Before lockdown Level 4 we at KPC had a service of worship in which our 70+ers were asked not to attend… it was a difficult space and the children made rainbows for folk to take home and hang in their windows… a sign of hope for those walking past. At that stage, I don’t think any of us really grasped how significant windows would become in our lives -as we would walk each day around our own local communities. We bought a large wooden rainbow which I used in that last children’s talk just before lockdown, and we then put it in our living room as our own personal reminder of hope.

Early on in lockdown, Reuben was playing with the rainbow and formed a colourful koru design with it. I took a photo of it and it seems timely now to go back to that image and reflect on it. In this redesign of the rainbow, hope becomes a journey of growth. It is an image that also reminds me of the labyrinth -another image of journeying, inward and outward.

Isaiah 40: 31 tells us that those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. I had not really grasped how much movement there is in this image until now. Soaring, running, walking... Hope brings movement. It is the loss of hope that so often brings stagnation and paralysis. Perhaps hope is the best remedy for our fears, enabling us to move forward, however tentatively.