Now for the first time, the deep stillness of the place
laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the children. Becky said, “Why, I didn’t
notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of the others.”
(Tom Sawyer replied,) “Come to think, Becky, we are away
down below them…”
Becky grew apprehensive, “I wonder how long we’ve been
down here, Tom? We better start back.”
“Yes, I reckon we better…”
“Can you find the way, Tom? It’s
all a mixed up crookedness to me.”
When a system leaps
Mark
Twain captures
Our
human fascination with caves,
And
even more fascinating,
Being
lost in a cave!
Lots of stories use this theme…
Someone
discovers a dark opening
In
a forest, a cellar or a wardrobe
And
they enter out of curiosity…
They lose track of time.
Someone
almost slips over an edge,
Or
makes a wrong turn.
Their candle goes out,
A
bat flies by,
A
scream…
Then, they realize—
THEY
ARE LOST.
And the light and order
They’d
known just moments before
Have
become darkness and chaos…
In today’s Gospel,
Jesus warns of the Chaos at the End
Time,
“When
you hear of wars and rumors
of
wars, do not be alarmed; this must take
place,
but the end is still to come. For
nation
will rise against nation and kingdom
against
kingdom; there will be earthquakes
in various
places; there will be famines.”
We don’t know when the End Time is,
But
we do know about Darkness & Chaos.
In a less dramatic form,
We know something of chaos &
darkness
Simply
because of the season change:
It’s late November,
In
the Northern Hemisphere.
Back in March
The
daylight began to expand,
And
by midsummer,
Sunshine
became our element.
Then, as fall arrived,
Our
hours of sunshine have decreased;
Now darkness seems
To
encroach on ever side—
Sometimes threatening
To
extinguish our candles.
And then there’s the darkness
That may
have fallen on us
When, after a childhood
That
may have seemed like a picnic,
We discovered the party was over,
And
anxiety became our companion.
At that time, or perhaps before,
If
our childhood was not a picnic,
We learned to stay alert,
To
fear the ridicule of others,
And
to worry about our mistakes,
And
all manner of things
We
can’t control.
We learned to survive as best we
could
And
in the process,
We learned things like
Aggression,
Blaming,
Scapegoating,
Deception
and
Passively
lying low…
That’s what we see others do,
So that’s
what we do.
These are human “survival tools”
We
develop over time;
However, they can come to enshroud
us—
Become
like a dark cave
For
our spirits and souls.
And, if they dampen us too much,
We
experience our lives
As
dark chaos,
“A mixed up
crookedness”
We may wonder
If
we’ll ever find our way out of the cave.
Obviously the same kinds of things
Can
happen at a societal level:
Any of us who remember Sept. 11,
2001,
Can
testify how
The orderly way we thought things
were
Was
suddenly plunged into chaos:
We got a new department
In the government,
“Homeland Security”.
And wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq began. Financial
crises came along and besiege us.
Then it seems like more and more
Hurricanes,
Tsunamis, poverty, AIDS,
Floods and fires ravish the earth.
Over time our major political
parties
Have
forgotten how to work together,
And seem to exist
In a ugly power struggle
That’s driven by greed and power,
NOT the common good. . .
Hopefully, with the threat
Of the
financial “cliff”
Staring us
in the face,
We will see
this political situation change.
Close to home,
People are
still recovering from tornados
And Storms
Irene and now Sandy.
A headline in yesterday’s Eagle
Said
“Israel’s heart under attack”
(The story was about how, for the
first time,
Hamas aimed
its rockets
At the Holy
City Jerusalem.)
And when we find our society
In
these dark, chaotic caves,
We also adopt societal survival
tools,
Like
blaming and scapegoating,
That,
if used over long periods of time,
Dampen
our communal souls & spirits.
Some Good News…
Scientists who work with Chaos
Theory
Say
Chaos may not be
As
bad as we’ve thought.
They suggest a new appreciation
Of
the relationship between
Order
and Chaos.
They understand these two forces
As
mirror images—
The
one contains the other.
