I have always been in awe of clouds. Ever since I was a child, I would look up to the sky and see them there, suspended in mid-air above me. And I wondered what they were, why they were there and how they could be so very beautiful. They were so big, so magnificent. Each different. No one like the other. They were the leviathans of the deep blue sky, moving ever so slowly across it like animals grazing across an open plain. And in such variety. There were huge mountains of white, thin strips of pink, and long lines of orange and grey.
When I was fifteen years old, I was in the seminary, studying to be a Brother of the Sacred Heart. It was a beautiful, still summer evening, and we had gone to the chapel after dinner for evening prayers. As we recited the office in unison, I looked to my left out an open stained-glass window. What I saw there, in the wake of the setting sun, appeared to me to be miraculous, a spiritual experience. I went back to study hall later and wrote the following poem.
Summer Evening at Sacred Heart
Christopher Bogart
Among the pink, swift flowing clouds,
Among their high, full shining domes,
There lies a God among those clouds,
Where angels make their journey home.
It wasn't until a few years later that I found out that these celestial objects that had me in such thrall were no more than frozen vapor.
A cloud is a visible mass of droplets, in other words, little drops of water or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the succeeding years, when I looked up to the sky and saw clouds, I still stared with awe, but also with a certain disappointment. They were not the objects of inspiration I had once thought they were. Now they were just elements of atmosphere. Yet, I never lost my love of looking at them. I recognized that they were still sources of inspiration for me. And I wondered how I would reconcile factual knowledge with spiritual inspiration. After all, there were other elements of my life that, while purely physical, were also heartwarming and inspiring. A smile, a hug, an intimate moment in the dark. What were these? After all, the human body is mostly water!
The human body's chemical composition consists of a variety of elements and compounds. By mass, human cells consist of 65–90% water (H2O), and a significant portion is composed of carbon-containing organic molecules. Oxygen therefore contributes a majority of a human body's mass, followed by carbon. 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of the six elements oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What had I been hugging? A big pool of water, with assorted elements? It certainly never felt that way. I felt warmth, joy and a feeling of security. The same feelings I have always felt looking up to the sky to see those beautiful masses of water droplets. Maybe, I thought, it doesn't matter what science tells me things are made of. That I have knowledge of their composition is no reason to reject the inspiration I have always felt in experiencing them.
So, at each sunrise, in the cool of each afternoon, whether summer, fall, winter or spring, and at each sunset, I look up to the sky now, without guilt or naivety, and simply allow myself to enjoy what I have always enjoyed. I accept the inspiration.
Heat Lightning
Christopher Bogart
“Raindrops on roses and
Whiskers on kittens…”
Leave me stale,
Fail to move me
At all.
Yet I fall into wonder
At the rumble of thunder
When it lurks from its lair
In the dark lonely hills.
My eyes flicker brightly
At the flash of heat lightning
As it streaks ‘cross
The clear summer night.
My dreams float up high
On impossible whiteness,
On the softness
Of starchy white clouds.
My mind fairly dives
Through deep royal blue
With the chill
Of the late autumn day.
Cold sweeps ‘cross my skin
Pulling me to a kinship,
And the promise of snow
In the slate winter sky.
It’s the slam
Of the thought
Of my great
Insignificance
That envelopes
My nature
In a oneness
With Nature
And the crashing
Reality
Of just
Who I am.
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