Mystery

Someone in the car exclaimed, "Oooh, a rainbow!" So then we all tried to see through our respective car windows to admire this phenomenon.

Then someone else said, "There's two!"

There were. Two rainbow arches adorned the cloudy skies of Melbourne that evening. One was fainter than the other; the one that was outside.

My friend said, "I wonder if the one is the reflection of the other. Is that possible?"

Then another said, "Noo. I think that's just another set."

Then, being the academic-types that we are, a short discourse of "how could that be?" ensued.

"I prefer not knowing," I interrupted, frankly a little surprised at my admission.

"Why, so you can make up your own explanation?" laughed my friend.

No. I guess once in a while I enjoy a little mystery.

My friend reminds me that we have a compulsion to explain things. The Greeks said the rainbow is a path made by the messenger from earth to heaven. The Chinese said it's a slit in the sky. The Bible said it was a sign of God's promise. It was the same compulsion that led scientists to the discovery that rainbows are a product of the sun shining through droplets of water in the earth's atmosphere. (Wikipedia also includes an explanation for the two arches!)

But that moment, I really really reveled in not knowing, and not even wanting to know, about how rainbows are made.

I didn't care. They were just there. And they were pretty.

And I'm labeling this post in "spiritual life" because - heck - everything is spiritual: rainbows, meaning-making, prettiness, friendship, and above all, mystery.

Doncha think?