As the sun moved closer to the horizon, I witnessed the brilliant array of colors reflecting on the still waters of the river.  Ahhh. My peaceful place, that both grounds and uplifts me. It is not unusual for me to post pictures of sunsets at the river, as I have grown accustomed to their majesty and calming presence as a part of my daily rhythm of life.

As I’m basking in the beauty and silence, chaos erupts. What just happened? Suddenly a boat offshore speeds toward the boat launch. The sound of sirens fills the air and flashing lights approach…fire, police, and tow trucks. Divers gear up and jump in the river. A car has just now purposefully driven full speed down the boat ramp into the river. Fortunately, the nearby boat pulls the man from the car in time. Yellow tape is placed where I now stand, marking off the area of chaos as divers go in to attach ropes to the now-submerged car.

Well, that was certainly something. There I was, minding my own business, lost in the beauty of stillness. Suddenly, chaos erupts to disturb it all. I see my surrounding vignette as an apt metaphor for life…as we often find ourselves surrounded by both peace and chaos.

So, how do we posture ourselves when both chaos and peace surround us? I quickly realized that the yellow caution tape served to place a boundary around the chaos, reminding me that this was surrounding chaos, but this one, thankfully, wasn’t mine. Hopefully, this chaos would bring help to the one who for some reason drove in. Though chaos can often be personal, it is too easy to borrow and internalize others’ chaos, particularly in our social media culture. Though others were appropriately handling the surrounding chaos, I still found myself tempted to cross the caution tape to learn more. In this case, that would not have been helpful to the operation at hand or to me. As the Scriptures teach, each day has enough trouble of its own. We don’t need to borrow others’ chaos when we can’t really contribute or help. When we can, then, we can be good neighbors.

The yellow, caution boundary tape was a good reminder for me to surrender to God what I cannot control and to act neighborly on what I can. Remember, even when we are surrounded by chaos, we have the Spirit of the one within us the one who can calm the storm. Strangely enough, even amid the chaos that had so suddenly ensued at the river, the sunset continued to cast a golden crown on the horizon. However, I was so distracted from the chaos, that I almost missed what remained right in front of me. Thankfully, I adjusted my gaze to find it. Sometimes, we have to adjust our gaze.