For any large endeavor, whether it be building a road or cleaning a garage, things tend to look worse in the middle of the project than they did before you started. Chaos is a natural part of the process of change and growth.
Where do you find hope in chaos?
What a wonderful question; “Where do you find hope in Chaos?” The question resonates with meaning for spiritual answers – is some form of order to be found? Although ultimately eventualities are out of our control, does motive matter? Can “progress” be discerned? Is there a “right side of history?”
Thank you, Warren, for this probing comment. When I lived in Arequipa, Peru, in the 60s as a Peace Corps volunteer, the places where I lived with the people in the hillside barriada, very few, if any, had electricity or plumbing or more than a dusty road in front of their home. When I have gone back to visit numerous times since, they have been able to show me proudly the “bathroom”, the electricity functions and the roads are paved. To us in this country, these “conveniences” are usual, but to them, their whole concept of how they are valued as citizens has changed. I call that seeing “the right side of history”.
Our nation, the UNITED STATES of America, is enduring a stage of chaos right now, IMO. We are trying to decide who we are, living all together side by side. When religion divides us; when color means “different”; when our expectations of what our governments can or are willing to provide its citizens we come up with multiple responses. This can lead to chaos but IMO ultimately it can lead to a stronger sense of UNITY for us. Part of Lincoln’s phrase “by the people” resonates with me since I believe that we will become a place where people respect each other as co-citizens of a powerful but compassionate place in which to live.