Welcome to part two of my ‘Order and Chaos’ series. I began touching on this theme in the last newsletter and I hope to run with it through to the end of the year. I love to use my articles to communicate a sense of hope to our college community of almost three and a half thousand, amongst the chaos of life.
Sometimes, we wrestle with this disorder and breakdown in many facets of life. Health, relationships, possessions, and even nations all tend to break down eventually. This causes anxiety and depression in many people and, as a chaplain, I find myself sitting with those people. What then is the answer to this seeming inevitable decay of everything in life? How do I personally find real hope in the face of chaos, and how do I infuse that hope into others?
In the last few weeks, I have started a vegetable garden at home. I needed to grab a patch of untamed, chaotic ground, and then put in a significant amount of effort to create a place to grow vegetables. I then raised some seeds and with more effort, I dug up some ground to plant out my vegetables. All that was just the start of my garden! Now, every day since then I have needed to tend and care for my seedlings, watering them, shading them, and chasing crows away. All this just keep the chaos at bay.
My vegetable garden speaks to the real hope that I have, even amongst the disorder and the weeds. Growing my vegetables is a glimpse of God’s creative order in this world He made. God has made a place for us with His own creative energy. After His creative work finished the garden, He then has remained faithful to care for it. The seemingly inevitable decay we experience in life is only abated by God holding all things together by His hand. The real answer to the chaos and decay is the creative sustaining by the maker of all things.
Hebrews 1:3 “..He holds everything together by His powerful word.”
Peter Chase
College Chaplain • Pastoral Care
