Friday, September 6, 2013

Iridescence

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

Iridescence is God's palette, the wash of highest heaven. If there is housecleaning in heaven--I'm not saying there is, but if there is--then the dust bunnies are made of this shimmering stuff. Wear it, and you're in dress rehearsal for paradise. I don't know why, but it seems God gave things that fly and things that swim a jump start on the path to glorification. Most insignificant things-- the neck of a pigeon, the eye of a fly, the belly of a trout-- are blessed from the start with some brush of His opalescence. Humans, though made just a bit lower than the angels, aren't quite so lucky. I need the help of L'Oreal's silverpearl coral frost lipstick just to get out the door. How much would you give for angel fingerprints?
On earth such glint is elusive, a fragile hand-blown bubble. The word itself simply slips off the tongue, leaving ripples of goosebumps over your skin. It’s more like a transient verb than a noun. You experience it in passing, in the glaze which paints the inside of your eyelids as you recline in a tub, listening to George Winston cascade through your subconscious. Take time out. Relax temporarily. Forget about all the sharp colors which pinched you all day. Try a bathbead full of glory. Now, put on your John Lennon glasses and imagine there is a heaven. In an eye twinkle we truly will pass through those pearly gates.
Iridescence whispers "God was here". It is not one color. It is the sanctified state which all colors everywhere hope one day to become.