“The true harvest of my life is intangible — a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have  clutched.”

– Henry David Thoreau

We had just finished eating supper at the end of another 90-degree day.  As we collected the dishes, we noticed that there was no sunlight streaming through the kitchen window.  I glanced at the clock to see whether I had lost track of time, which is easy to do on a long summer day.  It was still barely seven o’clock, and the sun would not set for more than an hour.

I walked outside, and immediately felt the hair on my arms stand up straight.  The western sky was charcoal gray, and blacker clouds swirled in like smoke making it darker by the moment.  I was just thinking that there was a lot of electricity in the air, when I heard the first distant rumble of thunder. This wasn’t the first storm that had lurked in the area this week, and the others had managed to blow past us without leaving behind so much as a drop of rain.  Leaving the electrified clouds behind, we returned to our kitchen tasks.  Leaves began to blow past the window, whipped from the treetops by the gathering winds.  At ground level, though, the air stood still and silent.  I wondered how high I would have to climb before the wind would touch my face and bring welcome relief from the hot, humid evening.

Suddenly, the sky lit up from horizon to horizon and thunder exploded without delay.  Rain began to pelt the windows with such force that we looked to see whether hailstones were lying on the grass.  In a matter of seconds, our thirsty world was drenched.  Rivers of rain spewed from the downspouts and ran down the street gutters to the storm drain at the end of the block.  As the storm’s energy found its outlet, the rain became steady and less violent; and we adjusted ourselves to the change in the weather.  For thirty minutes a welcome, soaking rain replenished the grass and the garden and me.  As suddenly as it had begun, that was how gradually it tapered to a trickle and left the world clean and still.

As the storm ended, another sort of energy called me outside.  It was nothing as wild as the electricity that earlier had pulled at my skin.  This was a siren-song, irresistible and beautiful and floating on the breeze.  As I turned the corner of the wraparound porch, I saw it — a rainbow with not one arc but two — stretching from earth to the clouds and back to earth again.  I ran inside and grabbed my camera, hoping to capture the moment so that others might see it as well.  My lens was not able to take it all in at once.  The limits of a camera are far too confining for a rainbow of this magnitude.

For more than ten minutes I watched it glow, growing sharp and then dim and then vibrant again as the swirling clouds danced in the light of the setting sun and brought it to life.  The photos are pretty, but they cannot begin to capture the experience of standing underneath the magnificent arc that bridged heaven and earth and invited me into its magic as well.  The pictures may be tangible, but Thoreau was right about the experience of a rainbow — it is clutched by the heart and it feeds the spirit and draws us into the place where we know that the universe is far greater than the world we call home.  We must not miss these chances to connect with the depth of the beauty of Creation.  We must seize every moment available to us to gather some stardust or grasp a rainbow.

Last night a rainbow came close enough for me to clutch it, if only for a short time.  Today I will walk, wrapped in the promise delivered by the beauty of the remnants of a storm.

“Walk on a rainbow trail; walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty.  There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail”

— Robert Motherwell.