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!