Newtown

This week has had both difficult and joyous days. I joined with others watching the children of our church perform their Christmas play on Sunday night. My heart was warmed and blessed and I was so thankful for them. Then there was Friday; the day a near same number of children was torn from their Connecticut families in a horrific massacre.  Such contrasts overwhelm us, least it does me.

Certainly I was as stunned as everyone else with the senseless carnage that was wrought on such innocent and helpless people by a confused and disturbed man…boy.

Being a pastor, I have searched for appropriate words to say, but mostly I  have just been led to weep and pray for all of those effected. No matter, for it seems that there are plenty of people who have plenty of words to say.

Off-handedly I caught the comments of a FOX news anchor who said this: “Many people who do not profess faith, always seem to reach for it in times like these.” I thought to myself, well of course they do. What else is there? Will cracking down on gun laws help the grieving heart? Will a presidential visit make it all better? Will a thousand new mental institutions with hundreds of new treatments restore what has been lost?

People may check the “none” box for religious affiliation on personal information sheets, but when their very lives have been broken beyond belief, God is to whom they turn. There is nowhere else to go, is there?!

Today I’m very much in prayer for the clergy people who are conducting the funerals of those who died. I cannot imagine conducting 7 funerals in one week as I heard Father Weiss, of St. Rose of Lima in Newtown is charged with doing. God help all who are serving these families. May God have mercy and bring steadiness, strength and the grace of Christ to all.

 

Today, I am revisioning the little ones who died. They are with the Lord. I know that beyond any doubt. Even though I did not know them at all, I'm thankful for their lives. I am also thankful for the grace to know that God loves them and has them tucked safely in his arms. May I also have the grace to know that God loves Adam Lanza, and through that same grace may I forgive him for what he did to the innocent little ones.

 

Wow! Chills!

May we all join together to praise God!

Morning Bow!

The bow will be in the clouds, and upon seeing it I will remember the enduring covenant between God and every living being of all the earth’s creatures. Gen 9:16 (CEV)

 

You can ask Ed, my husband, and he will tell you I am crazy about rainbows. Of all the physical phenomena that appear in the sky from time to time, I love them the best. As he knows, I will run him all over the beach just to see one over the water, or anywhere for that matter.

I’ve seen a lot of rainbows because I know when they will normally appear. They will pop up when the sun is at or close to the horizon and shining towards the water in the eastern sky. This happens just after a storm passes from west to east and the sky has cleared in the west and is still cloudy in the east.

Frequently I have seen rainbows at times when people I know have passed. That has happened on four distinct occasions, the most notable was when my sweet aunt Nib died. As we were traveling to her memorial service, God delivered a brilliant double rainbow. I’ll never forget that one.

Another double one I saw was over the ocean when I was with my home church on a mission trip in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Did you know that a double rain bow reverses colors? From indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red to the reverse, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo. I photographed one of them once.

But, by far the neatest one I’ve seen I saw this morning. About 7:15am I happened to walk out to the car to retrieve some towels and looked up to the western sky, and there was a rainbow! It was amazing! No rain, no late evening storm, nothing usual about it. I ran inside like a freak, grabbed my camera and shot a picture of it. If you look closely, you can see the second one. It was gone in three minutes.

 

When I see a rainbow I always think of God’s promise to the earth, and I am reminded of God’s promises to me. I think I chase rainbows, because I love to chase God and catch God in one of those creative moments that are uniquely divine…like this morning when I saw the morning bow in the western sky when it had not rained at all.