WITNESSING A DERECHO

DERECHO, SIOUX FALLS, SD

Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning,

Green sky in the afternoon, pilgrim take cover soon!

I recently ran across a photo from South Dakota that triggered a latent memory from my childhood in Kansas.  The photo captured a rare sight that is only seen during a violent weather event which meteorologists call a derecho which means “straight ahead” in Spanish.  That’s the first and last time that I witnessed a green sky in the west and just as rare an event when the storm reached our neighborhood.

A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, fast moving, straight line, storm that can extend for more than 250 miles and include very strong, severe, damaging winds and wind gusts.  The green, apocalyptic-looking sky implies that the deep blue clouds are saturated with water and ice particles which scatter the short wavelength blue light rays.  When the longer wavelength red sunset beams of light illuminate the blue objects in the sky, it morphs to green.  It’s an indication that the ice particles have been tumbled up and back down in the turbulent clouds until the hail stones weigh enough to strike the earth’s surface.  This intense weather event can even spawn destructive tornadoes and downward microbursts.

Back in Kansas, I recall standing on the sidewalk outside our home when the approaching storm caught my attention.  I could see distant lightning flashes and the thunderous responses getting closer together as the storm gathered nearer.  And as it ominously came closer to me over the neighboring homes and elm trees, I saw the blue sky turn into that apocalyptic green as if the world was coming to an end!  I ran inside the house and called my mother to come outside and see this green mass descending upon us.

We stood together on the front porch for some sense of security and then witnessed a second anomaly that I’ve never seen since.  The skies opened with a torrential rain and large hail pummeling the land across the street, but our side of the street was spared.  Not one drop of rain or hail crossed that road and the storm passed almost as quickly as it arrived. 

Watching the skies actually turn from a bright blue to an ominous dark green probably couldn’t compare to the ancient Egyptians watching the Nile River turn from a deep blue to a blood red or the worst thunderstorm ever of hail and fire during the ten plagues.   But it left an indelible memory with an impressionable young Kansas boy that day.

BE A GOLDFISH

BE A GOLDFISH

 After a bad play, Ted Lasso reminded his players that the happiest creatures in the world are goldfish, because they can only remember things for 10 seconds.  

Tiger Woods dad, Earl, always told him to take 10 steps before doing anything else after a bad shot.  When asked to comment about a previous bad shot, 

Jack Nicklaus always responded that he didn’t remember it.  We never lose if we don’t lose the lesson and soldier on.  

Be a goldfish!

THE OBSERVER EFFECT

 

I recently read a review of a new best-selling fictional book simply titled OBSERVER.  It caught my attention because I remembered reading about a scientific experiment result in 1998 that was completely unexpected when the researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science encountered the Observer Effect.  They were conducting a double split fork experiment with electrons at the subatomic level beamed at the fork.  In short, the particles behaved like waves, but when a conscious, quantum observer was present, they behaved like particles.  The researchers were forced to conclude that the mere act of observation affected the outcome which has raised all sorts of speculation.  Robert Lanza’s new novel explores the notion that time, space and even reality all ultimately depend upon us, the observers.

Consciousness can be defined as being mindful or aware of oneself as a thinking, feeling being.  We realize with awe the miracle of a body that is informed by this extraordinary thing we call life that we take for granted almost every day.  The fateful day we realize this eternal truth is the beginning of a lifelong spiritual journey.

God is a conscious spiritual being and we are conscious mortal beings.  We were created in his image, so we can expect parallels in our existence.  His being occupies the universe like our consciousness occupies our body.  By liberating the spaces in our lives and minds that are filled with clutter and chatter, we allow the presence of God to more easily occupy that space!

If two particles are entangled and if you observe one of them, then the other is affected even if they’re far apart.  That communication is instantaneous, suggesting there is no space between them and no time influencing their behavior.  Aldous Huxley in his book, The Doors of Perception” theorizes that our brain possibly acts as a mental filter to help us survive on this planet.  We’re only capable of perceiving the material world around us versus the infinite sea of consciousness

We only consciously know the information that our five senses perceive.  However, consciousness does not simply observe the universe, we create it collectively.  Even though a table is mostly composed of empty space at the subatomic level, we collectively consider it as a solid at the macro-level.  The particles of atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons that revolve in extremely vast regions of empty space.  Man has now determined that there are no solid objects at the subatomic level.   A subatomic particle is a set of relationships that reach out and interconnect, not with objects, but with other interconnections.  Light travels in waves and as particles (photons) at the speed of light.  The photons collide with the air, in a cosmic dance of continuous creation and destruction, a ceaseless flow of energy going through a multiplicity of patterns.  The waves are abstract patterns of probabilities or relationships.   At the subatomic level there is a continual exchange of matter and energy between us and everything around us.  We're all part of one inseparable web of relationships.  

  J. P. Moreland reasons that, “Consciousness cannot be reduced merely to the physical brain.  Our consciousness came from a greater consciousness.  You see, the Christian worldview begins with thought and feeling and desire and choice.  That is, God is conscious.  God has thoughts.  He has beliefs, he has desires, he has awareness, he’s alive, he acts with a purpose.  We start there and because we start with the mind of God, we don’t have a problem explaining the origin of our mind.  …he’s invisible because that’s the way conscious beings are.  I have no inclination to doubt that this very room is teeming with the very presence of God.”

Jill Bolte Taylor writing in My Stroke of Insight perceived life through the restricted lens of only her right brain after a stroke incapacitated her left hemisphere.  She observed that her self-concept was no longer a solid with boundaries, but a fluid.  Operating without the constant "brain chatter" from her left hemisphere left her feeling one with the universe.  Mystics and serious practitioners can also reach that ultimate present moment state of nirvana. 

Taylor writes, “The innate differences we each experience...to stimulation contributes greatly to how we perceive the world…When I lost my left hemisphere and its language centers, I also lost the clock that would break my moments into consecutive brief instances.  Instead of having my moments prematurely stunted, they became open-ended, and I felt no rush to do anything. 

My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me.  I understood that at the most elementary level, I am a fluid.  Of course, I am a fluid!  Everything around us, about us, among us, within us, and between us is made up of atoms and molecules vibrating in space. 

My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others.  Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow.  I was no longer isolated and alone.  My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea… Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us, and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry.  Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you—regardless of where we are.

One of the many conclusions in the book refers back to the famous two-slit experiment which asks the question, “How can a particle ‘out there’ change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not?  The answer is simple—reality is a process that involves our consciousness.”