God Made Twilight Too

Perhaps the most ancient feature common to all religions is the fear of chaos. The gods we worship are the ones who promote and defend order. Disorder, on the other hand, is what lurks beyond the village, the town, the king’s decree, the well ordered empire. “Here there be monsters.”

This fear-of-chaos-core of religion has a strong grip on our imaginations, and is surely behind our tendency to fear both change itself, and the fog we experience when coping with change.

“God save us from immigrant invaders who poison our blood and eat our cats and dogs. God of good order, save us from the dysphoria of learning preferred pronouns and gender identities.”

“God made male and female--nothing in between. The Bible tells us so, and we are sticking to it, for the sake of all that is well ordered. And as the orthodox of the world we do not mix fabrics in a garment, or clean and unclean foods on our plates.”

(Those who say these things would perhaps be more comfortable in ancient Sumeria, where order was all important and love and the value of diversity rather alien concepts.)

But, what about twilight? Did God make beautiful sunsets too? How about wilderness? Can there be a new divine order in disorder itself? Are we the absolute masters of what order our order is in?

Once in a while it is good for the soul to step beyond the concrete to see what happens when the billions of organisms both compete and cooperate to make real, living soil. It may well be liberating to tread where “weeds” and all things out of line aren’t sprayed and destroyed. Sometimes it is instructive to travel beyond the reach of the streetlights to behold life in the moon shadows.

They say, in chaos theory, that if we are tolerant and patient in our observations we may discover that the apparent randomness of complex systems reveal symphony, interconnection, and a hidden power of divine creativity.

All hail to thee, transformative twilight! All hail to thee, Creator Spirit!