Rainbow

I saw a rainbow.

Seeing Rainbows in a Puddle

Well sort of a rainbow.
You can see it, if you want.

Early in the morning, before the sun comes up, looking westward on the prairie while there is still a lot of moisture in the air after a rainstorm one can often see parts of a rainbow. Not the whole thing that early in the morning, just a couple of ends. One end will be way off to the right, the other just as far to the left. Both parts will be only one color, the same color, usually orange. There can’t be any more to the rainbow because it is too early in the day. The angle of the sun onto the droplets and back to my eyes would cause the top of the rainbow to extend beyond the highest of clouds. All one can see is the two ends, very far apart.

As time passes and the sun rises over the horizon behind you, the two ends will march closer to each other, both ends seeming to grow in stature and beginning to add the other colors of a proper rainbow. If a person has the time and if the moisture remains in the sky, a full rainbow, in all its’ colorful splendor, will develop. Driving Westward on such a morning one has the time to watch it develop, and to think.

There are two pillars to justice, according to Baha’u’llah, which he said are reward and punishment. There are two wings on the bird of equality between men and women. There was a twin blast of the trumpet to inaugurate this spiritual Baha’i era. The Bab was placed before a firing squad twice, and the twin institutions of the Baha’i Faith are the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice.

There were other people driving along that same road, at the time of the two pieces of a rainbow. I wonder if anyone other than I saw those twin columns of an incomplete rainbow? I wonder if any who did see one or the other of the twin pillars saw both? I wonder if any who saw both understood them to be of the same entity, of the same rainbow, not yet connected?

One column, somewhat larger than the other, was a great distance to the North. The smaller column was, of course, an equal distance to the South. (A rainbow is the visible half of a complete circle. When you see a rainbow, your eyeball is in that rainbow’s exact center, the hypotenuse from your eye to any point on the rainbow is the same as to any other circumferential point on that rainbow.)

A person must first, as I did, see the partial column, then must recognize it as a portion of a rainbow, before being induced, as I was, to look for the other partial column. Sort of like an independent investigation of the truth. Drawing an arc from one column up through the sky, imagining I was following a rainbow, and back to the earth I found the other gathering of water drops which composed the other ‘foot’ of the potential rainbow, two pots of gold, right where they should be.

Being a seeker is somewhat akin to that process. First a person must see the partial column whatever color it is and however incomplete. If that seeker becomes attracted to that piece of the Faith they will probably try to help that column become a full rainbow. A full rainbow is made, after all, of the sun shining on a multitude of individual drops. Any one of those individual drops, we all know, is capable of radiating a full rainbow for anyone who draws close enough to see, or for no one to see. A seeker at a distance from an individual, on the other hand, cannot see a rainbow, nor a partial rainbow. You have to get close to an individual.

When many drops are gathered in a group a seeker might see a column on the horizon. God loves those who work in groups. The seeker, upon becoming a Baha’i often becomes so involved in ‘being’ a drop in the first column seen that the person does not consider there must be another end of the rainbow. That is all right. Not every drop in the ocean needs to consider itself a wave.

It was much too early in that morning to see a complete rainbow, even though it existed potentially. The sun, behind me was at too low an angle to form a complete rainbow even if all the drops had been there. The top of the rainbow at that time would have risen beyond heights which water could attain. The rainbow would have existed only in potentiality in the heavens. Shoghi said the Faith is a little like that. Waiting for the sun to rise, making all things obvious and complete, taking a long time to form rainbows small enough for all people to see.

While we Baha’i’s wait for the sun to rise we can look to the west, off to a distance, look at where the rays are going, being made visible, and reflected to us. There we can get a glimpse of the Faith as Shoghi Effendi envisioned and described it. He told us that he, and the believers of his time were about a hundred years too early to see the rainbow. He pointed in the direction of the two columns and explained that both must gather more and more droplets so that when the sun rises high enough the world will see a rainbow. Some of us are arguing today about which of the two columns is the ‘real’ rainbow, but I suppose that too is part of God’s plan. I don’t pretend to understand that attribute of God.

If either the north or the south column ceases to exist then the rainbow will only exist potentially no matter where the sun shines. Then it will take another sun rise, or two, or many before the world sees our full perfect rainbow. If the two columns continue to gather drops around them and between them the sun will some day rise to reflect that perfect rainbow. If not this day, then perhaps the next. I would like to see it.

I wonder why those Baha’i’s in the north column are so afraid to associate with those Baha’i’s in the south column? Do you suppose it will ever become clear to the individual drops of our rainbow that both ends of our rainbow has a pot of gold? Do you suppose the Universal House of Justice and Joel Marangella will ever get together? Maybe tomorrow, or the next day? Do you suppose no one will see our complete rainbow until after the seventh guardian, or the sixteenth?

When watching a rainbow develop right before your windshield, one asks a lot of supposes.

Well, maybe they will come together, the two ends. One can only wait to see. In the meantime, if you want to see what our real rainbow will someday look like, draw very close to a real Baha’i from either column. You will see a rainbow in miniature. Or go out as the sun comes up some rainy morning and look west for the twin pillars and use your imagination.

It will happen!

- Robert Clifton on the unification of two Bahai factions.

Universal Light Institute