C: CHAOS THEORY

It is amazing how a word that once implied only disorder has been completely re-purposed through science! Now chaos theory points to an orderly universe far beyond our abilities to predict without cyber-help. Chaos is how change often comes to certain dynamic systems—like the weather, cities or the stock market, and even your brain. A tiny disturbance seemingly goes “deep” into the system and emerges somewhere quite far away with huge result! Even the Urban dictionary gets the idea: “The scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever.” (“Occurrence” was spelled wrong however!) The most famous statement of chaos theory is known as the Butterfly Effect. The flapping of the wings of a single butterfly could set off a storm of large proportions on the other side of the world. I have heard the countries adjusted often in the telling (butterfly in China--tornado in Kansas; butterfly in South America—cyclone in Asia; and I have heard the storm relocated to Texas but I’m thinking that was just a Texas getting its hands on the idea, as we tend to do!) Nevertheless, the chaos song remains the same. The micro-turbulence that receives that initial gossamer-wing-induced “disturbance” passes its energy on, layer by layer, tumbling here and lilting there, gathering sporadic rather than continuous momentum, until just the right configuration of “order” manifests as a refreshing and powerful storm of change! Meet reality: While we try with herculean effort to shift all at once the large problems in our lives, we so often miss making those tiny adjustments that would successfully navigate our personal complexities such that one day we would find ourselves standing in the gale-force rain and the wind and enjoying the cleansing! I recently had to adjust my chaos thinking a little, however. Though I never asked it to, my mind had filled in the gap of time between butterfly flap and storm with a length of a few days or maybe a couple of weeks. It “seemed” to my reason an appropriate length of opportunity for little air compressions to cycle through the global atmosphere. But last week, I learned that at least one researcher has suggested that the storm over Kansas might occur TWO YEARS following the initial flap of the wing! My amazement was rekindled! I had let the universe handle the details beyond my location and even beyond my logic, BUT, now I was being called to realize that this glorious system can also handle the trickiest of all navigations: that of TIME! I had been excited about the power of small changes, but I still wanted them to hurry and show up, not realizing that I was limiting the incredible order of God’s universe by my “reasonable” deadlines! I realized that I would have actually assumed the butterfly flitted “in vain” if no storm had erupted and two years had passed. New information of hope was billowing in on me about all the possibilities still swirling in the heavens for all of our lives. Like radio signals, our hopes and dreams are still alive somewhere travelling in the atmosphere, gathering order for a storm of “occurrence” to come! The order of the universe that chaos displays is even more deliberate, orderly, persisting and robust than I had imagined—and far more reliable. Not every flapping sets off a storm, but some will. Keep doing what you do well and with a good heart and trust the genius of a well-made system to handle the rest. Review your disappointments and remove your time limits. Faith, trust and positive “inner wing flappings” never die—they are being passed through atmospheres that matter, perhaps doing work elsewhere, and whether or not the storm ever comes to earth in a way you can perceive, they are worth it. (I can’t imagine a butterfly ceasing to use his wings—that is contrary to butterfly-ness.) The message of chaos is not: What can I do to produce change? It is rather: Do I realize that simply being myself is a powerful force in an amazing system? We each matter and there is a lot more going on than we realized.

