Dis-order

“…the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God hovered over the face of the waters.” – Genesis 1:2

In the first chapter of Genesis, there seems to be a relationship between order and disorder, or rather, order in the disorder. The life force, the spirit of God hovers over the deep, dark, chaos, and out of it, there is life and it is good, it is very good.

But we might not see disorder in our own lives as the place where new life and goodness grow from. More often than not, we are wishing this disorder away, wishing and willing a simple, calculated and controlled life.

I have wished for this kind of life, again, this weekend having come up against the disorganization of my school’s administration. No one talks to one another or thinks about how courses might be thoughtfully laid out so you can cover all the subjects you need to in a timely, economical manner. The concepts of order, thoughtfulness and communication seem to be a completely foreign idea to my institution, and even when I gently bring it up there is a fazed look that glosses over their faces like they’ve never heard of such ways of operating. The result from this disorderly administration means extra courses for me and, therefore, extra time and energy I have to give towards my education process that could have been finished much quicker, with less work, less headache and resulting in me actually doing the work, like now. I was left fuming after finding this out this late into my education process, realizing there was nothing I could do about it. And this is after being in theological school for 7 years, across two countries. Hear the exhaustion. Hear my body just wanting to sleep and rest. Give me the 7th day of the week and let me live in it forever. Give me the creation story that is quick, simple and done in 7 days.

However, I wonder if this whole God made earth in 7 days thing is a lot more tedious and took a lot longer than the tale presents. After all, the ancient Hebraic community at the time understood time differently than we do now. The concept of linear time was a foreign concept to them back then. Their concept of time was cyclical: time just deepens into itself and we’re invited into the rabbit-hole it leads us in. And so the 7 day creation story might actually be a way for us to enter into the concept of cyclical time instead. After the seventh day, it goes back to day 1 and so forth. Like how every Monday comes back around every week. Are we really further into time? Or are we just re-living and deepening into the strange mystery (and dreadful appearance) of Monday? You can often sense it too: the deepening hatred of the alarm clock on Monday morning.

Thinking of time this way might stretch our impatience, our desire for the world to be x, y or z. It might help us see something like the climate crisis in a new way: not as time running out, but rather, as time deepening our hearts. We are so deeply enmeshed in this disorderly chaos we call earth. There was never a time it was not disorderly. It’s funny how grandparents (or the people I work with at the aged care home) speak of how things were better back then but have somehow forgotten that they lived through 1 or 2 or 3 wars, had polio and starved for a time. Time is illusive and we remember what we want to remember and the present is never enough: the disorder of today is always too much. And so we look back or we look ahead. Rarely, do we go deep into the disorder of this day. For there is too much grief and too much beauty – only the well-practiced can bear to be that in-love and that vulnerable to the vast array of what is.

And so I sit with this creation mythology as I look back over the 7 long years of theological training (wishing they were 7 days), and I can’t help but wonder if there is something hovering over me, breathing new life into me, despite my unacceptance of what is. I wonder if the tumultuous waters within myself are inviting me to suspend this concept of linear time and to go deep, deep into the darkness of my heart where expectations are meaningless and this moment is everything: the grief and the beauty of what is. And see that there is nothing bad – only good, only very good amidst the chaos, the disorder of this world and my life.