As I watched the heavy snow fall on a mid-March morning, I couldn’t help but think how the universe is once again proving to us how chaotic it can be. Another calm sunny day is followed by a winter storm.

Nature pays no mind to the calendar or to the first date of spring. We might think that the universe operates in a programmed system of order in each season, but winter will end when it decides to end and by looking at eight inches of snow that fell in Lake Harmony, it certainly wasn’t happening on this day. Mother Nature had hung up her “Out of Order” sign.

Anything that is not in the order that we want can upset us, even in a legal sense. “You’re out of order!” shouts the judge when the defense attorney ignores an objection sustained to continue his hard line of questioning to a witness for the prosecution. “We’ll not have such chaos in my courtroom!”

We must have order in our lives. How else could we function? When chaos occurs, we fight to get back the order. Put the C back behind the B where it belongs. The number 12 must follow 11. Night comes after day. Day comes after night. The spoons must be in their rightful place in the silverware drawer.

But snow was falling near the start of spring! The number 12 came before 11. The letter C came before B. The spoon was placed where the forks should be. Order is lost and chaos reigns.

Yet some of the most wonderful things that happen to us come from acts of the unexpected. The man or woman you fell in love with was not something you planned or ordered like tonight’s steak dinner. No one gets up in the morning and says the goal for the day is, “I’m going to find somebody to love for the rest of my life.”

Author Kristin Miller wrote, “All the most powerful emotions come from chaos - fear, anger, love, especially love. Love is chaos itself. Think about it! Love makes no sense. It shakes you up and spins you around.”

Some people cannot deal with chaos very well. They trust their comfort zone to the organization of things. Their shirts are hung in the closet by color. Tools are organized and pegged on the garage wall. The toothpaste is to the left of the toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. There’s a place and a time for everything and when something or someone disturbs the order, there will be those who are sent into a frenzy until order can be restored. Yet we know organization often fails us. We must account for unwanted change. Singer, songwriter, Bob Dylan said, “I accept chaos. I’m not sure whether it accepts me.”

There are others who welcome chaos into their lives. Author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes said, “Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.” She contends that order is boredom. Just think of the routines we follow every day and how humdrum life becomes. We should want any disruption to break up the same ol’, same ol’.

Inventions begin with chaos. Mary Shelley, author of “Frankenstein” wrote, “Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials, in the first place, must be afforded; it can give form to dark shapeless substances.”

American historian, Henry Adams wrote, “Chaos was the law of nature. Order was the dream of man,” and author, Ray Bradbury speaks for many of us with his words, “Every morning I step out of bed on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”

Embrace the confusion. Invite the disorder. Dive into the deep end of the turmoil. Poet Robert M. Drake wrote, “Chaos, leave me never. Keep me wild and keep me free so that my brokenness will be the only beauty the world will see.”

Sometimes, we try to put life in a pickle jar, close the lid, and keep it contained so we know where it is. Take the lid off the jar and we lose control. Life escapes and goes where it wants to go, to where it wants to be.

We fight to reclaim our life and put it back in the jar where it’s imprisoned, controlled by our fear and kept safe from unknown risk, the Helter-Skelter force that breaks the chains we have locked around ourselves. Keep life in the jar and we can rely on predictability. We’re glad that Saturday comes after Friday and God forbid that should ever change and throw us all into what writer, Hiromu Arakawa says is “a cruel and random world.” Yet she quickly adds, “but the chaos is all so beautiful.”

The snow continued to fall and I thought there’s something oddly wonderful when Mother Nature brings us her random surprises.

Like the universe, my life has been full of chaos, and to be honest, I’m glad I left the lid off the pickle jar.

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com