Oh fog! Oh fog!
What can I say?
You’ve painted the day
A thick shade of grey.
~Adapted excerpt from a poem by Andrew D. Robertson

A textbook definition of fog is that it is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth’s surface–a cloud of sorts, as it were.  Since it wasn’t cold enough last night for this one to have been formed from ice crystals, it had to have been from the little bit of misting rain we got yesterday.  Thus, the only strange thing is that I’ve never seen a fog of either kind come so early or last as long as this one has, at least here in north central Texas.  And the somewhat dense fog not only wrapped its arms around the morning, but it has also kept us held tightly in its embrace all day long.  Furthermore, as darkness closed in on us, it still hadn’t lifted.

The fog is an illusion–
A master of disguise;
Which hides the tangible
Before our very eyes.

It gives an air of mystery
That has long prevailed.
Dangerously intriguing
Is the fog’s foggy veil.
~Excerpts from a poem by W. Salley

In the silence of its thick haze this strange January fog has been reducing visibility and cloaking our city and the outlying areas in its mysterious veil of shyness since first light.  In grayness not unlike a pigeon’s feather, it has literally held our world close to the ground all day long, coating all the eyes could see.  And lying heavy on all that it encompassed, it kept the sun pushed back which sheltered the earth, smothered most of the day’s colors, and blurred everything as it clung to all possible shapes it could find.

Foggy mist, misty fog
Marvelous manifestation
Of magnificent nature!
~N. Subbarman

The fog descends
in the wee hours of dawn
like a sacred thing.
~John Tiong Chunghoo

Like most weather events, fog is often seen as some kind of spiritual force as it creeps along the ground and across the sky.  Actually there seems to be something about all weather phenomena that lends itself to perceptions of sanctity.  Perhaps tis so because all such events fall from the heavens overhead or, like the fog, are a part of earth’s mysterious beneath-the-surface workings.  And because they are beyond our control, we feel helpless to stop them and sometimes lives as well as homes are lost in the wake of the more forceful ones.  Genesis tells us that a mighty wind swept over the waters as God set about the business of Creation, and in His hands He held the elements of earth, air, fire, and water.  As He cast them out upon the wind, they were carried throughout the universe on its wild wings.  How could one not stand in awe and consider sacred such immense and mysterious powers!

In the beginning when God created the heavens and earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Genesis 1:1  ✝