WHY, The Rainbow?

In a savannah somewhere, some two hundred thousand years ago, after a rainstorm as the sun begun to peek out of the horizon, and the curtain of dark clouds parted, there was a rustling of wet tall grasses as a handful of creatures begun to trudge for an open space to marvel at what was in the sky as the rain turned into nothing more than wispy waves of light drizzle that wafted in the slight cool breeze of the morning.  Those creatures were our early ancestors, now able to stand on their hind legs, free to use their hands as shade over their brows for a better look. They must have wondered loudly among themselves, perhaps in their own guttural ways, "What is that? Why? {That's all my  imagination since I wasn't there}.  But we were them, in a way - since their DNA, after countless  cell divisions over eons of adaptation and survival, are in us.

Many generations later when at last they had discovered the power of speech, to know what to call the things they saw, they still marveled every time they looked up at the sky to ask what was then and still today a profound question that even we might be hard pressed to answer, "Why, the rainbow?"  Our ancestors did not really have in their minds seeking answers to a scientific question. We too will find that dark clouds and rainbows may have more to do with our personal lives we yet have to discover.  More profoundly than you had ever imagined.

Two hundred thousand plus years later in 1672, Isaac Newton established his first foothold into the early stages of physics.  Before his famous three laws of motion and many other significant crucial contributions to science, he wrote a paper on optics that proved that ordinary light was composed of several colors - different spectra of various wavelengths by splitting a light beam with a simple glass prism.  People then wondered, "How can ordinary, seemingly transparent light be made up of so many colors?"  Again, there was more beyond a scientific answer.

Let's go even way further back in time.  From the beginning.  We have nowhere else to refer to but what had been written about where and how everything begun. Let's look at one written text which, by the way, has similar versions from various  proponents of other faith-based systems. Let's take one from the Old Testament. 

When the Creator in Genesis 1:3  proclaimed, "Let there be light", we now know it was more than to illuminate the cosmos but that it ushered the greatest gift endowed to all living things - the sense of sight. 

Now we know even more when the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope enabled us to see for the first time the magnificently infinite grandeur of the universe.  The significance of, "let there be light" is that it came by the third verse just after verse, 1:2, ...The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters".  

Once more, we put aside the scientific answers because life is like a box of dark clouds and rainbows (a mild reference to Forrest Gump's famous quote).  We oftentimes don't know what's up above when we look up.

And so it was then and now that we realize that our personal life experiences are sometimes touched by some dark moments, hopefully not too frequently. Then, hopefully and more frequently each time, the dark clouds are soon parted and rainbows appear.  Life, we know by now, is a seesaw of moments that range from the annoying to heart rending predicaments only to switch to unexpected ecstasy beyond even our wildest wishes. Of course, we know that our appreciation for the good, sometimes even great, moments is possible only because we have seen and felt what it was like to be under some dark clouds that at times appear to hover over our heads longer than we can bear. 

These dark clouds come in many shades.  Worrying is a gray cloud.  It's darker when we get sick or a loved one is chronically ailing.  It is darkest at a time of grief. It is a different kind of dark when one is despondent from a failed relationship or loss of livelihood.  Now we know that dark comes  from the thin gray of worry to the pitch blackness of a seemingly bottomless pit when things did go wrong.  So many shades of darkness for any of us to fully prepare for one  or another that could engulf our lives.

I guess that is why a rainbow too comes in different colors.  That has to be the reason.  Not only did the Creator proclaim, "Let there be light", but that light came complete with a full spectrum of several colors, including those our eyes cannot see - from the infrared to ultraviolet rays.  Yet, it is just as miraculous that vipers, pigeons and bees and many other species of living things are able to see those that are hidden from our sight.  There is also a reason for that. Only the Creator can know what it is.

And then we are told also to know this. Not every adversity is a dark cloud, not every rainbow we imagine should be sought because sometimes our choices to seek and go after every rainbow are not the answer when not every problem is a dark cloud. Not every challenge is a catastrophe. Darkness is always temporary. It may often leave on its own or be pushed out by the approaching dawn. It is best to know that not every dark cloud needs a rainbow.

Make note of this.  Sometimes we could be looking for a rainbow we do not need over a dark cloud we only imagine.  That is one unnecessary burden we choose to carry  that is easily resolved.  We should set it down, untie the straps from our shoulders, get rid of the load, and soon we see that letting go is like parting the dark clouds; the freedom from want is all the rainbow we needed.  Young children of nomads in the upper Mongolia or inhabitants in the interior of the Amazon rainforests and from many remote places have one thing in common. They do not know to want more than they have, they do not know to seek for rainbows they do not need. 

Meanwhile, in the developed world life gets a little more complicated.  If it isn't, we try to make it so, anyway.  Sometimes we self-impose our own dark clouds, others make it a cottage industry  to turn thinnish gray clouds into a gathering storm. Rainbow "wants" somehow become a must (of "needs") to quell an imagined dark cloud even when we are already basking in and enjoying the weather in our already good life.

On the other hand, we have another perspective to rely on when our days get too dark, a Biblical passage once more, a quote, again from where and when it all begun in Genesis:

"Genesis 9:13-16

 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,

15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life".

Take this for what it is, or treat it as an allegory but it is a hopeful message when dark clouds hover above and be reminded that there is a rainbow when you need it.