19/02/2024 – “…the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me”

I continue to noodle on Matthew 5:45: What do you get when you have sunshine and rain? Rainbows. This was a “rainbow” week, one of colour and wonder.

Wednesday was Valentine’s Day; also a Day of Tribute to the Murdered, Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and also, the start of Lent. Love present, incarnate: in relationship, in loss, in sacrifice. There was a lot to process and even more to feel.

The first time I received the imposition of ashes was in the 20-teens. Passing through Miami airport I saw, amid the terminal traffic, a woman standing on the concourse with a little bowl. I knew immediately why she was there. I stopped to receive the sign of the cross. Unexpected, and in that place of hustle, strangers and transition, it had profound impact. I love the phrase “imposition” of ashes: something unwanted, uninvited, that, on Ash Wednesday, is, instead, sought out.

At Knox, I received my ashes mixed with a little holographic glitter. It made the charcoal sparkle and refract the light. A reminder that what remains is love, and that love in this world comes in many colours.

On Sunday, I led the Bible Study group, discussing Genesis 9:8-17. That’s the bit where God re-covenants with all the living things that emerged from the ark, into a world with its past washed away, sealed with a rainbow – a reminder to all, God included, of the possibility of reconciliation and new beginnings.

Being a vegetarian, it pains me that this new life includes meat-eating (Genesis 9:3), God having created all creatures as vegans in Genesis 1. This new beginning includes within it new predations, exploitations - as they all do, even (especially?) the Biblical ones. Acknowledging that is key to honouring our place, our privileges and duties within the whole. And God provides ritual to moderate the (inter)dependencies (Genesis 9:4-6). It’s potent stuff, directly linked to “my” verse: if sun+rain=rainbow, God’s “indifference” over who gets warm/wet becomes a global promise to Creation itself, and a demand for us to do better.

Carey and I drove from Toronto to Vancouver in January 2020. What I remember most are rainbows, refracted in the ice-dry Saskatchewan sky. The snow curled across the highway like smoke and above, backlit by the winter sun, rainbows, back-to-back, at 90 degrees to the white ground. Mesmerised, I had/have never seen anything like it. As he was driving, it was fortunate Carey had seen it all before.

In his reflection yesterday, Rev. Tony Snow shared that First Nations people understand Lent as aligned to their traditional vision quests. To the Stoney, the East Wind is the Wind of Vision. As we walk the camino, we travel from East to West, literally “walking into the sunset”, an ending, and also a chance for reflection, renewal. East to West means we travel with the East Wind toward the horizon. Who knows what colours we will find there.