Ezekiel 1:28 Meaning As the Appearance of the Rainbow

Sometimes the center of the mind shows itself not as a quiet pattern but as an overwhelming brightness, ringed like a rainbow. When this deepest image breaks through, a person does not study it calmly. He is struck down by it, because something far larger than his everyday self has come into view.

Falling to the ground is the honest reaction of the small conscious mind meeting the vast thing at its own root. And then a voice speaks. This center is not a dead idea a person invents. It acts on its own and addresses him, which is why such an encounter tends to change the direction of a life rather than simply pass through it.

Rain gives the light a shape the eye can bear. The colors are not another thing than the sun, only the sun softened through water so a person can stand to look. So here the brightness is a likeness, a curtain drawn thin enough to glimpse a glory no one could face head-on.

What the heart owes such a moment is what the prophet does, falling on his face. Pride would rush to describe the vision and own it. Humility goes quiet and listens, and only into that stillness does the voice come and speak.