There are moments in ministry — and, truthfully, in everyday life — when someone approaches us radiating the unmistakable aura of Holy Chaos. You know the look: eyes slightly wild, hair a bit askew, papers fluttering like the wings of distressed seraphim. They say, “Do you have a minute?” which, in ecclesiastical translation, means, “Prepare yourself for an odyssey.”
This is precisely the moment when the clergy heart wants to serve, but the clergy brain whispers, “If you enter this swirling vortex, you may never be seen again.”
Blessing chaos — other people’s chaos — is, in fact, one of the sacred competencies of pastoral ministry. The trick is doing so without adding our own particular brand of chaos to the mix. After all, nothing quite derails an already wobbly parishioner like a rector who mutters, “Oh dear… oh dear,” and then drops their pen in a moment of empathetic collapse.
Over the years, I’ve discovered three spiritual principles that help keep both feet on the ground (or at least pointed in roughly the same direction).
- Keep Your Inner Turbulence Off the Check-In Counter
When a parishioner arrives bearing news that resembles a plot rejected by biblical editors for being too dramatic, the temptation is to join them in their melodrama. But wisdom says: keep your turbulence inside the fuselage.
If someone comes in worried about their adult child, do not respond with your own story about the time you misplaced your passport, your sermon, and your sense of direction all before 9 a.m. Empathy does not require matching chaos for chaos like a liturgical auction.
Blessing their chaos begins with not contributing additional plot twists.
- Use the Ministry of the Calm Cup
There is a pastoral superpower hidden in plain sight: the quiet, deliberate act of making tea or coffee. When someone is in chaos, and you calmly fill a kettle, you are not merely preparing a beverage — you are performing a sacramental slowing-down.
Some might say we do this because nothing dreadful ever happens at exactly the same speed as boiling water. And they’d be right. The ministry of the calm cup says, without words, “We will proceed at the pace of steeping, not spiralling.”
- Bless — Don’t Fix — What’s Before You
Often people simply need someone to bear witness to their chaos, not tame it like an ecclesiastical lion tamer.
You can bless their swirling storm by listening deeply, holding space gently, asking the occasional clarifying question such as, “Is this the whole story, or the version you tell before lunch?” And then — most importantly — pray with them.
A blessing is not a solution. It is a reminder that God inhabits even the most tangled plotlines, working quietly in ways that do not require our heroic improvisation.
In the End…
To bless someone else’s chaos without adding our own is really an act of holy restraint. It is choosing presence over performance, calm over commentary, and compassion over control.
It is also, if we’re honest, choosing not to say the sentence that sits at the tip of every clergy tongue: “My goodness, that’s a mess.”
Instead, we take a breath, smile, and proclaim with gentle faith, “Let’s invite God into this.”
Because the truth is: Christ specializes in meeting people in chaotic places.
And — thanks be to God — the Saviour does not require us to tidy up beforehand.
A Companion Prayer
Holy One,
Give us the grace to stand steady amid the swirls of others’ lives.
Grant us calm hearts, listening spirits, and humour enough
to remember that we are not the Messiah—
we are simply the ones who point toward the Light.
Bless our presence, that it may bless others
without adding our own chaos to their burden.
In your peace we serve,
Amen.