And need I mention dust? The whole downstairs (and upstairs as well, if I dared admit it to myself) is coated with a layer of dust that not even a child could be oblivious of. Between displaced and misplaced articles, a week spent in California, and a general overwhelmed-ness, I'm managing only to keep mostly current with laundry, and put food on paper plates.
If we lived this way all the time, I think I would be buried beneath the weight of the workload. However, this is one of those hopeful chaotic situations that exists on the way to something better. My dear cabinet-making husband is installing a new a kitchen--which in this 1880's house means removing a certain amount of lathe and plaster (hence the excess dust), rewiring, and re-plumbing. However it will be worth any level of mess when once the new is in place.
The whole experience has led me to ponder chaos. I know I risk stating the obvious when I say that chaos is a stressful state and by nature disheartening. We seem to be wired to avoid it at every turn. And yet--chaos can be a good thing if--and that's a big if--there is a reason, a vision for something better just around the bend. I'm thinking of the verse "Where no ox is, the stall is clean. But much increase comes from the strength of an ox." I'm all for clean stalls, and clean dining rooms rank right up there along with them. But there was no way to avoid the chaos we're in right now if I ever wanted anything to change in the kitchen.
So it's really about vision, after all--the hope of the prize set before us--that enables us to go through the messes of life, whether in houses, jobs, school, relationships, or dreams.... We're on the quest for something more. Something higher. Something better. And so we persevere, not content, exactly, with the chaos, but secure in the knowledge that it exists in order to arrive at a more excellent state.
Ah, lovely post. There's always pain before a child is born... chaos is necessary before creation.
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