Category: color

Posted in color, jesus, rainbow

Tourist captures spectacular ‘fire rainbow cloud’ phenomenon on camera

Posted on by elizabethprata
A few days ago I posted about physicists who believe they have discovered a parallel universe bumping into ours. I’d written about what the Bible says about heaven, wondered where heaven is, and how much different the laws of physics might be within it. Mostly, I wondered if God’s heaven is immediately next to us, not just parallel, but in amongst us, just invisible due to being in another dimension.

Today a friend sent me a neat story from the Caribbean. “Tourist captures spectacular ‘fire rainbow cloud’ phenomenon on camera“. The story isn’t being put forward as a spectacular sign from God or anything like that. The sub-hed to the headline states, “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the stunning sky display.“

There are two interesting things to me about the story. First, the rainbow-cloud phenomenon photographed there is pretty. I like pretty.

Telegraph UK

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Telegraph UK

The meteorological explanation for the rainbow cloud is pretty simple. As it’s stated in the Telegraph article,

“In clouds, iridescence is a by-product of sunlight being diffracted by water droplets or ice crystals, causing the various wavelengths of light, which we see as colours, to emerge at different angles,” he said.

“As they reach the observer’s eye, the observer perceives a pattern of various colours as those different wavelengths reach his or her eye from distinct directions, rather than being jumbled together and appearing whitish.”

The second thing I thought of when I saw this photo and read the explanation for its appearance, is that the colors are there all along. It’s the angle which makes the difference. It is all about the light- when and at which angle it penetrates the wavelength.

It’s like the kingdom of God. It is there all along, we just can’t see it until the Light penetrates our eyes at a different angle. This is true in a twofold way. The first way the Light penetrates us is by faith, when faith comes. Paul experienced that on the road to Damascus in a vivid and physical way. The Light appeared and he was struck blind for three days, as Jesus spoke to him directly. Then the scales fell from Paul’s eyes and he could see. For the rest of us, faith comes in a metaphorically similar way- the scales fall from our eyes when we repent, and we can “see” Jesus, spiritually.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

The second way the Light comes and illuminates what is already there is when we die, or when we are raptured alive to see Jesus in the future. We will finally be able to physically see by sight what was there all along, the parallel universe which is God’s heaven. We will see Jesus, we will see the New Jerusalem, we will see the amazing creatures who have six wings and wheels within wheels, we will be able to see all of it. It already exists, of course, it is present in real form. We just can’t see it, like we usually cannot see all the colors of the spectrum in a white cloud.

But when the angle changes and suddenly we’re surrounded by iridescent Light, spectacular beauty and color, hallelujah!

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:2)

Set your eyes on things above, too! You never know, while you’re privileged to see a rare rainbow cloud, you just might also see Jesus returning to gather His loved ones!

Posted in color, encouragement

Color in heaven: follow up

Posted on by elizabethprata
EPrata photo

I wrote an essay on the subject of the color green in heaven. Green as in green pastures, green things to eat the Lord gave us in Genesis 1:29, green in emerald (like the emerald rainbow surrounding the throne and in the foundation of the new city), etc.

I was thinking about “green.”

I pondered the beauty of the green in Ireland. The hues there are so different than the green pastures here, and if it is that beautiful in ‘The Emerald Isle’, how much more beautiful will it be in heaven? I’d posted a short quote from Randy Alcorn from his book Heaven, and in the quote he quoted himself from Dominion. It’s encouraging to think of what is ahead of us.

In response to my essay, a commenter gave me this really interesting comment. I had never thought of this but isn’t this absolutely true:

“Elizabeth, Thanks so much for this blog! Did you ever think about how all our colors on earth are dependent on our light sources–the sun, incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, . . . But in our eternal home, according to Rev. 22:5, “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.” Think about what effect that will have on colors! An infinitely superior LIGHT SOURCE creating colors beyond our earthly imaginations!“

Wow! I had never thought of that! The light source is all-important in the range of colors we are able to see. Colors look like they do because of the source and type of light hitting the retina. The ranges of Ultraviolet light and Infrared light are much wider than we are currently able to see. Once the Light Source is pure (Jesus) and we see through His pure and holy light, imagine what we will be able to view, including new colors!

EPrata photo

You see, you probably already know this, so pardon me if I’m repeating myself, the brain and the eye, specifically the retina and the fovea, translate light into colors. Color actually originates in light. It bounces to the object and then to our eye. What we are seeing is actually the reflection off the bounce, and the color reflected to us is only as good as the original light source.

That’s why paint helpers at Sherwin-Williams tell new homeowners to paint a swatch on their wall and look at it at different times of day. The brightness and angle of the light will make the color appear different at each time.

Imagine when we are glorified and the full spectrum of light is now reflecting the purest, most holy and good light there can be! What will we see THEN?! So. Many. Colors.

