Chaos

Blog on Saturday, August 30

Two things have gotten me thinking about what a false construct time is.  The first is the fact that we have jumped forward 16 hours.  Sixteen hours of life lost. The second was trying to figure out if we could have sake for breakfast in Hong Kong because it was Friday night Juneau time.

I read a book on physics called something like Beautiful Universe and it gave me the most disturbed sleep ever. It was quantum physics where the nature of reality is pulled apart and what we thought was definite is truly relative to perspective. Of course there is way more to it than that, but it made my brain hurt.  The random ordering of chaos and all the improbabilities of existence gave me nightmares. 

So we have time, with minutes, hours, and zones so we can feel a bit in control.  I’m sure there are historical reasons for it too, but I just finished watching Captain America where he battles HYDRA.  HYDRA is always seeking to create world peace through control and order in the midst of chaos.  That normally means many mass funerals for perceived trouble makers. As the head of HYDRA says, “HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.” Peace through control.  But, Captain America has a rousing speech about the gifts of freedom and vulnerability.  Yes, it makes the world more chaotic and painful, but that is the price of freedom.  That stuff comes right out of Dostoevsky.

Feeling vulnerable and chaotic. That’s probably good for me because I like my reality well-ordered.  If we think of God as the “foundation of being” like Tillich instead of the “puppeteer of all that happens” like so much current Christian thought, then I think there is probably some communion with God experienced in vulnerability and chaos.

Learning to Waste Time

I want to waste time. This is not going to be easy for me because I am incredibly task oriented.  There is no feeling in this world as wonderful as crossing something off my list.

I have a book on my shelf by Marva Dawn called Worship: A Royal Waste of Time. I won’t say that I’ve read the whole thing, but I was struck by the quote, “The churches’ worship provides opportunities for us to enjoy God’s presence in corporate ways that take us out of time and into the eternal purposes of God’s kingdom.”  I don’t think this is just true of worship, but also the rhythm of sabbath.  

So I'm making time to deliberately waste.  When I think of wasting time, I’m not thinking about distractions like the next Facebook quiz.  I really do think those are a pathetic waste of time. 

I need to waste time like Marva describes worship: being in the presence of God, myself and others, being taken out of time, and hanging out with the eternal purposes of God’s kingdom.  Wasting time in my mind means letting go of my agenda and tasks to delight or grieve or dream or sleep in the midst of whatever is happening around me at that moment. I need to take a break from a life focussed on accomplishing the next mission and just have a life.