Finding Our Way In Chaos

About a month ago I was reading on the couch and had fallen asleep - in one of those unexpected sweet afternoon naps. It was windy - and every so often I could feel the rootedness of our old mountain house firmly brace against the outside.

I heard a knock at the door - rare for where we live. It was Toni, our neighbor and the owner of our house. In a bit of slow slumber and in sweatpants I got up and opened the door -

“Are you leaving?” she asked, sounding both earnest yet calm.

“There’s a mandatory evacuation order,” she added. “A new brush fire started at Left Hand Canyon.”

Left Hand Canyon, I thought - that’s literally the next valley over - maybe a mile from here.

And I was awake - adrenaline beginning to surge through my body.

And I needed to evacuate.

Maybe some of you have had a moment like this - maybe even more than one moment - the rise of unprecedented weather events touching more and more - and more - human lives in recent years.

If you have had to evacuate your home due to the pure power of nature - I imagine you can bring back that memory - in an instant, it’s stored in your body..

I had half-heartedly begun to pack a go-back the night before when a separate fire had started that was also close to us.

You know that phrase - “go bag” - the bag you have ready with essentials when there is a crisis and you need to - Go, now.

Given the year we’ve had, the then looming election and calls for a post-election safety plan - I had been thinking for weeks about this - go-bag - idea.

One of the benefits, of course, of having such a thing ready when a moment like this comes is that you’ve already thought about what is essential to bring before the crisis, before that peak moment of adrenaline.

I grew up on the east coast and was used to hurricanes and blizzards - used to the way water could change and alter lives - but not fire. I didn’t know fire - especially wildfire.

And I had moments of panic as soon as Toni left the porch - (something primal surging)…how much time did I have? Was this really happening?

I was running from room to room throwing clothes in a bag, texting my partner Andie who was down the mountain - what is essential - what do we really need - the whole time I could hear Toni and her husband - hosing down the outside of the house with water - our whole beautiful home made of wood.

I started to see plumes of smoke from over the ridge. I grabbed passports, yes - the ashes of a beloved pet, medications, I grabbed my ordination stole (handmade by a former congregant),

I took a picture of my huge stack of journals I had been keeping since elementary that I couldn’t make sense of lugging to the car.

And our ballots - I thankfully grabbed our ballots from the table as I walked out the door.

It all felt a little - chaotic - and trying to think clearly, stay grounded and connected was - difficult.

I imagine even in the hearing of this story you can feel the chaos, you might even feel it in a certain part of your body - tightness in your chest - discomfort in your stomach, a heaviness in your shoulders.

Now, I’m speaking to you from that beautiful wooden home - we were able to return 5 days later - many of course, were not - and I imagine just witnessing the fires in recent months as a fellow Coloradoan - has been difficult, it’s been one more difficult thing, right?

Finding space in our hearts and our minds (bringing awareness to) climate chaos pressing into our backyards might feel challenging - maybe even in this very moment for you.

Afterall, it’s in the midst of a pandemic,
in the midst of creeping tyranny,
in the wake of the largest uprisings in our nations history against unaccountable police violence,
in the midst of job loss and separation from loved ones -
and now in the midst of a President that refuses to concede and doubting the very heartbeat of our democracy - yes…Life has been asking a lot of us recently.

Not to mention any of the more “regular” ways life can sweep the rug right out from under us, - a diagnosis, death, the ending of a marriage or relationship, painful distance from children.

Yes, Life has been asking a lot of us.

Now, I just want to pause here for a moment - to celebrate - because celebrations, too, are happening through and within and between all of it.

I want to celebrate the incredible voter turnout this year - the historic millions that courageously expressed their voices - many in the face of voter suppression.

I want to celebrate the organizers, the door knockers the canvassers, the poll watchers, the snack makers..

I want to celebrate the first Black woman vicempresident-elect of the United States - the first woman, the first Indian-American.

And I want to celebrate that love won - we are not a faith that aligns with any political party, but we are a faith aligned with love.

We are a faith aligned with the inherent worth and dignity of all life. And so I hope you did have the space for a heavy exhale over the past couple of weeks, maybe some tears of relief - maybe a solo dance party or a cheers with a friend.

It is so important to take a pause and celebrate the strength of love and organizing and our raw capacity as people - in.the.midst. - of all of it.

Thank you for each and every way you showed up over these past few months, this year - however small. Thank you.

And, beloveds, and - just because the Biden-Harris ticket is heading to the White House doe not somehow mean white supremacy is over.

The fires are still raging, ash still falling
- the storms still gaining speed - in every direction. Literally, symbolically.

And I keep coming back to chaos. Why is it here in so many forms at once? What is its purpose?

And how do we find our way in this chaos.

I was intentional about not using the word “through” - in my title as in - how do we find our way through chaos because that phrasing holds on to the other side as the goal opposed to accepting and living what we are in - now. And so how do we continue to build and live meaningful lives here, IN the chaos.

Everything I’ve learned consciously and unconsciously tells me that chaos is…well, bad.

That chaos is definitely NOT where we want to be - it is to be avoided, in fact, controlled, strong armed somehow.

And longing for order in the midst of disorder is - quite human.

And yet understanding chaos as this pariah of the human experience - wasn’t always the case - humans and cultures have lived with many different stories explaining the place and purpose of this disordering energy.

“At first - there was Chaos.”

Begins many renditions of the ancient Greek myth about the beginning of - everything.

“At the beginning, there was only Chaos” - starts another.

