Chaos Theory?

My office is covered, you might even say littered, with papers, books open to post-it marked pages, stacks of folders and jotted ideas pinned to one of three bulletin boards.  My computer screen has 6 windows open as I toggle back and forth among websites, downloads, and emails.  My little copier works overtime as I print out articles and add them to my growing collection. My trash can bulges with discards and false starts.  Loosely organized piles hint at the rough outline of a writing project that is emerging. My teaching mentor Bev Bos once said that Children have to do too much and too many before they can do what is just right¹. There’s no doubt I’ve applied her advice to my writing process, which often resembles the end product of a piñata party.  Eventually, ideas and sources morph into points and paragraphs that eventually coalesce into an organized essay or article. Before that can happen however, my own version of chaos theory reigns supreme.

Chaos theory offers explanations about the underlying order in systems that may appear to be random or chaotic. Order, in other words can be found in chaos.  It has a lot of traction in the field of mathematics, but relax, I’m not about to launch into a discussion of fractals or mathematical models.  I’m just looking for some wisdom about the relationship that order and chaos play in our lives, specifically our spiritual lives.  Is it a stretch to apply ideas about chaos and order to Lent?  Perhaps, but finding some sort of order in a rather messy world is where I’m at today and in Lent, I see both the beauty of stability and the amazing gift of spontaneity. Chaos theorists base their work on reliable systems that govern our lives. Well, as a person of faith, so do I. Chaos theory examines the unpredictable nature of change. Hmm. Sounds familiar. In our lives, spiritual and otherwise, many things follow a reliable pattern, an order, but the end result is not uniform.  The aging process is a good example.  We recognize the biological pattern of aging, but we can’t predict exactly how aging will impact our minds and bodies. Nature provides us with lots of other examples of order that produces varying results. Think snowflakes.  Think rose petals.  Think my office floor strewn with papers from which some sort of orderly missive could result, with could being the operative word.

God, I believe, is quite adept at establishing order where chaos appears to flow. Think of a hungry raucous crowd and baskets of loaves and fishes.  Think roiling seas followed by a calm, slightly watery walk.  I think about my own life that sometimes is a kaleidoscope of order and disorder.  A part of me has always enjoyed chaos, that uncertain stage before I quite know the way forward or even how to find that way. I find a bit of uncertainty energizing. I could fly off in a thousand different directions or stand paralyzed underneath the weight of too much or too many.  Yet most of the time, I don’t live in a constant state of disorder, at least not spiritually (Don’t look at my office, though). While my path ahead will always be a tad unpredictable, there is an underlying faith foundation upon which I can rely.  I’m not suggesting that God directs every minute of my life with a closely proscribed plan that I somehow must uncover. What I seek to uncover is Goodness and Order and Direction (GOD) amidst this unpredictable thing I call my life.

I get an idea, a call or an email about a new writing opportunity and that chaotic process starts again.  I have learned over the years not to rush through this stage. I don’t have to choose between order and chaos. Both are integral to my understanding of God. In the midst of my jumble of papers, I often find an insight, a turn of phrase, the just right way to express something that might edify or instruct, comfort or goad.  This kind of mess does not need to be quickly cleared away or relegated to the trash heap. It is not a mess but chaos, and those are two entirely different things.  In a Godly chaos there is never too much or too many, but there is always more– more goodness, more order, more direction, more love. This is the kind of spiritual journey I aspire to live – one that is not written in stone, but exists in the midst of a crowd, the edge of the sea, or the scattered papers on an office floor.

Today’s tile is created using colored pencils and collage materials. It includes the words Good Orderly Direction, which is an acronym used by Alcoholics Anonymous to describe a Higher Power.  I find that it captures the essence of God within a faith-based context as well.  In the lower right a circle represents a world that is rather chaotic, although you might also see evidence of order there.  In between the two… well I’m not sure I can name exactly what is in between that order and chaos, but perhaps you can fill in this space with your own images and ideas.

How could the seemingly opposite ideas of Order and Chaos become a part of your faith journey during Lent?

In all chaos, there is a cosmos.  In all disorder, a secret order.— Carl Jung

1 This is a loose quotation from a speech by early childhood educator Bev Bos, who authored many books on children, education and creativity.