under an umbrella in the rain. His great grandfather came from Yemen; his grandfather and father were born in a village west of Doha in Qatar; he himself was born in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. He thinks of himself as a child of the desert, though his parents moved to the United States when he was three.

He walks in the rain as a form of prayer. Although his people came from the desert, he lives in a land where water falls out of the sky. When he hears others pray to God asking for miracles he thinks, 'Your prayers are already answered; you are surrounded by miracles. Look, and be astonished.'

In the markets he sees tabloid newspapers proclaiming miracle cures for cancer, announcing the birth of babies with ears like bats, displaying photographs of carved faces on other planets. He imagines a headline reading 'Water Falls From Sky! Experts Baffled!' Nothing in those tabloids could be half as amazing as the existence of rain.

The water molecules that condense overhead and fall on the people and streets of Portland, Oregan could be molecules that evaporated in the Persian Gulf between the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Or they could be from a tarn in Scotland, a pond in Uruguay, or a river in China. A miracle is no less a miracle because it is silent, a miracle is no less a miracle because nobody notices.

As he walks in the rain, each drop that thumps against his umbrella is a call to prayer as clear and musical as the song of the muezzin. Each raindrop that spatters on the pavement is as sweet and fervent as the chant of monks. After the rain stops, as the sun emerges and the puddles dry, he believes his prayers are carried up with the evaporated water molecules and spread throughout the world.

posted by greg @ 12:04 PM