"When a ray of light hits the natural vibrational note of an object, it alters the vibration; it becomes absorbed itself in this alteration and what is reflected outwards is the object's colour." John O'Donahue

   My five-year-old grandson asked me during a recent visit: "What happens if a rainbow bumps into another rainbow?" Dumbfounded by the beauty of his question (one which only a five-year-old could imagine) I couldn't think of an answer. So I asked him what he thought. "I guess it would be an even better rainbow," he said.  

   During his life in Ireland, John O'Donahue developed a deep appreciation of the land with forty shades of green and endless rainbows rising almost daily along the coast of the Irish Sea. His writing demonstrates remarkable insight into the nature of beauty and the colors our own vibrations reflect.

   Light enters us and, changed by its arrival in us, flies back out with a different hue, texture and shape. How does our spirit affect the light that travels through us? 

   A patient's agony delivers some mean shade of Dante's hell into a caregiver's eyes. What happens to this hard light after its encounter with a caregiver? When we are effective as healers, when we offer Love, the light softens and begins to change, even if the patient's pain has not yet vanished. 

   Pain is no more permanent than happiness. One day, all of us will be relieved of whatever pain this earth has laid upon us. Life's transitory happiness will also disappear, hopefully replaced by the beautiful eternity for which we pray. 

 
  Meanwhile, we have a chance to color the light that travels through us. When white light "bumps into" a prism, it travels out the other side as a rainbow. When light strikes the face of hatred, it reflects a terrible darkness.  

   Best of all, when Love's rainbow "bumps into our inner light," the magic of healing appears in the form of "a better rainbow." If we're lucky, we may even reflect back that rare sight known as a double rainbow.

-Erie Chapman