Of Promises and Rainbows

I think I've mentioned a time or three that my early school years were spent with the nuns. My mother is a rosary-a-day type, and no child of hers was going to set foot into the world without a firm grounding in Catholicism.

It didn't really take. Not because I lacked faith, but because I had too many questions not covered by the parochial school texts, which were long on dogma and short on specifics. The nuns kept referring me to the priest for answers. By sixth grade, both Father Maguire and I were tired of the dance, and we were both relieved when my family moved to Florida from New Jersey and I transferred into public school.

I mention this because remnants of my Catholic education still pop up at odd times.

Like this morning when I looked out at a dark and dreary world with yet more storm clouds gathering in the west.

We have had the wettest spring I can remember since moving into my present house more than ten years ago. It has rained nearly every day in May. My next door neighbor had a tree topple over this weekend--not from winds, but because the ground was soaked and the tree was top heavy from all the rain.

As I looked out on what will be yet another day of rain, I remembered Sister Mary Herminia saying that, following the Flood, God promised the world will never end by water again. The rainbow is a sign of that promise.

I, for one, am glad to know that.

Read on. Today is a two-post day.