Peace Out of Chaos

We had just left the Jordan River and found ourselves reflecting on the motion and movement of the Divine. We had placed our feet where Jesus had stood and taught, walked and healed, wept and slept.

Sarah and I were asking one another what message would we want our family to embody? What might we bring to this world with our presence? What will be the echo from our lives lived?

Shalom meh tohu.

That’s Hebrew for Peace out of chaos.

In a world strewn with chaos, our hope and hunger is to be a family which embodies Peace so we might then offer Peace. It was four and half years since Sarah and I traveled and studied in Israel. Four and half years since sitting on that bus and naming this prayer for our family.

If you ask for ears to hear and eyes to see, well, apparently the sounds and sights become more visceral… and dangerous. A year later we felt drawn to leave the one job I thought would be my last… and I didn’t have a job that I was going to. Come this way, move towards mystery, embrace ambiguity. From September to March I was preparing to leave one thing without any idea of what was next.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Ruwach is the Hebrew word for Spirit, and it carries the meaning of Wind or Breath that animates. And that phrase formless and empty, the Hebrew is tohu va vohu, which can be translated wild and waste or swirling chaos.

In the midst of swirling chaos Spirit hovers, and out of chaos the Divine creates.

When life feels like it’s spinning out of control, Spirit hovers. When chaos swirls it seems like everything else is forced to stand still. And people despise it and fight it. But I wonder if we are being invited to inhale that which is hovering, to breathe in that which has forever created Peace out chaos.

Throughout the Bible you can read stories of Messengers visiting people in dreams. Why? It seems while we’re awake we think we are in control and most everything we do is to try and control. In dreams we are out of control and simply in breath.

Spirit whispers while we wait to wake.

When we pause to rest from the swirling chaos, Spirit hovers and whispers. The Divine is forever creating peace out of chaos.

Within the birth narrative of Jesus, we read about the awkward position Mary’s fiancé Joseph finds himself in. Joseph, your bride to be is going to have a baby, a son, and he isn’t yours. For Joseph, chaos is swirling. So Joseph attempts to control the chaos by making a plan to walk away. While awake Joseph crafts a strategy to escape. But in his dreams Spirit hovers and whispers. Joseph listens and makes way for mystery.

And the Divine creates Peace out of chaos.

To us a child is born.

In the midst of chaos the Divine gives birth to Peace.

Shalom meh tohu. May it be so, today, on this eve of Incarnation.

Standing in the Jordan River.