Rainbows

'I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant bwteen Me and the earth.'

The rare and beautiful event of a rainbow usually lasts only a short while, but its colors and soaring form make a lasting impression.  I can remember seeing a rainbow over our church steeple a year ago.  I ran in to get my camera, thinking what an awesome shot that was, only to return to find it gone, with only a vivid image in my mind.  I remember a rainbow down below our hiking group after we ascended Mt. Madison in a driving sleet and hail storm, wanting to take a picture but knowing that the orientation would not come out in a photo.  We seem to remember the rainbows we encounter alog the way, don't we?

In the Hebrew Scriptures the rainbow symbolizes God's promise to Noah never to destroy the earth and all its breatures again with water.  But, just as important, it was a sign of the wonderful re-creation of the word after the destruction of the biblical Flood.

This holy season of Lent offers a unique opportunity to make a course correction on the path toward God.  The goal is clear: the new life of Easter, fixed before your eyes like a glorious rainbow.  It is an image that must remain always imprinted in our minds.

May the Lord strengthen each of us to persevere in our Lenten practices, so that through all we say and do, we might indeed be drawing ever closer to eternal life in the Father's Kingdom of true and lasting peace.