Rainbow friends in Ateneo

I once asked my mother why there was a rainbow after the rain. She just looked at me, a look dismissing any further inquiries from a curious kid. I assumed it was another topic old folks wanted to keep only for themselves, off-limits to kids. Since then, I never knew or asked why. For me, rainbows became babies; they appeared after the howl of the skies or a pregnant woman.

Not until I met Lanie, Mgee, Armie, Den-den, Nikki, and Chilet. Through them, I came to know the rainbow I regarded as of of life’s secrets. It was like reading the last few pages of a mystery book. Questions, doubts and complexities started to simmer down leading to a point of seizing the metaphor. I came to understand its fleeting beauty, its real temporariness, its colored prominence, and its metaphysical advent. Of course, I don’t mean the scientific side of the rainbow.

They provided me the awe I once had at the sight of a rainbow. “How come all those colors find their right places every time it appears? How each one carries its own uniqueness to a larger analogy. How they make sense together.”

After the Colloquium, we have been gathering as a group in our effort to sustain the chosen ministry. How it made me feel belonging to a wonderful creation. It’s lofty and earthly at the same time. Each one shines not to outshine each other but to highlight its own shining moment. My synergetic radiance does not shade the others instead it brightens them more.

Not all after-rain scenes promise a rainbow. In the same instance that not all the opportunities and chances to meet bring up togetherness. Casual, by chance meeting, we have to be content with that. In fact, we seldom meet now. Yet each meeting provides and/or revives the rainbow feeling in us. “Light and bubbly, refreshingly cool, heavenly joy, born to be wild.”

Presently, we work in one university in Naga City. We represent different offices doing dissimilar jobs. Though faced with a day-to-day job and individual tasks and activities, we can still squeeze out material time together to delight in the ordinariness of the day, to talk about what’s going on with us, to share the nuance and significance of our daily undertaking, and to render one’s self to others.

Though not a kid anymore, some rainbow questions still persist and linger like, “Is there a rainbow at night? Or is the end of a rainbow geographically raceable, thus gold can be found?” With or without, yes or no, amidst the rainbow confusion, I will never lose the connection of me with the rainbow “out there.” I am comforted and assured by the sight and company of my rainbow friends. With them, I feel connected with the beautiful creation and wonderful gift called rainbow, now no more a life’s secret.  11/20/01