I spent an hour listening to and watching various videos of the song “What A Wonderful World” on YouTube today.  I encourage everyone to take the time to do the same sometime.

A few days ago, I was floating in the ocean and it started to rain.  It was a gentle mist so I was surprised by the sound of girls squealing as they ran out of the water to get out of the rain.   How funny?  They were in the ocean all wet and they were concerned because it had started to rain.

It left the entire ocean to me (at least as far as I could see).  The mist then formed a rainbow.  The right side of the rainbow rested over my own beach house.  I couldn’t see where the left side rested.  It was out of sight somewhere in the gentle hills of the town.

I laid back and thought about what a wonderful world we live in. 

I thought about all of the rainbows that form all over the world every minute of every day. 

I thought about the babies crying and the bluebirds flying. 

I thought about the rugged coast of Northern California in the winter and how awesome the white waves are as they crash against the windswept trees which cling desparately to the rocky shores. 

I thought about how hot and barren and beautiful the Arizona and New Mexico deserts are in the mid-summer afternoon when only the lizards dare to expose themselves to the hot arrid sun. 

I thought about the pure joy I feel as we take the small boat on the six mile trip from Grand Cayman to stingray city and how I always recognize the perfectly formed and still clouds in the sky above that sea even years between visits.  Those clouds have never moved and I doubt they ever will.   They will be there to welcome me on my next visit to that paradise.

I pondered how so many people worry about so many things.  I pondered why I was alone in that ocean and free from worry and then thought about that day I vowed to never worry again.

It was easy.  I had lost everything and then I was suddenly wrapped in the warm blanket of God’s love.  I knew then and I know now that there is simply nothing to ever worry about.

On that day when I had lost everything including my own sanity, I was rescued by the love of God and led to food (good food), shelter (that reminded me of the dorms at my favorite summer camp as a child) and people who loved God and me and would help me understand that there is never anything to ever worry about.

On that day, I flew over the rainbow and realized how wonderful our world is.  I realized the divinity in all of us and realized that anything we can conceive of is possible.  And I set upon the journey that always results when one starts to challenge that reality by trying to conceive of purely impossible things… and then to experience them in reality.

I have lived in paradise ever since.  The scenes of paradise change constantly.  Sometimes the dessert.  Sometimes rural snow blown mountains snuggled up in a bean bag near the wood stove in the log home miles from anything and anywhere.  Sometimes the sea shore.  Sometimes the jungle.  Always over the rainbow in a truly wonderful world.

Sometimes friends and family ask me when I’m going to come back or when I’m going to “settle down.”   Of course it’s impossible for someone who has flown over the rainbow to ever come back.   We are always “settled down” since the entire world is our home and a gift from God Himself.

The day I became homeless was the first day I ever realized that I was truly home and could never be homeless ever again. 

It was the day I flew over the rainbow and saw the wonderful world we live in. 

I can never go back any more than a rainbow can become solid and “settle down” in one place.

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