The Space In Between

I like it when life is logical.  I like it when I do A and B and C, and D occurs, just like I think it should.  Cause and effect.  Black and white.  Organised and predictable, with a beginning and an end, and a certain series of logical steps in between.  Rational.  Explainable.  Neat and tidy and in control.

But life isn't like that.

Instead, it's this wild and crazy thing that can be explained logically and predictably and yet somehow remains utterly undefinable. 

Take the water cycle, for example.  The sun shines on the water in the lakes and rivers, and the water evaporates and rises into the air.  As it rises, the air cools and the moisture in the air condenses onto particles of dust.  Clouds form.  As more moisture condenses, the droplets become too heavy for the air to hold, and they fall to earth as rain.  The rain runs off the land back into the lakes and rivers, where the sun shines and causes the water to evaporate again.  Round and round we go.  Neat, organised, tidy, predictable.  It all makes sense.

And yet . . .

None of that explains a cloud.  None of that captures the wonder of a cloud with its light and dark, its wispy edges and its crisp outlines.  It cannot capture the way the the cloud can one minute obliterate the sun and the next minute glow with a whiteness so bright it blinds me.  It doesn't explain the magic of the shimmering rainbows of colour that sometimes dance inside the cloud, or the ominous brooding and billowing of that same cloud as it overtakes the sky like a malevolent monster.

It's not that the water cycle isn't true, or that clouds are somehow illogical.  It's just that there's this vast space between the parts and the sum of those parts.  And that vast space contains all that is wild and crazy, unpredictable and out of my control, messy but beautiful, and totally defying my ability to capture it and put it inside the bounds of a neat explanation.

And that's what life is like. I do A and B and C just as I ought, and I expect D to happen in a tidy little way, but suddenly there is this vast unexplainable space between what I have done and the results.  It's wild and crazy, unpreditable and out of my control, and totally defies my ability to capture it and put it inside the bounds of a neat explanation.

I like life to be logical.  I like it when things are tidy, rational, and explainable.  Black and white.  Cause and effect.  Beginning, middle, and end.  I like that.  It makes me feel safe.

But I am learning to love the space in between the logical and the undefinable.

Messy.  But beautiful.

Because God is in the space in between.