The Last Newspaper Column for This Year: Fog

Cook County Star    THE GOOD NEWS for 5-29-2010

Who knew there were so many different kinds of fog? Fog can form in a number of ways, depending on how the cooling that caused the condensation occurred. There is radiation fog caused by the cooling of land after sunset. The cool ground produces condensation in the nearby air by heat conduction. There can be ground fog which is “fog that obscures less than 60% of the sky and does not extend to the base of any overhead clouds.”

Advection fog seems to fit the North Shore fog of May. This fog occurs when moist (warmer) air passes over a cool surface (Lake Superior) causing the moisture in the air to condense around particulates in the air. Other types of fog include evaporation fog, precipitation fog, upslope fog (or hill fog), valley fog, freezing fog, frozen fog, and of course, artificial fog. We should not neglect to mention Garua fog, which occurs along the coast of Chile and Peru, hail fog, and the very rare pogonip, which can occur at temperatures below -40 degrees F.

Fog is produced by condensation of water molecules around airborne dirt or salt particles. The resulting tiny droplets remains airborne and can create a wall that significantly reduces visibility. So here’s a question: If I can see through a glass of water, why can’t I see through a wall of water droplets? Why isn’t fog transparent?

I think refraction must be part of the answer. Light traveling through a drop of water can be “bent” in much the same way that light passing through a glass lense can be “bent” to reveal the color spectrum we see reflected on the wall when we hold up a prism to the sunlight. Now take a bazillion little prisms of water, each bending the sunlight and the end result is opaque fog. That means a wall of water you can’t see through.

By now you must be asking yourselves, “McIntire, where are you going with all this?” A couple days ago as I was driving through the fog near the mine at Silver Bay I suddenly realized that I knew the mine was there, covering ground on both sides of the road. I knew the towers were there putting out steam. I knew the yard was there full of taconite pellets. I knew the mechanical building was uphill. But I couldn’t see what was there. The fog didn’t define the mine structures or in any way reflect the truth of the reality sitting just yards to the side of the road upon which I was driving. The fog simply refracted the light and hid the truth; it didn’t change the truth.

There’s another kind of fog that rises in the world. It is a fog that clouds the mind and heart. It is a fog that refracts the Light of truth and blinds the observer to reality. The fog does not define reality, it merely covers or distorts it. Sin is such a fog in the human experience. Arrogance and pride are truth hiding, truth denying fogs. Error and lies form a fog that can prevent the casual observer from regarding the truth. Selfishness, ignorance, and indifference can coalesce in the human heart to produce a thick spiritual fog that results in spiritual darkness and spiritual blindness.

Every human being lives in a spiritual fog until God in his mercy lifts the veil and reveals himself to them. For some that revelation comes through God’s word, the Bible. For others it may come through an encounter with God as he reveals himself in the natural world. But that fog will not clear entirely until there is an encounter with Jesus Christ, the Son of God himself, who is the full and perfect revelation of God to us foggy hearted human beings.

I know what it is like to be lost in a spiritual fog and bear the burden of guilt and of shame, addicted to false joys and earthbound pleasures. I also know what it means to meet the Savior and set aside the guilt and shame forever, and find eternal joy in a life full of meaning and purpose, being, by God’s grace, what he created me to be.

And “a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.”

That’s the Good News.