I was born and raised in South Africa – third, fourth, fifth generation – and all my childhood memories of vacations are from the dry flat landscape of the Karoo.
Stark unrelenting miles of dusky golds and browns interrupted only by bitter faced mountains and lonely windmills. That landscape imprinted on me to such a degree that this is now how I measure beauty. I see it spelled out in flats and hot and dry and veld that stretches as far as the eye can see. In springboks and anthills and eagles that are the only specks in an otherwise cloudless sky that stretches bleak and blue and forever.
This is where I can breathe the best.
My grandfather farmed sheep. We rode horses, milked cows, knew all the dogs by name. There were far too many cats to keep them all straight. On sweaty afternoons we’d all strip down and plunge into the water reservoir skinny dipping the heat away while our parents prayed for rain.
And when after months and months of drought the heavens finally cracked open we all sat out on my grandpa’s red tile farm house porch to watch it come down. All but my mom who ran as fast as she could right into the downpour on the grass patch in front of the fish pond. And she danced in the water and laughed at the goodness of the Lord and made all her children do the same.
We gaped at her. And then we ran. We ran as hard and fast as the rain and tilted heads and arms back and up at the sky with her as we learned how to worship the God that saw fit to bless us with His heavenly water.
More than two decades later in a living room in Virginia, USA I still dance in the rain. On days when the goodness of the Lord drenches me to my disbelieving skin I tilt back head and raise arms, turn up the radio and dance. And it’s my face that’s wet and my heart that’s soaking up the water and I am 12 again and want the moment to last forever.
“For this is what the Lord says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet the valley will be filled with water…this is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord,” (2 Kings 3: 16-17).
There have been long seasons of “no,” seasons of long commutes to work far from home and my kids, and I have questioned and wondered and worried through most of it. But some days, some days we get a glimpse into a perspective bigger than our own. Some days the heavens crack right open and He sends the rain.
So I put down my work, my obligations, my dishes and run out to meet Him. I’m delighted to find that I still remember how. And I dance in His downpour, right there – in the living room.
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Pst, don’t forget to join me tomorrow for Five Minute Friday again. It was a blast last week reading all your posts! Tomorrow we’ll be racing the clock to see what we can come up with in five minutes on People Watching. Whether it’s at the grocery store, in the gas line, or at your kid’s school. Pick a person and them write them into living color for us all. In five minutes flat.
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Oh man… The Karoo is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth… My grandparents live there too… I was just thinking last night that I am dying to go on holiday there for a bit… the extreme heat in summer is madness, but the sheer beauty and the fact that you can see the stars and BREATHE there is soooo worthwhile! You speak to my heart, Lisa-Jo!
Gypsey Mama,Lizanne, it is one of the most beautiful places on earth, if you step over the fence. It even makes bearded men write poetry………scary !!!! Enjoy.
THE CAPE’S FORGOTTEN LAND
If only for a little while,
we stopped,
and took a rest;
then took a further moment,
to climb,
a karoo fence;
If then we knelt to view the little things,
never seen,
taken for granted;
And listened,
we’d hear the words,
the karoo chat sweetly chanted;
The “bloukops” gaze,
suddenly becomes,
oh so far less haunting;
the air you breath,
is dry and cold,
but very much less daunting;
The dew drop,
is like an ocean,
before the little ant departing;
the loud new call,
that’s stopped us all,
is the pale goshawks chanting;
Four small ears,
in grey rhenoster veldt,
are a little lesson;
these Steenbuck
pair for life you know,
irrespective of the season;
The shrill whistle,
and white tails bobbing,
Rhebuck all around;
At our feet,
the succulents succeed,
in the shallow and dry, rocky ground;
And so,
with nought expected,
and so much ‘that we have gathered;
Bugger,
the trip to who knows where,
or the shopping trip to Harrods;
For all these years,
accessible,
this area we have spurned;
its now,
a place to which our species,
is needing to return;
Or if close by on a farm
(and for this I would give my right arm)
in a corner,
or a hidden spot;
there was little a space,
I could call my plot;
At sunset, glass a tingling,
I could reflect, do some deep thinking;
listening,
to those last light sounds,
the Jackals, Francolin in close surrounds;
And as the darkness started in,
my fun would only then begin;
For gazing up, the clearest black,
I’d turn over on my back,
And though the padding may be sparse
A new world opens, a trillion stars;
It would slowly start to dawn on me,
to realize just how good,
A friend, a man, an aquaintence was,
I thought I understood,
All this time they told me,
what it was they really knew,
was a place that no-one cared about,
that they owned,
and that they loved,
in the Karoo.
I LOVED this post. Loved the way you painted the memories and the joy of your mother. Loved the reminder to drop everything and just PLAY and REJOICE. Beautiful truth for me, today.
Love reading here, as always.
I remember “puddle stomping” with my mom in the rain…a blessing to have memories of a mom that had the spirit of a child.
ooooooo
these photos got me. took me back. there is nothing like the long winter months without the rain and the beauty of that first rain. oooo the rejoicing.
this made me think of that post of yours from awhile ago. the one where you went to church and He came leaping over chairs for you, rejoicing over you. rejoicing with that crazy wild-eyed in love look.
beautiful.
how i can relate! after long, hot dry seasons in nigeria we would always run straight outside and revel in the first rain of the wet season. one time it was in the middle of the school day and all the school children ran outside! to this day i love a good drenching rain. and the singular smell of those first cool drops hitting the dusty earth! sometimes here in suburbia i briefly catch that scent and am whisked back to that joyful feeling of rain after a long time of dry.
Gosh, I hadn’t thought of that smell in years. But reading what you wrote now, I’m just struck by it so powerfully. Nothing. There’s nothing like it.
Oh, I agree! Some of my favorite memories are of watching the storm clouds roll in over my rural West African town, waiting for the wind and the smell and finally the rain! What a great reminder to wait upon the Lord with that same hope and expectation that came after the dry, hot months!
I love that “And I dance in His downpour, right there – in the living room.” I’ll just join you there and enjoy the magnificent joy and beauty He pours in the middle of the everyday. Love your heart in your posts!
Thanks for the beautiful imagery! This was a lovely post, and a good reminder.
At first glance, I thought that first picture was of West Texas! Beautiful pictures. Beautiful story, friend.
Which is exactly why I know in my heart I’m destined to visit Texas. I’ve been longing to for years!
I love the story of your mother running to dance in the rain! Gorgeous photos. Beautiful Lisa-Jo! :)
I have always lived in the foothills of California. I feel the same way as for my degree of beauty is always measured by the mountains against the horizon during a cloudy dusk.
you made me tear and go back to my home and growing up and then your mama…oh your mama…what a beautiful memorial to her and beyond her to Glory. to Him…I know you miss her (as I mine) but as you paint these moments when it is so clear she was made for another world…don’t you rejoice in some deep place that she’s Home?
thank you for letting us all peek into her extraordinary ways and the way you live her and that legacy…beautiful post…hugs:)
Ahh, yes, Rain! The sound, the smell, and the feeling. Beautiful post; beautiful pictures, Lisa-Jo!