The Color of You

My son’s class bought a caterpillar set and over the next few weeks, they watched as the caterpillars turned into butterflies. What fascinated them most were the colors of the butterflies. The teacher asked, “Why did God give these butterflies so many colors? He did not have to do it. So why did He?”

Has our Creator placed symbolism in this gift of colors? Let’s look at color and see.

Color consists of hue, saturation and intensity. Three separate aspects define one thing. Could this be another symbol of the Trinity? Dive into the sea of color with me…

Oddly enough, one of the best website for the definition of color is a software development website. (http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19954/0/page/6)

According to devx.com, hue is “the name of a distinct color of the spectrum—red, green, yellow, orange, blue, and so on. It is the particular wavelength frequency.” Without hue, there would be only black and white. If we associate God the Father with hue, then God gives color. He provides the canvas of the universe and then sprinkles us—color—throughout. Just as each color is unique, so are we. Without that color, we would remain black and white.

The same website defines saturation as the “…’purity’ of the color. Saturation refers to the amount of white life (or gray paint) mixed with the hue”. For example, it defines the difference between steel blue and royal blue. How does this apply to humans? The more we are saturated with Jesus Christ, the more we are in love with the second person of the Trinity, the more drenched with color we are. (http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19954/0/page/6)

If we categorize the Father and Son as hue and saturation, intensity symbolizes the Holy Spirit. In the color scheme, intensity provides brightness of color. The more we allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, the more intense our color becomes.

In the end, we ourselves become a symbol of the Trinity – another way we reflect the image of God. God gives us our hue, Christ gives us our saturation, and the Holy Spirit gives us our intensity. When we fully accept all these pieces, we become who our Creator intended us to be.

How boring would it be for us to walk around with only one piece of the color trio! Nevertheless, that’s exactly what happens when we don’t take faith seriously. We become black and white, or a washed out color or we end up faded.

Now I have to confess that this is how I see atheists…faded. It has always confounded me that atheists refuse to see creation in a fuller way. Yet, I now understand that they have sterilized their world.

In the November 13th 2007 issue of TIME Magazine, Francis Collins and Richard Dawkins went head to head on the topic of the existence of God. What amazed me is that they were asking two different questions. Francis Collins said that he had moved past the how and into the why. He was asking why the earth was created, why we contained DNA, why creation existed at all.

Science is very good at asking the how…that’s what science if for. However, when we stop there, we deny the very thing that makes us human. Do animals ask why they are here? Humans have the ability to discern that question and to see the color in the answer.

One thing that amazes me about scientists who claim to be atheists is how matter of fact they seem to be. Now the answer screams aloud to me. If they dared to ask why, then they’d have to confront bigger questions. Why did the Creator make the universe?

The answer to this question is so awesome that it hits you in the face. The answer is love. That answer is one that atheists cannot confront. It is unbelievable to them that a love exists that is so great that it encompasses everything around them. If you can fathom that an ultimate power exists and loves you, then you can put science and faith in its place. If you cannot confront the truth that Someone so great loves you, then you will continue to be a one-dimensional character—a creature living in a faded existence.

Color in creation is what makes our world vibrant and alive. Our Creator didn’t have to do it, but He did. He uses color to help us define everything around us. He loves us that much. Can you comprehend that kind of love?

Rainbow Waves

I attended a conference last week that was fabulous, but nevertheless, didn’t allow me to update my blog. So I’m finally getting to it today.

We’ve talked about presents from God to us. One of my readers asked about rainbows, so I thought we’d talk about those today.

Wikipedia has a good definition for a rainbow when it says, “…Scientifically, the rainbow comes from the refraction (bending) of white light. White light contains all colors. The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops… The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow)

The rainbow uses all the topics we’ve discussed before.

Light consists of waves, just as sound does. We talked about waves in my “Dancing Symphonies” blog on May 5^th (http://lorettaoakes.blogspot.com/2008/05/dancing-symphonies.html). So a rainbow is just another instrument playing in the dancing symphony molded by our Creator. Go to the following link to see the waves in action! (It is fabulous and you can even see the different color’s wavelengths in the picture.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Light_dispersion_conceptual_waves.gif

The facilitator of the rainbow here on Earth is the raindrop and we’ve talked about water before too! In another blog, http://lorettaoakes.blogspot.com/2008/02/water-is-love-part-3_06.html, I talked about how water is a love symbol given to us by God. My three part series on water talked about the chemical composition of water with respect to the Trinity, the tetrahedrical bonding habits of water as the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (ineffable four letter name for God), and finally many of the Biblical references to water.

Therefore, now we have the instrument of water playing its melody, working together with the song produced from light. With those two pieces together, we can see how God builds a symphony with a rainbow…another gift for us to enjoy.

Is it any wonder that we look on rainbows in awe of what we see? Is it by accident that rainbows symbolize our Creator’s covenant with the earth (Gen. 9:13)?

