Can You be Loved by a Cloud?

Gerald R. Baron
12 min readJul 31, 2023
Cloud painting by the author.

We sense we are loved by a wide variety of different things. People, for sure, but dogs, cats, pet mice and maybe even insects. My granddaughter has a stick like insect for a pet. For sure she loves it, and I imagine she believes it loves her back. Some sense that their favorite plants or trees love them back.

Our sense of being loved is usually reserved for the higher animals. I’m not sure if anyone affectionately cares for a slug or mosquito let alone a bacterium believing the concern is mutual. To think of being loved by a can of soup, a toaster or a brick just doesn’t work.

What about a cloud?

I’m not talking about loving clouds, because I certainly do. I spend a great deal of my time looking at the clouds forming over the Cascade foothills just outside my patio. They are one of my favorite painting subjects as the image above shows. I love them, but have not considered if they might love me back. Until now.

This thought comes through trying to integrate what we know from science and what religious belief teaches us through tradition and sacred scriptures.

What science teaches us about clouds

We know the clouds we observe are collections of droplets of water in the air. But, what is air? 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen and small amounts of noble…

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Gerald R. Baron
Gerald R. Baron

Written by Gerald R. Baron

Dawdling at the intersection of faith, science, philosophy and theology. Author of It Was My Turn, a Vietnam story.

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