A LOW DEFINITION WORLD

The world is a colorful and beautiful place. I have experienced an assortment of colors in the places we have lived over the years. In the Great Plains, you get to see that great dome of sky unequaled anywhere, with the shifting shades of blue, and the brilliant colors of God’s light show when the thunderstorms blossom. We have lived in Iowa, where the summer green of the cornfields is muted by the humid haze, and in the fall, the changing leaves of the hardwoods generate great calendar pictures. We have lived in the Southwest,where the earth tones are spectacular, and you get the electric flash of turquoise jewelry which is so commonly worn by men, women, and children. The gem’s brilliance creates its own definition of blue. During our time in the southwest, we lived in the southern reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Thirteen thousand foot peaks give a special meaning to “purple mountain’s majesty.”

We are currently settled in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Here we gaze upon tall brown hills, with ranges of deep blue mountains in our line of sight, and various shades of green and gray in the sagebrush. The pine forests lend their own verdant colors, and in autumn, there is the contrasting yellow of the Western Larch. The summer sky here is a milky shade of blue on the best of sunny days, with haze caused by high atmospheric pressure and the occasional forest fire.

This January we are experiencing a phenomenon that was not common in any of our previous homes, but is a regular wintertime occurence here-an inversion. An inversion occurs when warm air rides up over the top of cold air and holds it in place. There are two results. One is that foggy conditions occur. In a world that uses the term High Definition to excess, the fog takes the edge off any structure, blurs the line of sight, and causes some items to disappear completely. The fog also causes hoarfrost to form on every available weed, tree, and power line. If that is not enough, we saw a small group of deer breakfasting on the neighbor’s lawn, and they were frosted from antler tine to tail. The effect of the hoarfrost, for the first day or two, is to cause people to grab their cameras and start snapping pictures, because the scene is one of God’s truly dazzling works. The second effect happens when an inversion lasts more than two or three days. Because the fog is everywhere, the world no longer seems to be in color. Winter appears to be in living black and white.

People fall into two distinct groups regarding this weather situation. One group of folks, like me, get crabby and owly and are not much fun to be around until the sun returns, which it always does. The other group sets forth a cheerful philosophy which is “You don’t have to shovel the fog.” My wife falls in that category. In an attempt to save the cheerful from the crabs, we should all join hands and sing, “Heaven Help Us, It’s an Uncloudy day.” If, as some proclaim, God could send us a Son, surely it would be a small matter to send us some sun. A toast to all who are willing to share their warmth and brilliance. Here’s to you, sunshine!

This entry was posted on March 14, 2009 at 19:33 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.