let's define a perfect arch

“look mommy, rainbow!” my 5-year old daughter prattled gleefully while showing me the multi-coloured picture in the book. as i expected the prattle didn’t stop there so i geared myself to respond to her strings of “what’s” and “why’s” in a simplest but effective way. i sing-sang to her the different colours of the rainbow but she cut me short. i guess she was just eager to know more when she asked “mommy, what is the shape of the rainbow?” “well, it’s like a half-circle, an arch, a perfect arch.” her eyes twinkled but unsure whether or not she understood the arch part, much so with the adjective perfect attached to it.

perfect arch; i love the sound if it. the phrase seemed to have taken on an optimistic tone and it haunted me to a point where i needed to identify every arch-like structures i see and analyze what they mean. but what is a perfect arch? one company which promotes their custom-made window treatments via the internet claimed that they make perfect arches for cellular shades to fit any hard to cover windows. technically speaking, a perfect arch is a half circle whose radius is constant at all points. for the company it’s all about dimensions, and accuracy in measurements. for women, a perfect arch sometimes connotes to vanity. just like when i had my eyebrows waxed and after the procedure the beautician handed me over a mirror and asked if the arch was perfect enough for me. since i did look nice with my new brows i said “perfect!” gave her a tip and left.

the rainbow is just one of the perfect arches i know. it reminds me of one of the oldest stories in the Bible which was that of Noah. after the deluge, God put a bow in the cloud which shall be a token of a covenant between God and the earth. for me, whatever speaks of God is perfect. each time i see a rainbow it steers me back to God’s teachings and it causes me to comprehend more what diversity means; just as the way the seven colours of the spectrum seam together to create one light.

there are more perfect arches in this world to take pleasure in like the arch bridge in niagara falls or the bridges of paris and many more. it can be as concrete as a bridge or as abstract as a rainbow. but the perfect arch that i know has exceptional powers to transform lives by its simple means. an arm of a mother, a father, a friend, or a husband arching around my shoulders infuses a feeling of wholeness in me because such gesture also affects the way i look at the many aspects of life. if you haven’t noticed, we humans arch from our own reality to the other side of consciousness where we can see fully all we have been and will be. and if we continue sharing the perfect arch from within us the invisible between the people who we have been connecting will be conceived and because of that they will never ever stand alone again.

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