In Stephen Fry’s latest rendition titled “The Story of Chaos” and set to the scored orchestrations of Debbie Wiseman begin like this:

“These days the origin of the universe is explained by proposing a big bang - a single event that instantly brought into being all the matter from which everything and everyone are made. The ancient Greeks had a different idea - they said it all started - not with a bang, but with chaos.

Think of chaos (he continues) perhaps as a kind of grand cosmic yawn - as in a yawning chasm, or a yawning void that began the long chain of creation that has ended with pelicans and penicillin, toadstools and toads, sea lions and and seals, lions, human beings, and daffodils and murder and art and love and confusion and death and madness and - biscuits.”

I do love biscuits…

In this ancient Greek story of the beginning of - everything - chaos was - well, first. Out of chaos was born - Gaia - the Earth - then light and dark and everything in between…including - biscuits.

The Greek etymology of this force held in the word - chaos - points to “unlimited empty space” a chasm, a yawning opening.

Or a “grand cosmic yawn” as Fry names.

Which, I can’t say this description of chaos makes me want to run toward it - a grand cosmic yawn sounds - intense, uncertain, a little scary.

But that sense of an opening is appealing - even though not necessarily a calm opening, it’s teaming with life afterall — a gap or an opening, distinct from what was - a pregnant pause…just before the creation of something new.

“Chaos is the space in which things can come to exist - within” I heard a teacher once say - “For anything to exist - there must be a place for it to exist within.”

This grand cosmic yawn - then, albeit turbulent - is almost pure potential of creation, of new life.

And within the past decade or so, the story of the big bang has grown to look more and more like this ancient Greek myth.

Coverage from National Geographic from a few years ago features startled scientists after examining specks of dust that had been plucked from the tail of a comet more than 200 million miles away.


“In the new story of the solar system, it all began in chaos” reads the headline.

The wide-held belief had been that the beginning of - us, of all life as we know it (our solar system, our planets, the earth, our bodies) - after this big bang - was gradual in a sense…maybe even somewhat calm..the planets calmly spreading out into their ordered place that we now understand them to be.

But it turns out things were a lot more - messy.

In these specks of dust these scientists discovered traces of highest-temperature materials in the solar systems coldest bodies.

As one scientist put it, “the solar system was literally turning itself inside out.” The beginning was violent and turbulent - “almost infinitely chaotic” said another, the relentless force of gravity hurling planetary bodies to and fro - the scared surface of the Earth’s moon, a testimony to the birth pangs of our solar system.

And how beautiful - and revealing - the ways the literal birth of a new baby mirrors the beginning of it all.

As Valerie Kaur shares in our reading from today.

“The final stage of birthing labor is the most dangerous stage,” she says “and the most painful. . . . The medical term is “transition.” Transition feels like dying but it is the stage that precedes the birth of new life.”

Perhaps right now, in this time of collective chaos - we too, are in transition - as a country, as a people, maybe even as a species…it is painful, yes - there is much loss - but it also just precedes new life.

We are made of stardust, afterall.

What if chaos is not meant to be controlled, at all, but recognized for its place in the order of things, for its breaking down of what no longer serves and leaving us with the pure potential of creation.


What a blessing, then, to be alive during this time of a grand cosmic yawn - of such possibility for new life.


“After my labor,” Kaur continues: “I began to think about transition as a metaphor for the most difficult fiery moments in our lives. In all our various creative labors—in all of the ways each of our bodies creates - making a living, raising a family, building a nation…”


And so how do we find our way IN chaos. How do we live fully in this part of the story, how do we surrender into its place and purpose…recognizing its way of making space for new life…maybe even a new nation where all are free:

Through Breath. Through the wisdom within. And through Community.

First and always, we breath.

Slowly, deeply, rhythmically - especially in the acuteness of chaos. When that chest tightness comes. We breath. Slowly, deeply. Simple - yes. Powerful - definitely.

Slowing down our breath literally communicates to our nervous systems that we are - ok, that in this exact moment we do not need to fight, flight or freeze. We breath.

Will you take a breath with me?

We breath so that there can be more space in our moments. To reconnect with clarity and a wider array of options in front of us.

Our breath can also guide us to the wisdom within - because sometimes…as Valerie Kaur names in our reading…we have to get quiet enough to hear it.

If you’re willing, I invite you just for a brief moment to put a hand on your heart, or a hand on your belly - or wherever you picture this wisdom within you residing - or just imagine it.

Close your eyes just for a moment - breathing - what gifts does this wise woman or this wise man or this wise person within have for you in this life, in this exact time we’re in?

What is that small, still voice saying.

(Sometimes it can be hard to hear, which is why we must practice listening.)

Maybe it’s a fierce love - a love that knows so fully our interdependence and the ways we need each other in this life.

Maybe this part of you already knows how to grieve what you’ve lost, what we’ve lost.

Maybe this part of you knows the very unique gift you in particular are meant to bring to this life and to this community.

And finally, community.

We need each other - always but maybe especially during times of transition. During certain times in history of great change, of endings and beginnings, which seem to require a little chaos and some pain - but it might just be the order of things.

And together, we can remind one another that - you are loved, you are enough, you are ready for this moment because you are alive right now. We can share meals over zoom and stories of how the little ones in our lives made us laugh that day. We can live our lives, together - in the midst and through it all.

And so as we close let us sing, let us sing and remember these gifts we have been given for this moment and this time: the gift of breath, the gift of all of the wisdom within each of us - and the gift of community.

Amen and May it be so.