Disorder is an invitation for revolution

Chaos Theory is all around us. It’s the steady drum beat: order, disorder, reorder.

Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder. Order. Disorder. Reorder.

Photo: Nathan Dawang | IG - @nate.dawang

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it both in the micro and macro. And, if you have the same level of reliance on Big Trust that MLK Jr. did, you navigate the pattern with faith that the moral arc, though long, points toward justice.

I’m feeling particularly fired up as I write this so I’ll up the ante and say points toward joy, goodness and Love too.

Right now, we are in deep, chaotic, nauseating disorder. The kind of disorder that results in meaningless, painful death of all kinds of persons, human and non-human. Though it is absolutely being stirred up by the sticky hands of the powerful who grope for even more, its kindling has been there a long, long, long time. Depending on the body/context you were born in, you may be looking at everyone else waking up saying, “It’s about damn time.”

And you know what one of the most dangerous things is to do in disorder? Trying to go backward to order. Trying to go back to the way things were. Trying to stuff the fluff back inside. It’s like trying to make something ‘great again’ — it’s haughty, prideful and noxious.

It would be like trying to tape dead leaves back on a tree instead of moving toward spring. Or Jesus dying, not resurrecting and all the disciples saying, “well, that was weird” and going about their lives. Or trying to go ‘back’ to believing that the two party system was ‘fine’.

Disorder is an invitation for revolution.

To move through the disorder, allow it to transform and then emerge on the other side into reorder. Into something far better than the original order.

But this kind of revolution won’t happen on its own. It requires active participation from you and from me.

So let’s resist. Let’s rebel. Let’s revolt. Let’s stand up, raise our voice and say, “NO.” Especially on behalf of the marginalized.

But not so things can go back to before. Because ‘before’ — which was upheld by oppression — is what led us to where we are now.

Practicing the art of civil disobedience, let’s navigate through the disorder and revolve toward Love.