The Christian author and lecturer Elizabeth Elliot once said, “The way you keep your house says a lot about your values and state of mind. A disordered house speaks loudly of the disorder in your soul.”

Of course, I’m making a bit of a play on words because Elliot’s “house” was not the congressional House that I am referring to in this column, although the depiction, I would argue, still fits.

What happened this past week when a small group of hard-right Republicans chose to vacate the speakership of the House of Representatives leaving it in disorder fits the prognosis of a disordered soul.

The New York Times reported that Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Sunday on CNN. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there. What kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern, when we’re dysfunctional, when we don’t even have a Speaker of the House?”

J.D. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio once said in his bestselling autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy, “Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.”

This column isn’t meant to be another take on chaos theory, but somehow chaos seems to persist in our politics.

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet and writer of the 19th century once wrote that, “When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of public (indulgences), they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

That chaos leads to instability seems to be a well-known historical fact, yet the willfulness of some to persist with nihilistic intent, or even purely narcissistic intent is disturbing and is threatening the stability of our democracy.

Some say that we learn our best lessons from periodically entering the halls of chaos, emerging then looking foolish and determined to never go there again. But generational immunity would appear to wear off and the impulse toward “breaking bad” seems to recur.

Our constitutional democracy gives us the moral framework, the principles that define right and wrong, and of what constitutes goodness and what constitutes malevolence when it comes to controlling human behavior and our erratic impulses. We need to lean into the moral principles of our democratic and Judeo-Christian heritage in these troubling times.

Why does this concern me so much? For the past couple of centuries, the United States has been a kind of anchor of stability among the ships of state in the world. Our power and prestige have steadied many potentially cataclysmic global events. I’m thinking for example of nuclear proliferation and the threat of mutually assured destruction that frightened the world. I’m thinking of our intervention in World War I and World War II and the incredible Marshall Plan that enabled the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. And I’m thinking of our critical role in enabling the creation of the Jewish state, which is not only a statement of fact but a segue into my final thoughts of concern.

These show-business politicians in Washington who have pushed the biggest house of Congress into a state of dysfunction, with no Speaker to effect the business of the House of Representatives, have put the power, the prestige, and the effectiveness of our great nation to act as a moral power broker in the world at risk.

While there is mayhem in the House, we have a serious government funding problem to be solved. We have a war going on in the Middle East that not only threatens Israel, and the Palestinian people, but also the burgeoning deal carefully crafted to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel together for the first time diplomatically. Will we support Israel militarily and Ukraine as well or will we abandon both as some would seem to have it.

We have Vladimir Putin telling the Russian people gleefully that the war with Ukraine will end soon because there is chaos in Washington.

Our enemies look for our weaknesses and they advance and act when opportunities are present. The Chinese-Taiwan situation is combustible, and nothing would be more inviting than for China to seize on the opportunity of our dysfunction to act in a moment of our nation’s weakness. It’s exactly what Hamas did with Israel, a state in disorder with its dysfunctional hard-right ruling coalition and a prime minister under criminal indictment.

If these issues and circumstances weren’t enough, there’s an urgency for our leadership in Central Africa where military coups are rampant, in global immigration problem solving, in climate challenges, in income disparity among Americans, and in the threatening waves of artificial intelligence that need our attention before they wash over us.

Here we are. There’s civil war in our House of Representatives, and our digital airwaves are full of authoritarian talk “poisoning the blood of our country,” to turn a recent phrase on its head. It’s time for adults to seize the helm.

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.