An Impression of Order

After years of planning and saving, I was on a cruise, visiting ports along the Iberian Peninsula in a whirlwind of activity.  That September afternoon I was taking a break from my intense schedule while the ship was docked in Valencia, Spain.  The view from my cabin’s small balcony was not that beautiful city’s wide, sun-drenched avenues or an expanse of the bright blue Mediterranean.  From my perch high above the waterline I looked directly across at an acres-long loading dock, filled with rows and stacks of hundreds of brightly colored shipping containers stamped with logos and labels in dozens of languages. The metal rectangular boxes resembled a giant set of colorful Lego blocks. Though the scene at first looked chaotic, a closer look revealed the highly organized system that guided the containers onto a cargo ship that was ready for lading.  On the containers’ sides, bar codes’ unique patterns of lines unlocked the mysteries of the boxes’ contents, origins, and destinations.  Above the array loomed a three-stories-high crane, and about three quarters of the way up that tower was a glass-windowed cab. A lone man sat inside.  I could easily see him as he pushed levers and manipulated the huge cables that swung below. Scurrying in and around the containers, dockworkers helped secure the cables and one by one, the heavy shipping containers moved slowly onto the nearby cargo ship. 

The scene teemed with an energetic beauty.   Orange and blue, white and green, purple and red, black and brown—the patterns and placement of the containers was akin to an intricate pattern of steps in a formal dance—like a slow and sequenced minuet with brightly costumed dancers. What a skilled and intricate interplay of containers, crane operator, dockworkers and ship’s captain! The crane operator followed an ordered plan, his equipment “reading” the bar codes, his two small hands guiding thousands of pounds of cargo onward to myriad destinations.  Order was essential, yet each brightly colored container had its own story to tell.  Each action of lading followed a rhythmic sequence as the crane turned, the cables dropped, the containers lifted, and the ship filled.   Order is easy to see in nature: the growth rings in a tree trunk; the seasons of the year; the seed before the flower. Connecting nature’s order to our Creator is natural. The lovely story of Creation is itself a celebration of order…And there was evening and there was morning—the first day. (Genesis 1:3b)   Seeing the beauty of order in a loading dock or as a spiritual value is a little harder to discern. Order creates a stability from which creativity emerges.  Order includes prioritizing and clear focus, useful in loading ships and in my own life. Order reveals the beauty in patterns and sequence.  

During these two-plus years of the pandemic, I have seen more pictures of shipping containers in the news than in all my preceding years put together, the graphic evidence of the effects of disorder and delays. Hundreds of ships loaded with vital goods languish off the coast, mired in a maze of paperwork.   Every time I see these pictures, I am transported back to that late September day, when the breeze off the Mediterranean was crisp, the sun was bright and the shipping containers even brighter.  I think about the Order of things at that time, a time that now seems a distant memory. I long for things to be set into place once more as sure-handedly as that young crane operator lifted and placed those containers onto waiting ships.  My faith, however, is not about some divine crane operator who sits in a remote cab, moving things around, arranging and rearranging, following a hidden code. Instead I see a God who openly shares through nature, through scripture, and yes, even through rows of shipping containers, the value of Order in the intricate dance of Life.

Today’s tile is my impression of those storage containers at Valencia, Spain, painted on that afternoon with a few strokes of watercolor and embellished with fine-tip markers. The shapes and colors blend together and the blue sea and sky seem one. There is little hint of the orderly, precise work that truly characterized that scene. My memory fills in the rest. 

Consider other ideas and images as you look at this impressionistic painting of shipping containers. How could this picture connect to your own story? 

O God, We all have a story to tell. We all long to see meaning and pattern in our world.  We all need the assurance of Your Presence. Help us to take comfort and inspiration from your enduring power to create and restore Order in our lives.  Amen.