Why is the grass green?

Those who know me best, understand that I am the kind of person who wonders why the grass is green. Those same people understand that I can not leave a question unanswered and so I will always try to offer up the best explanation that I have at the time. In my attempt at such, I may come across as as a "know-it-all" unless you understand that deep down, I am praying that someone has a better answer; because as much as I love teaching I love learning that much more. Therefore, I will tell you why the grass is green however, this blog is the place to one-up me; and if you are successful you will be considered the friend to my soul.

"Green" is a word used to describe a color in the English language. It means nothing in and of itself unless an agreement on the usage of the word has been established. Typically, we come these types of agreements rather quickly if you consider that as a child someone shows you a color and tells you that it's "green" and you call it such from that point forward. What about the color blind? Those with red-green color blindness sometimes confuse the two colors when presented with each other. Here we have cause for disagreement that is typically overruled by the majority; leaving the minority to be labeled as abnormal. Science has discovered the cause of the abnormality but in order to do so, science had to define green as, "a light spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570-nm," and a nanometer (nm) as a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a meter. Furthermore, for these definitions to have any meaning, a metric system had to have been established. To appreciate the measures (pardon the pun) taken to ensure this consistency in the metric system great lengths (sorry) were taken. The following describes the history of the meter:

"[A] meter was originally defined as ¹⁄_10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and Earth's equator as measured along the meridian passing through Paris... The meter was later redefined as the length of a particular bar of platinum-iridium alloy; then in terms of the wavelength of light emitted by a specified atomic transition; and now is defined as the distance travelled by light in an absolute vacuum during ¹⁄_299,792,458 of a second."

Thus, the green that we see in grass is the result of a light spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of aprox. 545nm reflecting off the chlorophyll within the cells of the plant. All of this to illustrate that our entire reality is based on relevant perception. We measure one thing by comparing it to another.

What about the touchy-feely stuff? How do we measure love or joy? The implication is that the same process applies when it comes to spiritual matters and even understanding God. Although I do not believe that by any temporal means we can measure an infinite God, I do believe that by using a standardized system we can make tremendous advances in understanding His creation and thus the Creator Himself. By a means of spiritual reverse engineering, I believe that science can help those of faith to understand their creator and in doing so we stand to gain a greater understanding of God's nature. May this increase in understanding lead to wisdom and a "unity of faith" (Eph 4:13).