Out of Chaos
A reflection on the readings for Easter 5A: Acts 7:55-60, John 14:1-14 All week long my colleagues and I joked on Facebook about the pending “end of the world” - which since we are still here, did not happen yesterday. Apparently some mathematical configuration found in the Bible defined May 21, 2011 as the day of the rapture – the return of Christ – potentially leaving the world in upheaval and chaos as “some are taken up to God” and some are left behind. Charles Hardy, in his book, The Empty Raincoat , has some thoughts on the idea of chaos. He writes: “Management and control are breaking down everywhere. The new world order looks very likely to end in disorder. We can't make things happen the way we want them to at home, at work, or in government, certainly not in the world as a whole. There are, it is now clear, limits to management.... Scientist call this sort of time the edge of chaos, the time of turbulence and creativity out of which a new order may jell. The first ...