Life Is Messy

Recently I was at the breakfast bar of a local healthy foods grocery store where I meet with a man I'm mentoring. The store, undergoing extensive renovations, was a mess. Beams, boards and plastic coverings everywhere. It reminded me of a couple of years ago when we were remodeling our kitchen. My wife and I have enjoyed the finished result, but it was a messy process getting there.

These examples illustrate a truism we must accept: Life’s messy.

Think about it. Two people fall in love and marry, envisioning a life of idyllic harmony. That lasts about two hours. Then both realize they’ve married someone as imperfect as they are, and the lifelong challenge of building a lifetime partnership begins.

Soon the same couple eagerly awaits the arrival of their first child. The special day comes and the father almost passes out after observing the messy birthing process. The nurses clean up the baby, put a fresh diaper on it, and what does it do? It makes a mess. When they feed it for the first time, it spits up. For a fleeting moment they wonder, “We waited nine months for this?”

My wife would readily point out my home-office is always in various stages of “mess.” In fact, after I finish writing this, my goal for the rest of the day – and probably tomorrow – is to plow through piles of papers that have accumulated while I’ve been finishing a couple of projects. (The inserted illustration I've borrowed is not an actual depiction, but it’s not that far off.)

In physics, entropy refers to the tendency for things to move from order to disorder. I submit my office as evidence.

Other aspects of life are messy as well. Investing in lives of other people, helping them work through problems, can be plenty messy. Hiring new employees in the workplace can be messy, teaching them how to do their jobs properly and fit into the company culture. If those employees don’t meet expectations, correcting them – or even terminating them – can be especially messy.

But most of the time, a mess is necessary to create a masterpiece. You think Leonardo da Vinci didn’t spill some paint while painting the Mona Lisa? Don’t you imagine the Greek artist that sculpted the Venus de Milo didn’t leave chunks of marble around as he busily removed all the stone that didn’t fit his image of Aphrodite?

The Bible offers an interesting observation about the necessity of messes: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest” (Proverbs 14:4) In other words, if you want the productivity of an ox, you have to put up with its manure.