Words + Images

The man with whom I am involved I tend to describe as a science guy who works with light.  He says that’s not quite accurate but it works for me.  Since the beginning of our relationship we have  shared many an illuminated experience that we have described quite differently.  There was the infamous halo around the moon.  I will forever describe sunlight on water as “dancing” but now I also see the resulting light-filled ripples as “caustic.”  Most recently we have talked of rainbows.

I see rainbows all around on earth.  I am amazed at the places I find them like on the back of this silver tray left forgotten in a corner closet.   Or the rainbows formed on the surface of CDs left out of their case on a table near a sunny window.

I see them less often in the sky mostly because I usually have my head ducked down in the rain. And that is the source of rainbows in the sky, my science guy reminded me at the dinner table recently, rainbows are formed by sunlight striking raindrops in the air.  White light is divided into all its splendid colors.  I listened attentively as he described how the water drops act as prisms, how light is refracted not reflected, and so on and so forth.  It was like a cool Cliff Notes version of The Science of Rainbows 101.

As the lecture wrapped, I stood up, my mind swimming with the science of it all.  Suddenly my guy added, “Of course, my dear, you do realize that there were no rainbows before Noah and his ark.”  He smiled gently.  “Or so that story goes.”  With an exaggerated sigh, I sat back down.  “Remind me of that story please.”  You see, my science guy’s bookshelves are not only filled with the science writings of Feynman and Einstein, they are also filled with the religious writing of Chesterton, Crossan and even a little Thicht Nhact Hanh.  It is amazing to walk in this world with this fellow (and with others) and to have my eyes and mind and even on occasion my heart opened to the different ways of experiencing the world, even something so seemingly simple as a rainbow.

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