God and Nature 2026 #1
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Not for the Naked Eye
By Cheryl Grey Bostrom
By Cheryl Grey Bostrom
Our neighbor texted me the other night. “Northern Lights are out,” she wrote, and then added this pic of the sky above our house and barn:
Eager for the magic, I raced outside . . . but saw only monochrome. Inky blackness. Crystalline stars. Writhing streaks of gray.
Clearly, central fields at the backs of my eyes were sleeping. The dark had disabled my retinal cones—the cells that catch and interpret color.
And this night’s aurora wasn’t intense enough to awaken them.
Instead, the photoreceptors on duty as I peered into the night were rod cells, registering only shape and motion in the dim.
No color at all.
But through my camera’s lens?
This:
And this:
And this:
A dance of brilliance and warmth I couldn’t see with strictly human vision.
How apt, I thought. He’s teaching again. This time, on the unseen realm all around us.
Another lesson from the Creator of beauty, of nature, of science, and of the spiritual world.
But to what purpose, this lesson?
To alert us to activity in darkness? To awaken us to real, otherworldly societies invisible to the naked eye?
To revive our trust in color and Light when night is deep?
To prompt us, day and night, to sing?
Oh, Creator Jesus.
“Lord, I want to see." —Luke 18:41
Pacific Northwest naturalist and photographer Cheryl Grey Bostrom is the author of five books, including the multiple-award-winning novels SUGAR BIRDS and LEANING ON AIR. In her 2025 release WHAT THE RIVER KEEPS a reclusive biologist returns to her childhood home on the Elwha River, where she untangles her mysterious past. Cheryl lives with her veterinarian husband in rural Washington State.