It’s summer. My routine is no longer a routine and I’m starting to lose track of what day it is. This might sound ideal to some – but not me! I like structure! For much of the year I count on Mondays to reset the chaos of my life as my household resumes a schedule. But not only is it summer, I’m between jobs. So…what is Monday? It’s just a continuation of the other chaotic days! 

I’ll probably have to drive my daughter somewhere…but where? And at what time? No one knows. I don’t even know when to make my to-do list? Like, when do I start? Does it even matter? 

Ongoing chaos reigns. Having a teenager is chaotic, of course, and I also have a mom with Alzheimer’s. And a garage door opener that doesn’t work. And a geriatric dog who asks to go outside in complete silence so we don’t know when he needs to pee. My chaos is nothing compared to plenty of people I know…but I don’t know anyone who lives without it. 

Hoping to find a way out of the chaos in my life, I recently read Patricia Livingston’s book, This Blessed Mess. (I already have a stack of unread “how-to-organize-your-stuff books.). Instead the book helped me discover that chaos is part of life and, indeed, essential to it. She writes as a person of faith, that was a connection point for me. 

The creation story that is part of my faith tradition tells of God bringing forth light, sky, land, oceans, living creatures – from chaos. Chaos is the raw material for creation. In the history of humankind, that chaos keeps re-emerging and we have to keep reimagining ways to create from it. Create communities that have been broken, create healing from sickness, create art from scraps of what was, re-create ourselves when we’ve gone all chaotic. 

That insight reframed chaos for me. It’ll always be in my life, what will I make of it? I’ll never make a whole cosmos…but the disarray in my life shows me opportunities to bring comfort, repair, joy, resourcefulness, or even just plain listening. 

I’ve got months of chaos ahead to see how this works.