Rainbows and shrimp keeping us humble

Radiolab

recently had an episode that explored

colors

.

One of the things that was covered in the episode was that the human eye has three cones which can pick up the colors that you and I see. Radiolab used the metaphor of a rainbow. You and I look at a rainbow and see the light break into that ROYGBIV combination.

Can you see the difference between eggshell and off white?

This shrimp can.

However, there are other animals which see different colors when looking at a rainbow. Some animals see few colors while other animals see more. When you listen to the episode you will learn of Mantis Shrimp that can see a huge array of color that humans could only dream of seeing.

That is right, compared to this shrimp, we are dramatically color blind.

It is humbling to know that there are other creatures out there that can see more than I can see. It reminds me that there are other people that can see what I cannot see. It reminds me that I am color blind on a good number of things.

Something to keep in mind as learn to live together.

Cannot see God's face

It was shared with me during seminary that one interpretation of why we cannot look at the face of God is because in God's face is reflected all the emotion of the world. So to look at the face of God is to see not only all the joy and happiness in the world but also every sorrow and pain. And if we were to see all of that at one time we would be dead on the spot.

This is what makes God divine. One would have to be divine in order to handle all of that not only for one moment but for all of time.

I find it hard enough to look into the eyes (I mean really look into the eyes) of another person. When we look into each other's eyes for a long time we can see all of their joy, sorrow, happiness and pain. Sometimes it is too much to handle all of that with just one person, I cannot imagine looking into the collective eyes of humanity.

Turns out this was something that was already touched on.