Faith in the Order within Chaos

When in the midst of Complexity and Chaos, being overwhelmed by a flood of information, emotions, thoughts, threats, fears, or what have you, the only way to cope is to have faith that there is order within, somehow.  That is the principle of Chaos Theory, as I understand it.  Although everything seems random and unconnected and although it seems unmanageable, there is some pattern (an algorithm, a wave, a symmetry, etc.) within.  That is also the key to crisis counseling, the counselor assisting the counselee in finding the pattern in the chaos and being able to cope.  Only then can you “go with the flow”, when you have some bit of order to hold onto as a life raft in the midst of overwhelming emotion, thoughts, information and the like.

In order to find the pattern, you must use filters.   The filters you use will be a product of the connections you have made and are making.  The knowledge (of how to cope) is in the networks.  And it is this knowledge that you will grow.  And in sharing these connections that worked for you (to cope with a life problem, a math problem, a language problem, a communication problem, or what have you), you are teaching others by giving them possible connections which they can choose to use or filter out for themselves depending on their own needs, circumstances and other connections.

Martin Luther, of the Protestant Reformation, is an example of this.  He was a product of the connections of his times.  As a Roman Catholic monk, he had the education and the means to study the Christian Scriptures in their purest forms.  And when he suddenly made the connection between the Book of Romans and the concept that salvation was not through the rites of the Church but by faith alone, he felt himself linked back to Saint Paul himself.  He then used this new connection and the freedom of his time (invention of the printing press, the rise of the middle class, etc.) to speak out.  He advocated using those printing presses to give the common people Scriptures in their own language, to teach them music with Scriptural lyrics in their own language, and advocated the Priesthood of All Believers.  All through filtering the overwhelming information and emotions he had been experiencing for years through the pattern of not needing an intercessor between himself and GOD.  And in doing so, he placed that same pattern in the hands of every Believer who could read or hear Scripture in his/her own language to use as a filter for whatever Life events were troubling them.

It wasn’t easy, and ended up causing Luther more trouble than he could have imagined.  Because of complexity, all sorts of events and connections with other people, authorities, etc. that he couldn’t have foreseen came into play.  But once he found that pattern on which was based his control of the chaos, he could do nothing other than take his stand on it and “go with the flow”, take him where it would.

Luther and his filters to deal with Complexity and Chaos