A Fogbow
by Oliver Carlos
One of our regular Blog is Life readers is Mrs. Cecille E. Kennedy from Oregon, USA. She’s been reading our blogs since the beginning, that’s almost a year now. Cecille is my Mom’s best friend. They grew up together in Los Banos, Laguna. They were classmates in UP Rural High School, which is also my alma mater. After college, Cecille went to the US for graduate studies, That’s where she met John Kennedy (not the US President). They’re happily married for several decades now.
The Kennedy couple lives in rural Oregon. That’s in the northwest corner of the USA. Their house is on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Nearby is a lighthouse. It’s such a wonderful place, it’s like paradise. There’s a nice beach with many sea birds, and a prairie with colorful flowers. The sky is picturesque at night with all the stars and the northern lights. Sunsets are also awesome from their viewpoint. Cecille is into nature photography and her place is photographer’s heaven.
Cecille’s photographs caught my attention the moment I saw them on her Facebook posts. They brought me closer to God. I see God’s handiwork in her every photograph. One day I asked her if I could use them in Blog is Life and in its video version, Blog is Life TV. She readily obliged.
One of her most interesting photos is the one above, it’s a picture of a fogbow. This may be the first time for you to hear it. A fogbow is similar to a rainbow except that it has no color. Others call it a white rainbow. It is composed of very tiny water droplets found in a fog. When sunlight hits these very small droplets, a fogbow result. Meanwhile, the rainbow has larger droplets, and it usually appears after a rainfall. The sunlight shining on the large droplets causes the exhibition of the seven colors of the rainbow.
Cecille said that the fogbow in her photo appeared at around 10 AM, and it disappeared quickly. It lasted for just a few minutes. Good thing she was quick to snap her camera’s shutter to document this very rare phenomenon.
This occurrence reminds me so much of James 4:14 (TLB):
“How do you know what is going to happen tomorrow? For the length of your lives is as uncertain as the morning fog — now you see it; soon it is gone.”
I guess James must have been looking at a fogbow when he wrote this passage. Indeed, life is so fleeting like a fogbow. We do not know how long our life on earth would last, especially now that we are in a pandemic. I notice several posts in fb about people dying and it’s so heartbreaking to type my condolences. Some of those who departed are old, and some are young. We can never really be sure about tomorrow.
In the Book of Genesis, during the first generations after Adam and Eve, people lived for hundreds of years, yes, up to 900-plus years (Genesis 5). Then after the Great Flood, human lifespan was just around up to 120 (Genesis 6:3). Then during King David’s time, which was round 1000 BCE, it was mentioned that life is around 70–80 years (Psalm 90:10).
A few years ago, here in the Philippines, in the pre-pandemic time, life expectancy was 68 years for Filipino males, and 74 years for females. Combined, the average Filipino life expectancy is 72 years. This is what it means- imagine 2 groups of Filipinos. One group would die before age 72, and another group would die when they reach 72 or older. The two groups are equal in number. People have a 50–50 chance of belonging to either group. I wonder what’s the updated life expectancy stats these days.
Aside from fighting the virus and developing scientific ways on how to stay healthy, a bigger challenge is for us to prepare for eternity. Life is short. The writer of Ecclesiastes says that the time that we’re dead is longer than the time that we’re alive (Ecclesiastes 11:8). Therefore, we must make sure that we are going to heaven when our life on earth is over. Yes, there’s a sure way. It’s by accepting Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord. You do that by repenting from your sins, asking forgiveness from Jesus, and surrendering your life to him. (John 14:6, 1 John 5:12, Romans 6:23, Acts 2:38, John 3:16)
Don’t delay because life is like a fogbow.
