After Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and eaten breakfast with them,
he said to Simon Peter,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
~ John 21:15
It is really total chaos out there: new galaxies erupting into existence, stars shooting through space at breakneck speed drawing along with them their planets and asteroids, black holes sucking everything that comes close to them into obliteration. Even on earth, our planet’s core is a cauldron of boiling lava, the crusts on the earth’s surface are constantly shifting, and without us really understanding it, the climate is surely changing – for the worse.
And yet in our daily experience, there is order and balance in the world around us. There are as many days as there are nights. And we can be sure that another day will dawn tomorrow. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Even at the particle level, there is an equilibrium of positive and negative forces at work. We live; we work; we have fun; we are happy. In a world that is totally chaotic on another level.
In my experience, it gets better when I see things through my intelligence and imagination. There is actually more beauty in the world than ugliness or imperfection. It is a truly wonderful world we live in. I see it when we do our regular hikes. There are more people wanting and actually doing good than there are who are bent towards evil and destruction. For otherwise, our world would have been a wasteland as in the places where these hate-full people proliferate. There are more people telling and living by the truth than those who live by the lie. For otherwise, the delightful communities we live in and creative intercourse we are engaged in would not at all be possible.
To top it all, it gets even better when I use my will to decide to love in spite of the chaos and the disorder, in spite of the ugliness and the lies, in spite of the failures and the imperfections. When I decide to love, I can transform what is ugly into a thing of beauty. With love, what is good proves to be stronger and more powerful that what is evil. And with love, there is no room for lies or deception but only truth that sets us free.
It is pretty simple, isn’t it?