| My employment history includes a stint in retail | | | | somewhat expected at the back of our minds, in an |
| management that extended for several years. While | | | | offhand way, they still surprise and disturb us to the |
| working as an assistant manager for a furniture | | | | core, even when we are not directly affected. |
| store, my shifts began either in the morning or at | | | | Perhaps our unconscious sensibilities recognize all too |
| midday, and varied week to week. Physically | | | | well that we could be next in line for a tornado, |
| maintaining the sales floor was an ongoing project. | | | | earthquake, hurricane or tsunami. Despite our best |
| Dusting, reorganizing merchandise displays and | | | | efforts, controlling the weather, our environment and |
| restocking shelves, as well as chasing down rogue | | | | the earth itself, we do not possess those gifts or |
| items that customers had taken from one location | | | | skills. |
| and left in another, could easily fill a full eight hour | | | | Human illness and disability also come to mind. For |
| shift. Sometimes a "relocation project" could remain | | | | years we've talked about the amazing advances of |
| undetected for hours if customer traffic increased, | | | | medical technology. Being old enough to remember a |
| only to surface at the worst possible time, the exact | | | | time before some of these advances, I am |
| moment the store manager walked in for his | | | | continually amazed by the rich, meaningful lives people |
| afternoon shift at two o'clock. | | | | can live because of organ transplants, chronic disease |
| His patrol began at the right of the store. Then, as if | | | | management and nutritional counseling. But our |
| from no where, a voice would arise, asking the | | | | technology also has limits. We cannot cure all illness or |
| simple question, "What's that doing there?" | | | | disease, and some disabilities, emotional, mental and |
| "That" could be a chair or lamp rearranged by a | | | | physical, still baffle the best physicians in the world. |
| customer, a display abandoned before its completion, | | | | Less concrete, but equally mysterious in their lack of |
| or a pile of packing foam that had been deserted to | | | | reason, are moral issues that confront us each day. |
| fend for itself in the middle of the floor after a new | | | | People continue to suffer in extreme poverty around |
| item had been placed out for sale. It didn't matter | | | | the world, violence in our communities is reported as |
| what the disruption was or why it was still there. No | | | | standard issue on our nightly news broadcasts here in |
| explanation, reasonable or ludicrous, was acceptable | | | | the United States and Iraq still struggles to solidify |
| because the mess should already have been cleaned | | | | itself into a country that can begin to set aside past |
| up, the furniture should have been put back in place | | | | anguish and move forward to a meaningful future. |
| and the display should have been completed. It took | | | | And, in each of our lives, every day, we bump up |
| me two years to realize that there was no right | | | | against problems, issues, fears, and false hopes, and |
| answer for, "What's that doing there?" | | | | wonder, "What's that doing there?" For these times |
| My former supervisor, still a close friend, and I now | | | | in our world, our nation, and our own lives, there is |
| laugh about those weekly scenarios. But those | | | | no right answer for what these things are doing |
| moments reveal a simple truth about life that cannot | | | | there, why they are still not fixed, and may never be |
| be ignored: the world presents many moments that | | | | fixed. But we are assured in the very first verses of |
| do not fit or are not where they belong, and there | | | | the Gospel of John that God has been with us since |
| frequently are no right answers for why they are | | | | the beginning, and always will be because, "The light |
| not, or cannot be, fixed. | | | | shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not |
| Natural disasters come to mid. Natural, even | | | | overcome it (John1: 5). |