As humans, we are all unique. There are an infinite number of colors within the white light. God is sometimes seen as the “Perfect White Light”. As that Perfect Light is refracted, the infinite number of colors becomes pronounced. Is this another reflection of being made in God’s image? Maybe working together in harmony, mirrors the reflection of our Lord, humanity too can be a symphony for God. Perhaps there is more to the rainbow than we understand.

See you next week! Thank you for reading my blog and for all your comments.

Presents of the "Universe Kind"

When my daughter was three, I spent a good part of an hour meticulously wrapping her birthday presents. I made sure everything looked perfect. From the neatly pressed paper to the curled ribbon bow, I thought she was old enough to appreciate the presentation of the gifts. I watched in dismay as she tore off the bow and ran around with it as the prize for the day, forgetting the entire present all together.

My young daughter’s bow experience is no different from any adult’s life experience. We sometimes forget the present of life and focus on just one aspect of our worried lives. Many times, we are so worried about financial stress, family stress, medical worries and our own pain that we forget that life exists outside ourselves.

I once asked a wise old man if he thought life existed on other planets. He told me, “It would be conceited to think that all this was created just for us.” I think about his answer as I look at the night skies wondering what is out there.

Could it be that God created the night sky…the planets, the galaxies, and the stars as a present for us? Does that seem too illogical…too conceited? Did our God create science as a present for us to unwrap?

I love my daughter so much that I did not care how long it took to wrap her present and although I was disappointed that she thought the prize was the bow, it didn’t change my love for her. I immediately began to revel in her delight of the colorful paper curls.

If God loves us, then wrapping the universe up just for us, really wouldn’t be work at all, would it? Look at God’s love from a different point of view. He’s desperately trying to get our attention; He’s trying to get us to see things from His point of view instead our human, time oriented, self-led lives. Maybe He’s saying, “Never give up looking for me…not in your heart, not in your life, not in those loved ones around you. Not even in the stars.”

It must be frustrating for our Creator to see humanity wandering aimlessly through time, forgetting His love, looking for that love in other things that will eventually turn to dust. The famous saying, “You can’t take it with you,” is so true. But maybe we should ask, “Why do we want to take it with us?” After all, the God that created the stars, the galaxies, the planets, all the way down to the one cell amoeba must certainly have something grand waiting for those who want to be with Him in heaven.

When we’re so deep into the why me (because we’ve ripped off the bow and forgotten the present), maybe that’s the time to look up to the night sky and see the present that God has wrapped just for us. And maybe while we’re at it, we should consider that in some distant galaxy there might be another individual looking up at the same present we are.

Dancing Symphonies

I’m a couple days late, so I’m going to post today and then Thursday again (which is more in line with blogging) so I can get back on track.

Last week we talked about the different symphonies that exist…those created by man and those orchestrated by our Creator. We mentioned the different scientific disciplines and that each maintains its own song. Whether it is the dance of electrons, neutrinos and quarks, or the dance of the elements of our DNA, the movement of particles throughout the universe is singing to us.

Do you think I'm only speaking metaphorically? I’m not!

Symphonies contain many linear musical phrases called melodies and different instruments play these melodies. “Music is organized on many different levels. Sounds can be arranged into notes, rhythms, textures and phrases. Melodies can be organized into anything from a simple song to a complex symphony.” (http://cnx.org/content/m12373/latest/)

Instruments create the sounds for symphonies. The movement of particles in waves creates sound. Visit the above link to see pictures of those waves. (The link also provides a great explanation of how those waves work in music. You’ll enjoy the text!)

Remember the “theory of everything” that talks about particles? All those particles also move in waves. Visit the following link to see those waves. Try your hand at changing the frequencies. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/resonance.html) You can see the resonance of strings of particles. I’ve copied the following excerpt from the above website for you to read.

“According to string theory, absolutely everything in the universe—all of the particles that make up matter and forces—is comprised of tiny vibrating fundamental strings. Moreover, every one of these strings is identical. The only difference between one string and another, whether it's a heavy particle that is part of an atom or a massless particle that carries light, is its resonant pattern, or how it vibrates.

All objects, not just fundamental strings, have resonant patterns associated with them. Pluck the string of a violin and you hear mainly one tone. This is the string's fundamental resonant pattern, or frequency. And the instrument's resonance doesn't stop there. The body of the violin has resonant frequencies, which work to amplify the sound created by the vibrating string. There's resonance in objects that aren't musical, too. Your desk has resonant frequencies, and so does a flagpole, and so does the Earth.”

What other “waves” are there? Go to the following link and click on the series of pictures.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/scale.html

You guessed it! Right in the middle, you saw DNA strands. They wind around each other like waves as well. They have the same shape as waves.

Do you see all the symphonies together? They are all dancing! Dancing symphonies of music, particles and DNA exist in our universe—together and in harmony.

Now go through your day and see if you can pick out all those harmonies that sing to us every day and see you on Thursday.