Chaos

Chaos.  My fear and my life.

The inner turmoil of stuff… things… scattered, trampled, and hurled haphazardly.  Pressing urgently, shouting incessantly.  The constant lingering, sometimes bellowing, thoughts which invade and pilfer my tranquility and personal peace. 

And as often in my life – the external – reflects the internal.  Perhaps that’s why so much emphasis and energy and thought and exercise is focused here….on the periphery. In the areas of life which others experience, others see.  “If I could only structure, clean, paint, weed, decorate, dress, design (fill in the blank)…. in such a way….” The focus so unrequitedly directed toward the blemish.  

I long deeply, deliberately, and sincerely to experience beauty.  To hold it, like one nestles a soft baby chick. Giving it boundary and yet not pressing too firm. To caress beauty’s refreshing peace in my soul.  That is my longing, my ache.

But my external world is muddled.

Farmer Husband’s dress shirts piled high waiting to be pressed.  Dishes strewn in the sink, crusty with dried food debris.  Electronic tails weaving in and out and under and over everything.  Dust - bunny, webbed, and amassed on horizontal planes.  Cardboard boxes -half filled, file piles teetering in height, plastic food containers and lids stacked precariously on counter tops.  Carpet stains freckling the floor.  Window panes reflecting the haze of a winter’s cloudy envelope. Iron deposits and streaks on tub’s bottom.  Faucet rhythmically dripping….

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.” (Psalm 27:4 ESV)

We were created with the longing for beauty. His beauty.

It’s no wonder that a clean, organized, lovely home enables inner reflection.  The visual overload does not distract. I completely understand the serenity I feel when the farm is weeded; the flowers are blooming; the summer sweet corn aroma announces its readiness.  When I drive by the ordered grape vines winding their tendrils around wired beams, when I look long down the perfectly straight rows of beans heavy with fruit, when I observe the contrasting colors of variegated leaves and just-opening flower buds against a backdrop of freshly tilled and moist dark sweet smelling soil – these reflect, although dimly, “the beauty of the Lord.”

When I see the crescent of a moon beaming brightly, reflecting and ricocheting its light from the whitest of snows piled high.  When Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Bellatrix twinkle luminously around Orion’s belt in the dark sky overhead. When seedlings pop through their blanket of earth, stretching their inner cells to build.  When puffy white smoke twirls up the sky from the wood burning furnace chimney, enveloped in a snow blanket.  These reflect, although dimly, “the beauty of the Lord.”

 

 “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after …”  One thing that I desire, that I seek, that I pursue - the One. That’s what the psalmist wrote. One thing.  

Noteworthy that the “one thing” was associated with three verbs. 

“Dwell….. gaze…..inquire….”   

The act of pursuing the Lord involves residing, beholding, and asking.  Hmmm.  This does not sound like the frenetic pace of doing, doing, doing.  The “one thing” requires reflection – meditation. Slow and deliberate. Intentionally and single-mindedly focused on Him.  

Reordering the inner chaos in the act of embracing the beauty of the Lord.  That is beauty.

Selah.  (Pause, and think of that).

Today’s Journey Joys: Hazelnut coffee with cream steaming hot, warming temperatures melting winter’s snow, meowing Frosty the cat incessantly demanding his breakfast, Kirby vacuum cleaner sweeping up debris, dishwashers chugging along, ornamental grass and lettuce starts peeking out through the soil under grow lights, slowing and thankful heart.