CapeConversation

xaos

 

We gathered on Saturday, 14 June to explore Chaos! 

 

We started the evening with a meditative song sung in canon style that invited God to be present by calling on Him as Creator.  The repetitive nature of the song allowed us to dwell on God as supreme creator of everything – that which is in our control and that which is not.

 

“Come Creator…”

 

This was followed by readings by Ann and Mike as we viewed images on the large screen.  Merging, flowing, morphing images sparked the imagination and echoed the words being read.  We were encouraged to consider chaos in many different ways and not to think of it in purely negative terms.  Nic had scripted these readings in a thought-provoking prose that took us on a journey of order and disorder.

 

We considered chaos as a fragmenting and deconstructing process that possibly leads to reconstruction, ordering and reordering, creating and recreating.  This was marvelously manifested in a game of fridge poetry on the big screen.  A collection of words and syllables were projected onto the screen and we were invited to arrange and rearrange them to make short poetic phrases.

              in            s            order             dis

    with        out          play          pray             b 

 

Everyone jumped at the chance to play with creating order with these words and there was a rush as we all took chances to deconstruct and reconstruct phrases.  This playful time resulted in some thoughtful ideas and quite a number of laughs too.  Move over Hallmark, here we come:

* out with order * play pray out disorders * pray without display * play with pray * out with order pray play * pray without orders * outplay * playin with disorder * s out * bout disorder * display border without * pray outplays order * play without borders * disorder b without play pray * order outplay dis * b in play * out with order pray play * spray with play * play without borders * pray without order * pray plays out in disorder *

 

Once we had had the chance to think about these ideas we contemplated personal chaos. 

 

We sat quietly for awhile and stilled ourselves with some gentle meditation.  Then we considered the chaos in our lives.  This was not discussed.  We simply used the quiet time to imagine the things in our lives that feel like chaos – each person was allowed the space to contemplate their personal experiences.  This was then expressed in a visual mark-making and gesturing activity.  We each had an oddly shaped piece of paper and a 6B pencil.  We dispersed around the rooms and filled our pages with marks and gestures that rendered our emotional responses to the contemplation.

 

When we regrouped, we put our pieces down and spoke about them briefly.  We each had a chance to identify areas of the works that appealed to us.  Sometimes we are attracted to other people’s chaos and a simple shift in perspective might make chaos appealing to us.  We then discovered that our oddly shaped pieces of paper were fragments of one larger shape and as we put them back together we formed a large crucifix.  We considered the old cliché, “Pin your worries to the cross.” We tried to give it new meaning as we surrendered some of our chaos. 

 

We concluded with some further narration and one more rendition of the canon.  Thereafter a brief discussion ensued as we shared thoughts and connections around chaos.  Our final discussion melted as we slowly migrated to the kitchen for customary treats, brews and other liquid refreshments.