I remember as a child sitting on the deck with my siblings during thunder storms. I've always loved the smell of rain. We would make up what things were causing the thunder and lightning. Thunder was God rearranging his furniture. I don't remember what we thought the lightning was.

Wildfires destroy a lot of timber and any structures are in its path. Some are lightning strikes, but too many are caused by careless campers and hunters, and worst of all are the work of an arsonist. A couple of years ago a teenager tossed some fireworks down the hill into the dry forest, and thousands of acres in the Columbia Gorge were lost. The store was heroically saved, but the trail to the falls was closed. The cost of fighting the fires is astronomical.

But I always enjoy the gift of rainbows and the meaning and promise that they symbolize.

Jim