What a lovely night and a lovely experience. Storms moved through south of here more than an hour ago, creating a brilliant lightning display without the feeling you could be turned to ash at any given moment and the atmosphere has been left thick and dark and weary from the energy wrung out of it. All that remains is the humidity and the occasional flash of dull lightning and grumbling thunder now far to the west, and me here under the dark, gray-brown clouds that hang heavily above.

And the rain.

It’s late at night and all the lights are out; Tracey and the rabbits and the neighbors are all off to bed. The rain falls softly but steadily. It is quiet – very quiet. So I set down my glass of Pino Grigio, peel off my clothes, and step slowly into the pool and feel myself immediatey immersed in one of those truly special moments when everything around you is virtually identical in its nature – dark, warm, and wet. The air, thick with the musky aroma of damp vegetation, is 94 degrees. The pool water is 94 degrees. The rain falling from the sky is 94 degrees. And you quietly move about the water and nothing seems to change, not the warm, not the wet, not the atmosphere, not the feeling. It’s just you, the swishing of the water, the sound of raindrops hitting the water and everything around you, and the quite stirring of palm branches above.

What a marvelous moment in time to savor the sanctity of the moment! There’s a strange sense of out of place and out of time. I’m in Gilbert, Arizona, but I could be in a pool in Tahiti. Or a jungle river in the interior of Thailand. Or Key West. Or Belize. Or Panama. Yeah, I’m thinking, if it weren’t for the fact there are no mosquitoes out here, I could be in Panama.

And all of the things that preoccupy humankind so today, rightly or wrongly, like the John Edwards scandal, or Russia and Georgia being at war, or the Olympics, or the economy, or thousands of other things, all seem far away, indeed. I’m thinking this must be what it feel like in a mother’s womb months before one is born, it all feels so dark and wet and safe and comfortable.

Immersed in the moment, I allow myself to think of “August Rain”, a song by the surf band The Sandals from their “Spirit of Surf” CD, and I can’t help but think how much the song matches the spirit of the moment. I’m thinking the song’s composer John Blakely must have had for himself one of these kinds of moments as inspiration. Good for him – I think he captured it perfectly.

But more than anything else, it’s good for me, good for my soul, and good that God would allow one of his fallen creatures a sneak peak at something close to what heaven must feel like, at least in spirit. Or perhaps, on second thought, Purgatory – after all, there’s very little light out here to speak of, just a dark gray brown broken by distant street lamps, and I have little doubt that at some point, as wonderful as this all feels, I’d be starting to wonder when it all might end and get anxious to anticipate the heavenly light of dawn and the rays of sun to follow on its heels. So Purgatory it is, but let’s not worry so much about this kind of thing right now. Ahh, theology and religious doctrine – is there anywhere I can go where I don’t find you far behind?

It’s enough at this moment in time to simply allow myself to be immersed in the fatness and wetness of an August night, in the dark and the pool and the dampness and the dripping of the August rain.