Not long ago I found myself in the middle of a group of people and various means of communication, all trying to sort out a schedule…Multiple people, some texting, some phoning, etc. After several flips and shifts over the course of a couple of hours, it seemed as though everyone was at last on the same page. This sequence of events got me thinking about chaos and dissonance and considering the differences between those two states of being. One disordered and unresolvable until re-ordered; the other discordant or out of harmony/synch. I realized long ago that I was okay holding dissonant thoughts together in my head but do not do too well with chaos if I am drawn into the middle. I move into the ‘reordering’ phase fairly quickly—perhaps too quickly sometimes, because there IS good that can come from what feels very much like chaos.

I’ve been going down to Point Pleasant Park after dinner lately, feeling drawn to look out toward a horizon. Tonight, however, I was looking out toward fog. I’d been drawn to the horizon as an exercise in contrast…the wide sweep, the unknown what lies beyond and the relative smallness of my own viewing point in the grand scheme of things. And yet, small though it be, I could see out toward the horizon…there was a clarity to my sight. At the same time, as much as I love a horizon, I also love fog—and that is what I encountered this evening. It too plays with perspective—softening edges and muting clarity. Fog engages with the imagination in ways that a clear view of the horizon does not. I love fog’s whisper of an enchanted ‘maybe’ and also the crisp enticing arrow of a horizon.

There has also been reason to take note of both the dryness and humidity of the air lately. One look in the mirror and one look at my hands will tell me which of those will have hold of the day. My hair inflates and waves with humidity, and my hands will often break out into patches of tiny water-blister based eczema. Dry air leaves me charged up and susceptible to zaps by everything from a blanket to the tip of the cat’s tail—poor thing, he’s not crazy about it either. I also notice the difference in the air itself—the ‘density of scent.’ Dry air is sharp and almost shallow. Humid air holds on, like it or not. When I got out of the car this evening, I was immediately wrapped in a shawl of sea air…it smelled of salt and fish and rocks and pine. Not at all unpleasant, but definitely layered and laden.

All of this…fullness?…got me thinking about a sermon I heard a friend preach that asked how those who were listening saw themselves relative to Jesus…Who is Jesus to me and should we encounter each other, what would we do? This came at the end of a homily that began with a small child and her answers about her mother on a Mother’s Day survey and how her responses perhaps spoke more about the child in relation to the mother than the mother to the child. What would my response say about me relative to Jesus? I felt myself well up with the tenderness of the delivery and the question itself. I knew immediately what I would want to do… Simply sit with…to feel the quiet, the groundedness, to bring to the forefront the fullness within me…the contrasts and considerations…and know that horizon feeling of still more. To be okay with the fog soft edges of uncertainty and in the presence of such Wholeness of knowing and being, to feel the finiteness of my own perspective. I would want to sit with Love beyond measure, to sit with holy welcome, to know the shared fullness of a quiet that is layered and laden and beyond the horizon of words…to know the feeling of Whole and One.

Somehow, considering all of these other pairings…chaos and dissonance, fog and horizon, humidity and dryness…feels like small glimpses into this wildly more amazing Mystery of the wholeness of Humanity and Divinity…

And the great thing is that instead of answers, I am left with awe… and that covers just about everything.