The ordering of chaos has long been a goal of mankind, and long been my own goal, to be sure.
The world often seems chaotic, and yet we see order and meaning in its folds, its wrinkles, the weave of life itself. Those who cannot produce order and meaning in their lives often descend into madness, allowing the chaos to reign.
The order and design of the world – and the universe – is one of the themes of my novel-in-progress, The Music of the Mountain. For music is orderly, if it is to be music and not noise, a judgment that is often subjective, given the cacophony of modern music. Nevertheless, perfect ratios create harmony, and melody pulls the notes into patterns discernable to the human ear.
When Christianity, rooted in Judaism, influenced art, music was musical. Notes painted pictures and meaningful moments. They told stories of heartbreak and heroism, of lives lived in beauty, truth, and goodness. Some of this continues today, in spite of the disorder of atheism and agnosticism, but it remains rooted in Christ and his salvific actions for mankind, a divine order ordained in Eden and destroyed by the Fall of Man, a divine order redeemed and made whole should mankind choose life over death, hope over despair, love over hate, truth over lies.
My bishop of blessed memory often said that Christians are a people of reality. We face truth as best we can straight on, without blinders, so that we do not become blind by our own misguided perceptions and opinions. We look to our truth book, the Bible, to discern reality today, to understand the patterns that underlie and inform all of life. From the historical accounts in Holy Scripture we can discern how we fit into those patterns, how each of us is given unique gifts to live out the art of our own life. We look to the Church to formulate doctrine from these great events recorded in Scriptures, giving these truths shape and meaning that effects our own lives.
When we do this, when we become what and who we are made to be, the canvas of our life makes sense, with its broad strokes and its fine lines. We become a book to be read by those we encounter in our time, just as those we encounter become books for us to read with delight. Each of us is a musical score, a symphony, a harmonic singing of the spheres that joins other notes to form grand choruses.
God is our conductor. There are sections of the orchestra and each one of us is placed from birth where we are meant to be, where our song will be sung, and our glorias will harmonize with the others.
Each one of us is a work of art reflecting and portraying our God of love and his marvelous marvels in time and eternity, living out our divine diversity in all of its beauty and goodness and truth.
Chaos is the result of the Fall of Man, and we live in a world of chaos. And yet, when we search for the truth and see the truth of the human condition we are invited to carve something beautiful out of the chaos, just at God did in the beginning, when he created something out of nothing, filled the void with light and meaning.
There was a time in my life when I rejected belief in the God of Christianity. I was an agnostic, I suppose, and a materialist, that is, all that is real is the material world of matter. C. S. Lewis pulled me out of that suicidal worldview. He pointed to the resurrection of Christ and the logic of belief.
And once you believe that the resurrection most likely happened… there are certain conclusions you cannot escape. Who was/is he? If he was/is who he said he was/is – the God of life and love conquering death – what instructions did he give us? What laws, stories, ways of living did he prescribe?
And so the journey of faith began in my heart, age twenty, fifty-six years ago.
I have learned that the journey cannot be made alone, but must be with others, as prescribed by Christ, that it is a path of continual repentance, absolution, and renewal, that the deeper you go into the love of God in his Church, the deeper you go into beauty and goodness, that the joy of communion with others and with Christ himself in the Eucharist, the greatest of all prayers, is contagious, spreading from one Christian to another, so that when you hear the Psalmist sing, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, you know what he is singing about and you can sing along.
(I have also learned that long sentences reflect the warp and weave of our life in Christ and so I indulge in them often. Indeed, we are long sentences, words birthing phrases with each passing moment, with each turn on the path to Heaven.)
And so today on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the blessings of America, and for the blessings of the Church, the Body of Christ. I give thanks for not being alone on my journey and knowing Christ is beside me, beside us, within me, within us, as we sing our songs, making those joyful noises we call music. We are not alone.
And today is also what has come to be known as “Stir up Sunday” because of the opening prayer in our Elizabethan prayerbook:
“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (BCP 225)
We are stirred up for we enter the season of Advent soon, a season that ushers in Christmas and that miraculous season of giving, of music, of harmony, of love. We are stirred up to prepare for Our Lord’s birth and all that that means for each one of us, when this magnificent God of love took our flesh, became incarnate. Such incarnation incarnates each one of us with Christ himself, his spirit, his love.
And so it goes – the mystery and miracle of words and music and you and me. We follow the star to where it leads, to meaning and purpose and rebirth.
The chaos of the void is no longer a threat, for we have been redeemed by Love.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 