Solstice rainbow

[kate_schaefer]

I've seen many and many and many late afternoon or early evening rainbows. I must have seen some morning rainbows before today, but I cannot remember doing so. It was a hard, brief rain with large drops, the sun low and late in the east, an arc clear across the western sky, and us looking at just the right moment.

Comments

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool. Here's hoping it's also one of those Noachide covenant thingies -- a sign from the Big Juju Guy that things will suck less from now on.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I had a moment of thinking I didn't know that word and would have to look it up, and then realized that it's obvious from spelling and context. How often do you get to use Noachide appropriately?

There are times when I wish I could believe in the Big Juju Guy, and other times when I realize I'd have to be angry all the time if I did believe in one, so it's much better for me and the world that I don't. To believe in God and see the world clearly at the same time; what a tragedy that would be.

[(Anonymous)]

How often do you get to use Noachide appropriately?

Depends on the weather.

To believe in God and see the world clearly at the same time; what a tragedy that would be.

I know what you mean, and yet there seem to be a rare few who manage both while remaining positive. Much depends, I suspect, on the additional belief in the overwhelmingly redemptive power of Heaven, and/or one's relationship with God. In a nutshell, it depends on being able to believe that the experience of the direct relationship with God in the afterlife is so boundlessly joyous that it will overwhelm absolutely any amount of corporeal suffering. It's a tall order, for me at least, but I don't think it's an incoherent view.

Actually, the most recent "This I Believe" essay I heard this week was on faith, and it was quite marvelous. I'll post you a link if I can find it.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, bugger. Dis is me. So was dat dere. Yoiks.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

So, it's only glancingly tangential to the Problem of Evil, but here's the link to that This I Believe essay I mentioned. I very much like the guy's approach to belief, and I have to say I suspect he sees the world pretty clearly.

I suspect you might like his approach, too. It might fairly be boiled down to, "It's more complicated than that."

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

The Slog has a picture of a rainbow from this morning -- possibly the same one you saw.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

What a great picture. Thanks, Randy. When I saw it, there was only one rainbow, whole sky. I wish I'd seen the double rainbow, but I'm happy it showed up in the photo.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Lovely! And not three hours ago I read Daily Alice's rainbow story in Little, Big:

"Then I looked west: there was a rainbow. I remembered what my mother said: morning rainbow in the west, then the weather will be best.... It was a rainbow, but bright, and it looked like it came down just -- there, you know, not far; I could see the grass, all sparkling and stained every color there. The sky had got big, you know, the way it does when it clears at last after a long rainy time, and everything looked near; the place the rainbow came down was near; and I wanted more than anything to go stand in it -- and look up -- and be covered with colors." (pages 14-15)

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Ron. That is a beautiful passage.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I saw it too! What a beautiful thing to see on the winter solstice morning.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it?

I do not know why it gives me pleasure to know that some of my friends have also seen something beautiful I have seen. It's a fairly simple pleasure, so understanding it should be fairly simple. Oh, all right. It is simple. It's also complex. It is not, however, a breath mint.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

That shared pleasure is why we would call each other at times about transient meteorological phenomena, or why we went to look at the Perseids together. Yeah!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Back when I worked for the Executive Officer of Physics, at Caltech, I was working in my office late one afternoon, when a secretary from over in the other wing tumbled into my office, hollered, "Run up to the roof, quick!" and dashed away again. So I ran up to the roof.

From up on the roof, looking away toward the San Gabriel mountains, I saw simply the most amazing rainbow ever. It was double -- mirror image like a giant 'M' -- and both halves were complete end-to-end arcs, and so strong and bright that they looked electric. Also from the roof I could see bunches of other Caltech people -- staff, faculty, and students -- out on the quads, up on the rooves, all having dropped their other stuff to go look at the rainbow.

So, yeah. Sharing stuff is good.