Page 36 - Contrast2007

had also moved on to other things. Kurds in whose existence I doubted at least as often as
Iraq, I think, or Congressman Foley's overly I accepted, wanted to be really sure I got the
friendly emails to teenage boys. The other message.
important things happening in early October, .h

Which brings me to the part where I w~s
two thousand and six years after the birth of to discuss my gratitude. Given my relative
some people's Lord. I was no longer giving chronology at this transition from the mod-
the radio my full attention.
ern to postmodern world, or rational to post-
On the gray side of the sky, cracks were rational, or postmodern to postpostmodern,
beginning to appear. Light was filtering and my consequent constant confUSI.OI 1abodu?t
through the clouds. Not pure, unadulterat- the exact status of God - dead? resurrecte .
ed light, not the beams that sometimes shine omnipresent? internal? - I find this section
through humid air to appear as a single unin- to be the most difficult. Let me say, then, that
terrupted shaft, this light was fractured into I am grateful.
its many colors, each separate but continuous. .'

Let it be assumed that this gratitude 15
This light was curved. In English, we call this all-encompassing. Let us skim over the part
a rainbow. In the western tradition, we have about the objects of my thanks, both di1r~ct
a story that God gives
and indirect - that IS,
us a rainbow after the
both whom I thank and
rain as a sign of his
promise that he will I was thinking about God's what that whom is be-
ing thanked for. Pleas.e
never again flood the
promise, which I, myself insert here whatever It
earth. This is some-
thing we all used to had never believed. It is you feel to be appr~i
know but now no lon- occurred to me that even
ger believe. priate , whatever WIur

This rainbow most enhance yo
stretched from the ho- reading of this passage
rizon all the way to
the single crack in the if I did believe, it hadn't in this would-be poem
gray sky. And when rained, at least not on me.
the road curved, I saw that seems to have be-
come ins tea d a seldf-

obsessed essay, an'
ll
mostly, whatever
WI

make you think most fa-
that there was another crack in the gray sky, vorably of me, the author of these ungenred
and that the rainbow continued through it so words. The only thm. g I ask you to rem ember
that only the top of the arc was hidden, and
is this vague feeling of vast gratitude. d
that fractured light touched the horizon in
two places. And also, of course, What Happe~e ~

Like a responsible driver, I tried to keep I want you to remember that, too. Here :he
my eyes on the road, at least most of the time.
recap: I was driving to work; I saw that r:
I was thinking about God's promise, which I, .d the ortahdeiOr-
myself, had never believed. It occurred to me sky was blue on one e, gray o~
SI
that even if I did believe, it hadn't rained, at
least not on me. I heard on calmly-delivered national
that there was a school shooting in close geo-
graphic proximity to my locati.on. I.n close. rI

As if this wasn't enough, I then saw an- geographic proximity to a place I have been,
other rainbow, behind the first. The second saw two rainbows. That Happened. . con-

rainbow was not as bright, did not make a And then I drove the rest of the In in

complete arc, but still, it was there. As if this venient drive to work, and I spent my ~a~ at
God whose promise I had never believed, thick-walled buildings, and I barely 100 e
the sky.

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