Milkweed – and Chaos
My Lectio Divina passage this week was Genesis 1:26-31. I considered the phrases “God’s image” and “be fruitful,” but the loudest “whispering” I received was just one word: “Everything.”
The meditatio portion of my prayer continues. As I walked through the woods out at our cabin, I was still chewing on why God wanted me to hear the word “everything.” I saw, and picked, an unopened milkweed pod. Mostly, I looked forward to getting back home and opening it in the warmth of my kitchen, to see, once again, an example of God’s order and beauty in all things.
God creating perfect order out of chaos. When I got home, I resisted opening the pod, and abandoned it on the counter, waiting. A day later, some fluff puffed out of the pod. I never touched it, but daily it changed. More and more fluff burst forth. The metaphor shifted. I had intended the milkweed pod as an example of God’s creative desire for order and beauty over chaos – but now it was just an example of chaos. It had morphed into a pile of fluff!
Did my humanity cause the chaos? Did our original sin (and my picking it) cause it to revert to chaos? (Now there's a meditation!) And medatatio continues. God still whispers the word “everything” into my heart. And perhaps the milkweed pod’s return to chaos is part of God’s plan too. Maybe even chaos. Everything.
Maybe it's not chaos at all, but a orderly release. Just because the seeds go in all directions does not mean that they are not purposful or have a direction. Maybe just because we don't know How something is being done, doesn't mean that it is not in God's design. What do you think? Gail
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