We have been privileged to live in some very beautiful places. In each place we have lived we have had access to the natural world and the ability to appreciate the outdoors. And each place was unique. There have been differences in the places we have lived that we noticed right away. In Chicago, the lakeshore provided a definite end to the city that was accessible to us. We could walk to the shore and put the city behind us. It was an important part of the city for this country boy who thrived in the academic atmosphere of the school, but wrestled with urban living. It seemed to be that we were constantly surrounded by locked doors and that our space was so small. Our tiny efficiency apartment reminded us constantly that we were in a place with a lot of other people. But the lakeshore gave us access to open space and places that were not filled with people. North Dakota gave us the gift of wide open spaces. Idaho gave us access to the mountains without living in the mountains. I was amazed that I could mow my lawn and go skiing in the same day. South Dakota surrounded us with the Black Hills and warmed us with milder winters than our North Dakota days. And here we walk to the seashore and cross an international border in just minutes.

There are other changes that come with moves that take time for me to notice. I remember walking down the street in Boise, Idaho one day and thinking, “The wind never blows here.” I think I had lived there for more than a year and suddenly I began to miss the wind. I never fully adjusted to living in a place that isn’t very windy. When we moved from Idaho to South Dakota I would go outside and stand facing into the wind and feel gratitude for fresh air.

Yesterday was a drizzly and rainy day most of the day here. The forecast predicted a let up in the rain in the late afternoon and so we planned to walk than, but as the time approached the forecast changed and we resolved to walk in the rain. We dressed in our rain gear, but it wasn’t raining hard and when we got to the beach we turned and looked back up the hill and were greeted by a full rainbow over the beach houses. It was glorious. And I realized that we don’t get to see many rainbows in this place.

You might think that we’d see a lot of rainbows. After all it rains quite a bit here. But the rain here is different. I’ve lived a lot of my life on the east slope of hills and mountains. For most of the summer in those places the cumulus clouds build over the mountains during the warm afternoons and late in the afternoon the tops reach up into the upper atmosphere and are pushed off to the east by the jet stream. Underneath those clouds we got a regular dose of thunder and lightning, rain and hail before they blew off to the east. When they did, the sky turned very dark to the east, but the Sun appeared as it set in the west and the low light angle combined with the contrast of sun in one direction and cloud in the other. The light traveling through the water vapor in the air painted dramatic rainbows on the dark clouds. Rainbows are a real challenge to photograph. My friend Johnny Sundby is a professional photographer who got good at capturing images of rainbows and he took several photographs, including on with a rainbow stretching over the outdoor cross at our church, that I love.

Here, however, we have days when it is cloudy from east to west and north to south and we get rain without rainbows. Like the wind I missed when we lived in Idaho, I realized yesterday that I miss the rainbows.

Rainbows, of course have been important symbols for our people for thousands of years. Our forebears saw rainbows as signs of God’s promise and each one reminded them that God promised not to end all life with judgment and destruction after a great flood that caused people to fear extinction. Our people were telling that story to our children for thousands of years before Jesus was born and we’ve been telling it ever since as well.

Rainbows always make me think of our dear friend Shirley. It was about this time of the year when she died suddenly. She had spent the day preparing for a special trip, going to the travel agent and purchasing tickets to travel from her home in Australia to Greece for the destination wedding of her grandson. And then a vessel in her brain burst and she collapsed. She was rushed to the hospital but never regained consciousness. As we mourned her death, we remembered how much she loved rainbows and we began to see her and her daughter who had preceded her in death in every rainbow that we saw. Rainbows became a sign for us that life does not end with death. The presence of these two beloved continued to shape our lives and rainbows reminded us of a truth we had discovered in the seasons of grief.

And so I thought of Shirley and Leanne as I stood with my back to the sea delighting in the brilliance of the rainbow. Gratitude for the beauty I was beholding blended with gratitude for the people who have shaped my life with grace and love. God is present in all of creation and God is love. The rainbow is a gift that seems even more precious in this place where there are days when I miss the rainbows of prairie thunderstorms. Rainbows may be less common here than there, but God’s presence is as real and as available here as any other place.

As the years pass my memories become richer and fuller as I add experience upon experience. The list of loving people who precede me in death becomes longer and longer. I know that I am not separated from them, but part of that long line of mortal humans. One day my time will come, but for now I can delight in the gift of rainbows and memories and the loved ones with whom I share both.