Simple blessings...

There are things that come in life that are given as grace - we do not seek blessing, and yet we suddenly find ourselves, in the unlooked for moment, blessed if we are willing to stop and look and see.

Dreamweaver and I were granted such a moment last Saturday at the church where I am painting on a mural. An enormous thunderstorm had moved in, minutes after she arrived to bring me supper. We sat and ate, watching the wind and the torrents of rain shaking the windows. As we finished eating, the rain slacked off and as I came back from the church kitchen, she called for me to hurry outside. There before us was a magnificent rainbow, arcing from one side to the other of the sky...it was still dark and threatening looking, with low scudding clouds, but the sun had broken through enough to work the age old miracle, the bow set in the heavens.

We stood there, and found that moment of blessing, of peace, that we were sharing that glorious sight together. I grabbed my phone and got pictures. We watched as it waxed and waned, one end growing fainter and then coming back in as the clouds and the sun shifted and played back and forth. I cannot see a rainbow without a multitude of meanings - Gods great promise to never flood the earth again - "I have set my bow into the heavens that you may know that all things will continue, spring and winter, seed time and harvest, as long as this world shall last" I also think of the great symbol of diversity that the Rainbow flag has become for the GLBT community. It primarily started as a Gay symbol, and there are variations of it - a Bi flag, a Trans flag...but the over arching original has for me, personally, gone far beyond merely the GLBT community and simply means the diversity of the human spirit. As an artist, the rainbow means the colors that I use to create art, to share my gift and feed my soul as I paint. And now it has a new meaning...

That moment of unlooked for grace and peace at Dreamweavers side was a moment of great blessing. The next time I see the rainbow take the heavens again, it is to this moment and to her that my thoughts shall turn.

Watch the world around you...grace is not measured in minute miserly amounts, through those who would meet it out in sound bytes under their control. Grace is a cataract of blessing pouring across the world, given to all that lives and breathes. The only thing that can exclude grace is our own business and preoccupation, lost in mundanity and stress. The moment of eternity given to those of us stranded in time, the great blessing will come - be open to it. Be willing to see it. And the rainbow will arch again...