Back Burner Time! (Audio)
What do you write when your plate is full of things to say, and your mind will not cooperate on a single topic? That’s my problem this morning. My plate is full. There’s much to get accomplished. My mind is replete with jumbled and cross-connected thoughts. There’s no focus, nor power to bring focus to a single thought.
I guess I’m happy to have a thought, but when there are too many thoughts, and too many things to get accomplished, and so little time…well, it’s time to bring order to the chaos.
Now, chaos is not a bad thing. Some think of it as confusion or even disorder. True. My mind can be a confusing place that needs some order. But chaos is also that unpredictable randomness before some great thing is created. Like the cosmos before there was an ordered creation. We peer deeper into the farthest reaches of space hoping to glimpse what it must have been like at the dawn of creation. Scientist proposes one theory, another knocks it down. One says “It must be…” and the other says, “No way!”
I choose to keep it simple for the time being. I do not pretend to understand the cosmos before creation and find myself strangely content with scripture.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5 NKJV)
Some doubt the existence of God, or the orderly creation of the universe. Like an exploding firecracker, some think the big bang ushered in life as we know it. Along the way, there are probably dozens, no, hundreds, of ideas on how order came out of chaos.
I understand. It’s beyond our ability to understand the present from what it was like before there was a beginning. Without form. Void. Darkness everywhere. Then, there was light. Focused light.
Bring it home for a moment. How do I bring this chaos into order so my actions will have purpose and direction? It’s almost as if those chaotic thoughts of my brain need a creative act to bring light to action.
I need some mindless task to settle the bubbling cauldron and let things move to the back burner. Some of my best thinking is when my subconscious mulls it over and produces patterns that become action and produce results.
Guess it’s tractor time.