Blessing in the Chaos
This month my thoughts have often turned to all the ways our lives have been changed in the past year. Life turned upside down, inside out. Life in the uncertainty, unknowing. Life in chaos. Life in a liminal period of chaos. But just as is true in the Biblical stories, it is true in our own lives. It is in the liminal spaces that transformation happens as we learn so much about ourselves, about others, and about God.
Below is one of my favorite writings of Jan Richardson, liturgical writer and poet. While she wrote it for the 4th Sunday of Epiphany Year B as a way to pull out the theme of the story in which Jesus silences the unclean spirit of a man he meets at the synagogue (Mark 1:21-28), the message seems so fitting for this moment. As you read Jan’s prayer “Blessing in the Chaos,” I invite you to reflect on this past year. How did you experience chaos? Where were the places you have felt powerless? What lessons did you learn (even the one you did not want to learn)? Where were the blessings in all that was chaotic? Where did God show up? How can you offer gratitude for the continuing presence of the Divine in your life and in the world? May there be for you today an opening to see what shimmers within the storm.
Blessings,
Rev. Shana Johnson, ISC Conference Minister
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
~ Jan Richardson, paintedprayerbook.com