So, there is a process
Into
Chaos and Unpredictability,
The state of Chaos is contained
In well-ordered and predictable
boundaries.
‘Don’t know about you,
But
that’s a comfort to me
As we live in the transitional chaos
Of
saying goodbye to one bishop
And
welcoming another.
Of saying goodbye to Charles and
Jane
And trying
to imagine
A new music
ministry
For Grace
Church.
Of simultaneously celebrating
St. James’
250 Years
While
letting go of
The
separate identities
Of Sts.
James and George
And become
Grace Church!
Founding Members and Friends of Grace…
Take heart!
Those involved in the New Science
Think
living systems
Have
a great capacity
To
respond to disorder
With
renewed life: New Life!
So disorder can play a critical role
In giving birth
To new, higher
forms of order;
And, for Chaos Theorists,
It
takes both the Order and the Chaos—
The
Light and the Dark—
To
bring wholeness.
Perhaps these theories from the New
Science
Can
help us see in new ways
Our
personal, church, natural,
And social
times
Of dark Chaos…
When “It’s all a mixed up
crookedness,”
Perhaps darkness can be a place
Of
mystery, depth, adventure
And
joyful expectation…
In
addition to being a place of fear.
I’m certainly experiencing all of
this
As
we are in the labor of transition
For
birthing Grace!
Like any new child,
She will
need all of us in her family =
Her
foundational members and friends
To be there
for her and each other.
And she will need
Our
wholehearted financial support
To assure a
healthy beginning.
As we sign the Parish Register
And turn in
our pledge cards today,
Let’s embrace this time of
unknowing/ birthing
With a
spirit of mystery, depth, adventure
And
joyful expectation!
Another way to think
Of
times of transition and uncertainty,
(Besides
Chaos Theory)
Is to think of the rhythms
Of the
Church Year, and we can see:
God won’t
leave us in the dark cave forever!
Indeed, over the coming weeks,
The
Spirit of the Annunciation =
That Word
to Mary
That
she would bring God’s Son
Into
the world…
The Spirit of the Annunciation
Can guide us from where we are, Through
the season of Advent,
Into
the joy of Christmas,
Then into
the light of the Epiphany,
The day and season
When
we follow a Star and Celebrate
How
God’s light and Good News
Are
meant to be carried
To
all people in all the world.
Epiphany (Jan. 6) will be our first
official Sunday
As Grace
Church! It will be our feast day!
So how appropriate is the church
calendar
For the
days ahead:
We’ll go through the dark mystery
of Advent
And
the labor pains of transition,
Because
we know we are helping bring
Grace
Church into the world!
We know God
Will focus our
vision for this church
At Christmas
By birthing
his Son, who is
The way,
the truth, and the life.
This is the Son who shows us
We
are God’s beloved children.
We
do not need to be afraid.
We do not
need to have power struggles.
Because
he is the Child and Lord
Of
love, peace, and unity
For
all the world to see.
And this is the Son
Whose
Star shows us our mission…
Spreading God’s love, peace, and
unity
Throughout
the world.
As the church seasons continue
after Epiphany,
Through
Lent to prepare us
To
experience the ultimate example:
We’ll go from
The
Chaos and Darkness of Good Friday
Into
the Order and Light of Easter morning
IT TAKES BOTH DARKNESS AND LIGHT
FOR
WHOLENESS AND NEW LIFE.
“Shh! (Tom said) Did you hear that?” Both held their
breath and listened. There was a sound like the faintest, far-off shout…
“It’s them!” said Tom, “they’re
coming!”
When Tom emerged from the cave,
He
pushed his head and shoulders
Through
a small hole
And saw the broad Mississippi River
Rolling
by…
But
it wasn’t just the Mississippi:
What he saw—
And
what all of us will see
When
we finally emerge
From our personal, societal, and
churchy
Caves of
anxiety
(And
all that goes with them)
What we’ll see is
The
Face of a Holy Child,
A
Star that leads us forward,
The
Faces of our neighbors as friends,
A
Tomb that’s empty,
And
the Promise of New Life.
Amen.
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