When it comes to chaos, everyone has their limits, what we can and cannot tolerate before we try to remedy it—sometimes with dysfunctional, or worse, destructive behavior. When threatened, there is a natural tendency in all of us to either shut down and shut out or attack and destroy. But the real remedy for chaos is to widen and deepen our center. The more peace we experience there, the more we can live creatively with the disorder that is most of life. That takes discipline. That takes the silence and solitude to find our center, and it takes the resources of our faith to nurture the trust that God is present in the turmoil of our time.
This message is adapted from “Chaos as a Creative Opportunity” written by Robert Fite in the September 2002 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.