Tenderness does not arise from

the beauty and motion of the dark clouds,

of the rain, or its passing,

or the air, purged in a breeze,

slight but apparent, drifting

from the direction of the rain.

It comes from a sense of wholeness

that overrides the sequence of time

and the weather, that partakes

of the sequence of time, and the weather,

and fulfills a meaning in its passing

imperfectly held in our words,

our capacity for recognition,

in a way that does not pass.

It comes from the place fear and

emptiness cannot reach, from a turn

of heart and then of mind touched

with solitude, and with a sense of

God’s presence. It comes, coherent,

first from gratitude, as a habit of mind,

then the further sense that others,

of the living, shall be treated in

the light of thankfulness, with a

prayer offered up for us all, here

and gone, in the light of God’s mercy,

in the beauty of the rain,

and its passing.

— From the November 11, 2013 issue of National Review.