Blog article from https://arocha.ca/

How Kermit the Frog triggered a Grace Glimmer

View Larger Image

How Kermit the Frog triggered a Grace Glimmer

Reflections from our Nature Journaling Weekend
Written by Cindy Verbeek (Northern BC Manager)

June 2025

You’ve heard of triggers but this weekend someone told me about glimmers. Like a trigger, a glimmer brings on a flood of emotions, but unlike a trigger, a glimmer is a beautiful, healing, sensation of “all is right with the world”.

This weekend Kermit the frog triggered a glimmer full of grace for a small group of us. Here’s how it happened:

Wandering past the Directors Cabin at Camp Caledonia where he was part of a Nature Journaling retreat, a young participant who struggling with artist’s block, heard a melodic tune wafting from the balcony asking about songs and rainbows, beliefs and its affects on the cosmos. While not the charismatic, wise green soul of The Muppet world, the owner of the voice was just as wise and charismatic if not quite so green. In his seventies, this participant was practising for the upcoming campfire sing-along, serenading the alder flycatcher & tree swallow flitting past his cabin.

“Now there’s an idea,” thought the younger of the two, and he grabbed his phone to look up a picture of Kermit the Frog – the original singer of the song “Rainbow Connection”.

Tools in hand and skills learned at the sketching and water color portion of the retreat, he began to form the image in his journal. The beloved muppet began to take shape with the loose, gesture drawing strokes he learned in sketching class. The head needed a bit of extra TLC but it was finally just right and could be secured with a black pen. Kermit, now solidified on the page accompanied our young participant to the evening’s next activity – the campfire sing along. He wasn’t sure about the singing – it was all a bit too kumbaya for his GenX/Millennial countenance but his Mom was there and he wanted to make her happy.

During “the tuning song” the conversation meandered to Kermit and it was decided that the first song had to be the one that had triggered pencil on paper earlier that day.

“Why are there so many, songs about rainbows?”, the informal string band strummed, the ukuleles and guitar leading the handful of singers which were gathered around the flickering fire.

“Rainbows are vision, but only illusions and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong wait and see
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers and me.”

As the song went on the group sang out with contentment and joy. As the last La da da de da da do was sung a squeal of delight sprung from one person’s lips as she exclaimed, “A rainbow!”

Sure enough, very faintly the colors could be seen against the hillside across the lake. Guitars placed down, fire light forgotten for a moment as we all dashed to the shoreline to get a better view. The rainbow grew in depth and richness, the colors becoming more vivid with each moment. As it danced and swayed before our eyes, reflecting its beauty on the lake’s surface, a second rainbow broke out next to the first, fainter but still there. Two otters created a ripply ‘V’ through the reflection of the water and went about their evening. A red-necked grebe approached. An eagle soared overhead.

It was as if all of creation were singing with us and God was joining in our laughter and delight – all converging on this one moment of deep connection with each other and the land. We had opened our hearts and minds to creation and it answered. Glimmering the grace of God down on us in a shower of gifts.

We went back to the circle and continued singing. We ended with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to honor this special moment and as the final note rang through the night a loon called its haunting call and all was well with the world.

Mary-Ruth Low2025-06-18T10:51:46-07:00June 18th, 2025|