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The title of a book made me smile. It was Some Folks Feel the Rain Others Just Get Wet. Few sentences could say more. And what it is saying so well is that we are either feeling life or resisting feeling it. Despite the fact that I would look a lot like Santa Claus naked, I have these powerful urges to strip off naked and go walking in the rain. Not just any rain but slow, peaceful, all-day rains like we have had all day today. It’s the only time in my life I have desired to be in a nudist colony. Why? It’s a mystery but I think it relates to some early childhood experiences when I felt so free running naked in the rain. A little boy can get by with all kinds of things that a grown-up man can only dream about. It may be completely epidermal. Cool rain feels so good to your skin. Even cold rain feels great when you are bundled up. My Creek Indian pal, Naman “New Moon” Crowe, calls me “Rainwalker” due to my practice of donning a rainsuit and walking in the rain. I love to walk over to Chickamauga Lake when I do a rain stroll. The ducks look shocked when I walk up with my sack of goodies. No one comes by to feed them when it rains. They are also rainwalkers. Yes, it is so true that some people feel the rain and others only get wet. To feel the rain you must get rid of a lot of kinks in your brain. Like the idea that rain will hurt you. Or the notion that it will mess up your hair. Your hair must be made to understand that your total epidemis is much more important than how your hair looks. There’s something real sexy about someone with wet hair. They look wild and free. They look real. Same thing about clothes. Who gives two hoots in the holler if your suit gets wet and has to be washed and dried. That’s why God made washers and dryers. He knew some of His children would want to splash around in the rain. That’s at least one of the reasons He sends rain. I know that because I told me so. Most of what is wrong in our psyches relates to the way we resist our feelings – even the sweetest ones like walking in the rain. Freud called this tendency to resist feelings “repression” and he traced a lot of mental illnesses to repressed feelings that got too heavy to handle. Look at that seemingly normal man who killed those children in the Amish schoolhouse. He had lived in his imagination for decades over a sexual abuse experience in his early life. Imagination plus repression equals dynamite. Here’s how that works: He imagined the sexual abuse over and over, re-feeling both the pleasure and guilt. The more pleasure he felt, the more guilt he felt and the guilt got so punitive to him that he felt he had nothing to lose by acting out his imaginings. It became so strong he forgot about his faithful wife and dear children who would forever be cursed by his behavior that day. There’s another danger to not feeling. We can steel our minds against our feelings so long that we are no longer able to feel. It’s not repression but denial. We see this in serial killers. In the early stages repressed desires take over. Then denial and an attitude of amorality mark their actions thereafter. Don’t worry about getting wet. Just enjoy feeling the rain. Find the freedom in it. We have the power to set our own souls free. Excuse me now. I am going out to walk in the rain one more time today. Come join me!
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