Grant Hudson
My experience of this universe is one of frustrating
contradiction between order and chaos. My small old house house stands as a
modest triumph of the application of geometric laws humans developed to establish
order in the chaotic search for sanctuary. This house seems still and stable,
warm, and its angles appear to cooperate in harmony to produce a structure that
fosters some peace in my mind.
And yet a passing
glance reveals crookedness. Rot.
Puzzling diversity of
color on a monochrome wall. Holes.
And, in the middle of the night, when I am sleeping soundly next
to my wife as only one who feels truly protected from chaos could, cold water
pours down on my wife's face through a tiny hole in the ceiling, and she cries
out in horror for a moment, as our illusion of protection is shattered.
I recognize that I stand on the shoulders of generations of my
ancestors who worked tirelessly, suffered great hardship, and pondered
endlessly all the ways they could shield me, their precious, frail descendant,
from any pain, from any insecurity. And they fail. Again and again, their work
proves itself to be incomplete, their ingenuity rife with ignorance
everlasting. And in the face of that failure, I must ponder my role in this
long struggle that spans generations. I must decide if I will put faith in the
seeming illusion that is order, and attempt to protect my descendants from
pain.
In my confusion I turn to the rest of nature, attempt to step
out of the daydream of human control, and hope to find in it an order that is
perhaps more divine, perhaps something that has, over the eons, reached a tight
balance that has squeezed out pain and uncertainty. I feel that I glimpse
balance, feel that I see a harmony between the leaf, the dew drop, and the
caterpillar. But I step back, I see a half-dead baby bird struggling to grasp a
life it can no longer hold, could never hold. I see a tree limb shredded by a
cruel wind. I see the puzzling diversity of the dirt, full of wretched rot.
From the material God has given me to build a reality in this
moment, my mind has chosen this insecurity. My mind has fabricated a sense of
hopeless vulnerability, eschewing my gifts: freedom from disease, freedom from
hunger, freedom from dehydration. Freedom from loneliness.
And I have the audacity
to ask God for peace.
My father-in-law once said that evil is the bi-product of
freedom of choice at the sub-atomic level.
I once said that that even God does not understand evil, and worries
about it just as much as we, trying to perceive its purpose.
But I find now in my dark reality creation that evil is not
real. Demons mean well. The rot of my roof is pushing towards cleansing change,
salvific evolution. The hideous biome that is my flesh is cycling towards fluid
beauty.
God is perfectly caught in divine confusion, the space where
disparate ideas seem to be dancing wildly with no regard for one another. The
moment before the end of infinity, where all order is illusory, and cacophony
is peaceful. God is the baby bird, drawing its last breath over the whole span
of time.
And when I crawl out of this dark reality creation, I will
perceive persecution. I will perceive that my movement towards good is
obstructed.
It is.
My good will never be all good. The rigid house of cards I build
from my ideas will always lead towards death.
In the middle of the cruel wind, where disparate shreds of
organic material dance wildly with no regard for one another, God sings.
Hear it, embrace death,
and you will know everlasting life.
When you let that cruel
wind blow down the house of cards that is your life, what do you see?
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