Chaos

"Think like Malcolm."

That was the thought that came to me quite unexpectedly on Monday morning during my walk to class. It didn't really have anything to do with what I was doing at the moment. I had just left my host family's house after finishing a rather large breakfast of ham and eggs and bread with jam. I had the start of a cold, which was making the cold morning air a bit of a nuisance. And I was excited for our first class on Eastern Orthodoxy. None of this bore any real resemblance to being on an island full of dinosaurs, watching everything fall into chaos. Still, the thought made me smile.

It also made me smile later that day, on my way back home. Even though I had just heard from my mom that there has still been no news about my grandma, who was in and out of the hospital during our backpacking trip with what they think - but aren't certain - might have been a stroke. Even after learning that my other grandma's dog had been put to sleep because of some sort of tumor. And even after learning that my sister and her boyfriend of more than a year and a half had just broken up, quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

The thought also brought a smile to my face while I was journaling that night. Even after I had completely broken down in front of my host family. Even after struggling to eat even half of a dinner that I suddenly had little appetite for. Even after forcing myself to read most of the homework that was due the next day, even though I couldn't have cared less at the moment about community development or agency or solidarity or which group of people conquered Romania way, way, way back when.

"Think like Malcolm."

For those of you who haven't seen Jurassic Park - and for those of you who saw the movie, stared in awe at the special effects, and then went on with the rest of your lives without reading the book an excessive number of times - this probably deserves a little explanation.

Here's Jurassic Park in a nutshell: John Hammond has cloned dinosaurs from blood he found in mosquitoes and is keeping the dinosaurs on an island in the hope of opening up an amusement park. He invited paleontologist Alan Grant, paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, and chaotician Ian Malcolm to come check it out. Malcolm knows what Hammond has done and has already predicted that the park will fail . . . but agrees to come, anyway. The other two haven't got a clue what's going on until they get there.

So they arrive at the park, ooh and ahh for a while, and discuss how lethal velociraptors are. Malcolm insists that things will all go wrong, that "life cannot be contained. It breaks free. It expands to new territories. It crashes through barriers - painfully, maybe even dangerously. But life, uh, finds a way."

Hammond ignores him and sends them on a tour of the park - along with his lawyer and his two grandkids. And things do go wrong. The fences fail. The T-rex gets loose, nearly eats Malcolm, then ends up tossing him aside, deciding he wasn't too tasty, after all. In the movie, the lawyer gets eaten. In the book, two juvenile velociraptors are spotted on a boat headed for the mainland. And Dr. Grant and the kids end up lost in the park.

After this, if you ask me, is where the movie falls short of the book. Malcolm spends the rest of the book lying in bed with a badly broken leg, slowly becoming more and more delirious from the pain and the morphine. And, while it may not be great movie material, his conversations with Dr. Sattler and arguments with Hammond are fascinating, and reveal a depth to Malcolm's character that the movie could have used. These conversations are what I was referring to when I told myself to "think like Malcolm."

First of all, Malcolm realizes just how small, how insignificant, their little problem is. When Hammond expresses concern that the dinosaurs might have "gotten loose and destroyed the world," Malcolm is quick to put things in perspective, insisting that Hammond is an "egomaniacal idiot." "Do you have any idea what you're talking about?" he asks. "You think you can destroy the planet? My, what intoxicating power you must have. You can't destroy this planet. You can't even come close."

So that's the first thing. No matter how bad my problems seem, no matter how much chaos there seems to be in my life, no matter how helpless I feel, it is not the end of the world. It's not even close.

Second, Malcolm has enough humility to recognize when there is nothing he can do about a problem. He doesn't resent his helplessness, his inability to fix the situation. Instead, he accepts it with calmness, and even with a smile and a joke. He alone acknowledges that the situation has spiraled out of anyone's control - or, more accurately, that they never had control in the first place.

This is hard for me. But it's something I have to accept. Whether I like it or not, the simple fact is that I can't do a thing about what's going on back in Minnesota or Illinois or Virginia. Yes, I can pray, but, when I do, I've found myself ending with the phrase, "Thy will be done," acknowledging that the situation is out of my hands - just as it should be.

Lastly, and perhaps most relevantly, Malcolm never loses his sense of humor. Because he can see the big picture, because he realizes that he has no control, he is able to see the humor in the situation. He jokes that he was "trying to get a leg up on the situation." When the velociraptors get loose and almost get into the control room, he simply comments on how ugly they are. And the last we hear of Ian Malcolm in the book is this short sentence: "And he smiled."

So I'm trying to smile. To laugh. To see the humor - or at least the irony. The irony that this has forced me to trust and confide in my host family more than any trust fall or ropes course or even climbing a mountain could ever hope to.

Maybe the biggest irony of Jurassic Park is that Malcolm was even on the island to begin with. He knew what could happen better than anyone else there - even (or especially) Hammond. He knew he probably wouldn't get off the island alive. But he was there, anyway.

Well, I knew, coming here, that life wouldn't simply stop at home when I left. I knew communication would be hard. I knew I wouldn't be able to hug my sister or call my parents whenever I wanted to. I didn't know exactly what would happen, but I knew something could. And I knew that, if it did, I wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. But I am here, anyway.

"Think like Malcolm." I think God gave me those words as a gift that morning. He knew I would need them. He knew that my fondness for a fictional character could give me the will to face chaos and helplessness with a smile, rather than turning tail and retreating to the nearest sanctuary I could find. The advice isn't going to magically make everything better. But it's helping. And it still makes me smile.

So, if anyone has bothered to read this far, I would like to ask you to pray for my family. For all of us. Those of us who willingly stepped onto this island full of dinosaurs, and others who had no idea what they were walking into. Thank you for your prayers, and for putting up with my slightly obsessive metaphors that may or may not have made any sense.

Godspeed, or, as my Romanian friends would say, Pace si Doamne ajuta,

Beth