B: BLACK HOLE

Ever since the term “black hole” was coined in 1964, these large and mysterious gravitational “sink holes” spread throughout the universe have been used as a metaphor for ultimate evil. Science fiction writers love black holes because they offer story lines far wilder than sheer fantasy! The gravitational pull of these space-time “sucking” machines is so strong that nothing, not even light, escapes from them. Black holes represent epic and cataclysmic annihilation, and any space traveller would know to steer their starship clear! If you didn’t do so, and you were drawn past the event horizon (the point of no return), you would actually be “spaghettified” (yes, that’s a science term for the effect of the tidal forces of gravity) as you were sucked in forever, and no traces of your light would escape! BUT, as I often do, I get a completely different take-home message from the existence of black holes! They speak to me of an amazing cosmic economy which includes not only new beginnings but also much-needed ENDINGS as well! Black holes testify to me of a fully resourced universe with a flexible fabric that allows for rearrangement and recycling—a universe that gives “do-overs”—a universe that is laced with grace throughout its fabric! Sometimes the greatest enemy of progress is old things, old choices, old self-defeating behaviors and old memories of wrong. Black holes remind me that the universe provides for complete disposal where even the light once generated (as well as the quantum information) cannot escape to haunt me! Black holes speak to me of the possibilities of ultimate freedom from the negatives. Most of us, had we planned the cosmos, would have only considered the placement of light! The genius of God is that He understood and made room for a deep reality-bending darkness as well! The universe is wired with flexibility and the possibility for restart—it is not fragile. Spacetime can bend around my mistakes and mishaps and actually deform them if need be so that they are folded so densely upon themselves that they are no longer available to be examined, or even viewed! Once they cross the event horizon, they are, for all intents and purposes, gloriously GONE! So, the question is never: Is there hope for a new beginning? The question is only ever: Will I let go? And therein lies the “spaghettification” factor that we all must experience as the door into grace: The quickest way into this spiritual odyssey of “leaving it all behind” is also the process that will stretch you the most! FORGIVENESS is the portal into God’s economy of ENDING for the sake of new beginnings—and that forgiveness must be both extended as well as received! The human will is so incredibly powerful that without the choice to let go, even the giant sucking motion of grace won’t overcome the energies of chosen bitterness. If we keep on steering our starship away from the “altar of dark star”, we can cycle forever in asteroid belts unnecessarily! (Forgive me, I went a little far with the metaphor….) Grace not only means bright light, but also deep darkness to the negative, corrupted, and destructive--destroying the destroyer--placing things so far away that they cannot be re-examined. Surely that is what it means to be made new. The universe is shouting that it is possible!

A: ATOM

I can’t remember the first time in school I saw a representation of an atom, but I’m sure I loved it. The idea that all matter could be broken down into these neat little packages—these orderly building blocks drawn like perfect little solar systems—gave me great comfort. It de-mystified the big, scary world and assured me that there was indeed order, rhyme and reason to it all. Even though I was too young to articulate it, I think I breathed a sigh of relief and appreciation that everything in life orbited neatly around a center point. Many years and two science degrees later, I realize that the neat little drawings were just models—tools commonly used in all branches of science to depict a reality that is beyond easy comprehension. Those electron spheres orbiting on the page (or wooden beads attached to a nucleus by springs in my high school days) are more properly understood as “clouds” of probability! We don’t really have neat orbits around clusters of protons and neutrons: we have instead an increased probability of finding an electron in certain regions of the atom! And the regions aren’t shaped like rings either—they are far more nebulous, billowing and unpredictable! The real atom defies the tidy drawing of my childhood. It is more like a concentration of dynamic energy temporarily cohering and shocking us into the realization that for all matter, solidarity is a bit of an illusion! Many people’s understanding of life throughout the years has shifted like my concept of the atom and the neat packaging of their hopes and dreams has re-emerged looking messy and random. Neat and happy particles in orbits have given way to loose clouds of probability, as if growing up meant realizing that, like the atom, our life planning wasn’t nearly as “solid” as we had once thought! To all of us, I want to shout today: TAKE HOPE! The world may not be as predictable and conquerable as it seemed in our youth, but that only INCREASES the joy and mystery of living! The atom is not less wonderful because it is “messier”! No, quite the contrary—that just makes it even more miraculous! This universe runs on infinitesimally small concentrations of invisible energy that somehow cohere into matter strong enough to gird a skyscraper, fuel a rocket and run a city (or a human body)! Everything really is built out of virtually nothing—and that is simply AMAZING! Yes, our textbooks misled us, but it is good news! The atom is not just a simple building block! It’s a dynamo of energy in flux and flow with its environment! It is miraculously composed--not of certainties--but of probabilities, and yet it is the most dependable thing we can imagine! I am not disillusioned but rather gloriously “illusioned”—inspired inwardly with vivid pictures of this amazing life—a life and world so vast that we require a million models just to attempt comprehension! But in the end, we must always lay our models on the altar and bow the to broader Reality far beyond our comprehension! With a full heart, I can say, I have learned to be EXCEEDINGLY GLAD that my hopes and dreams exist as clouds of probability, like the atom! That means that the possibilities are truly endless and that nothing on this earth—especially no defeat—is as solid, final or definitive, as it claims to be! I love this flexible universe that has its own breathing rhythm and I am inspired by the potential in it every day. (And guess what? It does still orbit around a glorious Center point—One who is exceedingly dependable. That comfort remains and grows!)