Process Theology for People
Who Love the Rain
Grey skies, soft rhythms, and the sacred in every drop
There are those for whom the coming of rain is not a disappointment but a homecoming. While others rush indoors, cover their heads, and curse the clouds, the rain-lover pauses. Listens. Breathes. For such a person, rain is more than weather—it is a presence. A mood. A blessing. A way the world speaks softly.
Process theology affirms that this feeling is not incidental. It is part of the fabric of reality itself. For those who love the rain, there is wisdom in its falling—a theology of rhythm, receptivity, and renewal.
The World as a Weaving of Drops
In Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, reality is composed not of solid substances but of moments of experience—what he calls “actual occasions,” or “drops of experience.” These are the living pulses that make up the universe, each shaped by the past, responding in the present, and reaching toward the future. We ourselves are not fixed beings but flowing centers of experience, moment by moment becoming.
Rain, too, teaches us to think in terms of moments. Each drop is brief, but together they create rhythm. Texture. Change. So it is with our lives. Each breath, each decision, each silence is part of the greater pattern of becoming. Nothing stands still. Everything flows.
Rain reminds us that the world itself is in motion—softly, quietly, but unmistakably.
The Consequent Nature of God
Process theology describes God as a participant in the world’s ongoing process. God does not control events but lovingly receives and responds to them. Whitehead speaks of God’s consequent nature—that aspect of God which receives the whole of reality, moment by moment, cherishing all that happens.
Each “drop of experience” is gathered into God’s life—not lost, not wasted, not forgotten. The joys and sorrows of the world become part of the divine memory, which weaves them into a harmony beyond our full knowing.
Rainy days seem to reflect that divine receptivity. As the world hushes and slows, it becomes easier to imagine that we, too, are being received. That our lives, like the falling rain, are held in something larger. That even our quietest moments—the ones spent staring out the window or curled beneath a blanket—are part of something sacred.
Rain, Mood, and the Subtle Lure of God
In Whitehead’s metaphysics, every experience carries a subjective form—a mood or feeling-tone that shapes how the world is received. Moods are not merely emotional backdrops; they shape perception itself. They determine what we notice, what we hold dear, and what we are willing to consider.
Rain evokes a particular kind of mood—a mood of attentiveness, introspection, and receptivity. In process theology, such moods can make us more attuned to God’s call, which comes not in commands but in quiet lures—subtle invitations to move toward beauty, truth, or peace.
Rain, for many, is a time of discernment. A time to hunker down—not in withdrawal, but in openness. To listen inwardly. To take stock. To imagine next steps. In the hush that rain creates, new possibilities may be felt—possibilities we might overlook in the brightness and noise of other days.
God, in this view, does not interrupt the world but whispers within it. Rain creates the mood in which we are better able to hear.
Rain as Baptism: A Cleansing of the Soul and the Senses
Rain also carries with it the symbolism of cleansing. In many traditions, water is a sign of renewal, of letting go, of beginning again. Rain does not ask us to fix everything—it simply falls. It rinses. It blesses.
From a process perspective, cleansing is not erasure but transformation. The world does not start over—it keeps becoming. Likewise, we do not become perfect—we become open, again and again, to what is possible.
Rain can be experienced as a baptism not of conversion, but of return. Return to self. To simplicity. To softness. It is a washing of perception, a gentle dislodging of distraction, a release of urgency. It invites us to be still. To be wet. To be here.
To walk in the rain is to accept the grace of impermanence. To know that you cannot stay dry, and that this, too, is holy.
A Theology of Hunkering Down
Rain slows the world. It changes plans. It makes space—for stillness, for reading, for dreaming. These are not wasted hours. In process theology, value is not measured by output, but by depth of experience. Sometimes the most meaningful becoming happens in silence.
To hunker down in a rainstorm is to participate in a sacred rhythm. It is to mirror the world’s own pause. It is to trust that resting is as holy as striving, that quietness is not absence, and that contemplation has its own creative power.
The rain-lover knows this instinctively. That there is time enough. That the world will begin again. That the moment matters—not because it is productive, but because it is real.
Addendum
Process Theology for People Who Love the Sun
Light, warmth, and the sacred invitation to joy
Some are drawn not to grey skies but to golden ones—to the open field, the warm breeze, the flickering leaves beneath a summer sun. For them, sunlight is not just illumination; it is energy, awakening, benediction. It lifts the spirit. It calls the body into movement. It brings the world into sharp relief, full of color, shadow, and vitality.
From a process perspective, this delight in sunlight is more than emotional preference. It is an act of attunement to the creative movement of the cosmos. To love the sun is to love life in motion, life in celebration, life reaching out toward possibility.
The World as Luminous Becoming
Process thought teaches that the universe is not made of static objects, but of dynamic acts of becoming. Reality is composed of actual occasions—moments that inherit the past, respond in the present, and stretch toward newness. Every moment is a spark in the ongoing flame of reality.
Sunlight itself becomes a metaphor for this process: always moving, never still, bathing the world in waves of becoming. It touches leaf and face alike, inviting growth, awakening perception, energizing life.
Those who love the sun are not wrong to see it as sacred. It mirrors the divine call toward brightness, toward fulfillment, toward creative advance.
Joy as a Subjective Form
Whitehead understood that every moment carries a subjective form—a tone or way of feeling that shapes how the world is received. Just as rain can draw us into introspection, sun can awaken joy. Not a shallow cheerfulness, but a deep sense of openness, vitality, and readiness to engage.
To be bathed in sunlight is to be reminded that existence is not only weighty—it is also radiant. That the world is not only a place of sorrow—it is also a place of pleasure, of play, of beauty.
This joy is not frivolous. It is sacred. In process theology, God is not aloof from delight, but deeply invested in the flourishing of life. God’s lure is not only toward survival, but toward zest—a richness of experience that brings forth intensity, variation, and fulfillment.
Those who dance in sunlight are responding to that lure. They are saying yes to the divine invitation to feel deeply, to celebrate fully.
The Sun as Sacrament of the Present
Sunlight is always now. It cannot be stored or remembered in its fullness. It is immediate, immersive, ephemeral. To bask in the sun is to surrender to presence. To let the light itself be enough.
This sacrament of presence is a kind of spiritual practice. It trains us to stop delaying joy, to stop waiting for permission to feel alive. It says: this moment, this breath, this warmth—it is holy.
Theology too often forgets the sacredness of pleasure, the holiness of brightness. But process thought invites us to recover it. The sunlit world is not a distraction from spirit; it is spirit made visible.
Play as Divine Participation
Children know instinctively what philosophers struggle to name: that light calls us to play. To run, to laugh, to invent new rhythms of becoming. In this, we participate in the divine creativity that undergirds all things.
Play is not a waste of time. It is a mode of communion. To move freely under the sun is to echo the universe’s own movement—fluid, spontaneous, unfinished.
Process theology tells us that God is not a distant architect but a present lure—a call toward newness and beauty. The sun, in its radiant generosity, can become one such lure, summoning us toward joy without justification.
We do not have to earn the warmth. We only have to feel it.