It’s gonna be GREAT!

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FMI:

“How the Eye Sees Color”

Color originates in light. Sunlight, as we perceive it, is colorless. In reality, a rainbow is testimony to the fact that all the colors of the spectrum are present in white light. As illustrated in the diagram below, light goes from the source (the sun) to the object (the apple), and finally to the detector (the eye and brain).

1. All the “invisible” colors of sunlight shine on the apple.

2. The surface of a red apple absorbs all the colored light rays, except for those corresponding to red, and reflects this color to the human eye.

3. The eye receives the reflected red light and sends a message to the brain.

The most technically accurate definition of color is:
“Color is the visual effect that is caused by the spectral composition of the light emitted, transmitted, or reflected by objects.”

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Impossible Colors

Train yourself to see impossible colors

How many colors are really in a rainbow?

Posted in color, emerald rainbow, encouragement, green, jesus

Heaven and the color green

Posted on by elizabethprata
Remains of the 12th-century Trim Castle in County Meath,
the largest Norman castle in Ireland

They call Ireland “The Emerald Isle” for its deep green, undulating countryside. The island nation was first nicknamed the Emerald Isle sometime around 1780 in a poem by William Drennan called “When Erin First Rose.” Here is the first stanza
By

When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood,
God bless’d the green island and saw it was good;
The em’rald of Europe, it sparkled and shone,
In the ring of the world the most precious stone. …

I’ve never been to Ireland but I’ve been to Scotland and the north of England. The green hills of Scotland were tremendously vibrant. Perhaps it was the quality of the northern sunrays bouncing off the grass, or the mystery of travel exhilarating my emotions, but it seemed to be to be a quality of green like no other place I’d ever been. The green there calms the eye, soothes the soul, envelops the body is its aura.

One of my favorite verses in the bible is in Revelation.

And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. (Revelation 4:3)

Green Pastures, river Severn at Caersws, Rod Trevaskus, CC

I love that emerald rainbow. When I pray I envision Jesus sitting on the throne, accepting prayer, listening, and the emerald rainbow all around Him.

I wonder what the color green will look like, up there. The bible says-

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—(1 Corinthians 2:9)

I suppose even the color green as we know it will be startlingly different. There will be precious stones in the foundations of the city walls, including emerald-

The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, (Revelation 21:19)

Benbulbin Mountain, County Sligo, Ireland. Public Domain

Dictionaries – Easton’s Bible Dictionary – Emerald

Heb. nophek (Exodus 28:18; 39:11); i.e., the “glowing stone”, … a precious stone in the breastplate of the high priest. It is mentioned (Revelation 21:19) as one of the foundations of the New Jerusalem. The name given to this stone in the New Testament Greek is smaragdos, which means “live coal.”

Lucifer walked among the precious stones in heaven, including emeralds. (Ez 28:14). They adorned him.

You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. (Ezekiel 28:13)

The breastplate of the High Priest was adorned with precious stones, four rows of three stones each.

the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald;(Exodus 28:17)

Public Domain. Green Pasture, Ireland

Originally, God gave to man every green plant for food. (Genesis 1:30) When judgment came, God sent locusts to eat every green thing. (Exodus 10:15). Green is often used in the bible to represent clean growth, and goodness. (Psalm 52:8, Proverbs 11:28)

I suppose the most famous mention of green in the bible is Psalm 23

The Lord Is My Shepherd
A Psalm of David.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake

Randy Alcorn, who specializes in the study of heaven, wrote the non-fiction book called Heaven, and the fiction book Dominion. In Heaven, Alcorn said,

In the same way that the New Earth will be refashioned and still be a true Earth, with continuity to the old, the new cosmic heavens will likewise be the old renewed. In my novel Dominion I try to depict this in a scene in which Jesus takes a woman who has died to a new world:

Eventually they arrived on a world more beautiful than Dani could fathom—cascading waterfalls, rainbows of a hundred colors, mountain peaks five times higher than any on earth. Oceans with blue-green water, and waves crashing upon rocks the Page 4
size of mountains. Grassy meadows, fields of multicolored flowers—colors she had never seen before. This place seemed somehow familiar to her, yet how could it, since it was like nothing she’d ever seen? Still, she felt profoundly at home.

I believe this also. I think there will be the color green in the New Earth. Only better. Different, but the same. What will the emerald green of heaven look like? If the photos above are so beautiful, what awaits? An emerald sparkles. Green pastures are restful. The described emerald rainbow around the throne must be incredible. Yet, even then, the bible says we cannot imagine what awaits us.

No eye has seen, until we go home, that is! Then thanks to the blessed Savior atoning for our sin, and having prepared a place for us, we WILL see. What a day that will be.