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The Formless Void

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at an outdoor table at a Hilton Resort in Orlando, Florida, occasionally looking up from reading and writing. I found a quiet, unoccupied area overlooking the pool. I am like a cat and will try to find a corner wherever I can to be alone in the quiet. It is just after 7:00a.m. and there is a glorious stillness before the sun climbs its ladder into the sky and heats up the day while frenetic activity resumes. Because these twin summer deities—sun and activity—know people will attempt to squeeze every minute out of vacation, the two will triumph over mortals trying to relax a little on vacation. Haven't you noticed vacationers always return home exhausted? I will be no different after getting up early each day to watch the sun rise over the cow pasture behind my in-laws' Florida home where we stayed most of this trip. Getting up early to watch the sunrise is something I believe is worth letting go of a little sleep for.

Since we were at the pool last night and I saw the disarray of the lounge chairs pulled out of alignment by people in bathing suits and the discarded towels strewn all around that were used to towel off or to save an empty lounge chair, I marvel at the transformation that has taken place before I even got up this morning as a man named Eweka cleans and picks up the final misplaced pieces. His work is now nearly complete: order is restored poolside. The truth of what I am witnessing becomes clear to me while I am writing on my steno pad: Eweka is doing God's work, which I tell him a few moments later when he ascends the stairs and wipes down the tables in my area. What do I mean?

Work is what God was doing at creation, bringing organization and order to the chaos of the formless and void earth. Work is taking the existing raw materials and forming them into something useful or beautiful. So whether it is preparing the pool for another day of vacationers, organizing a business's administrative processes and work-flows, building a home, composing a song, or painting the lines on a roadway or parking lot, work is part and parcel with what God was doing at the beginning. The earth was "formless and void . . ." (Genesis 1:2) and needed further work, so God spent the rest of the week of creation filling in the details and organizing it: light, vegetation, land and sea creatures, sun, moon, and stars, and finally human beings. Then God rested on the seventh day.

I myself love taking random words and disparate thoughts and organizing them together to create essays, curriculum, procedure manuals, or poems. I am most fulfilled in my work when I get to do those types of things. But what I realized is that there are a number of other ways to work in a way similar to what God was doing in the creation. Even a teacher takes the formlessness of a young mind and helps fill and organize it with knowledge, skills, and abilities. So there is not just one way to work:  Society needs all kinds of people to bring their gifts and talents for the common good, even something as seemingly insignificant as cleaning up the poolside for vacationers. It certainly meant a lot to me that day.

Now I need to finish this entry and take on another aspect of my work: the formless void of the dirty laundry!

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