Articles by
Steve Dennie

Travel Articles

Does God Know How to Fold a Fitted Sheet?

Steve Dennie

I can't think of anything more frustrating that trying to fold a fitted sheet. It came out of the package with smooth, square corners, but I'm sure this can't be duplicated with current technology. I could wad the sheet up and stuff it in a drawer, and it would look less wrinkled than when I try to fold the thing.

There must be a trick to it.

That's only one of life's frustrations. Here are some more.

• I scurry down a long row of parked cars to what looks like a prime parking space, only to find a pint-size Honda motorcycle sitting right in the center. Or I find some fancy, never-before-scuffed sportscar parked diagonally across the wipe stripe, hogging two prime spaces.
• Cracking eggs. Mom's great at it--one tap, and the shell parts down the middle. The yolk and white then plop nicely right into the center of the skillet. Sszzzzz. Me--I randomly hit the egg against the skillet, a cupboard corner, the stove edge, and other nearby hard objects, producing a hairline crack which I then try to pry open with my thumbnails. Little pieces of shell flake off, and one finger punches through that white membrane. Finally, the egg collapses in my hands, sending a gooey white and yellow ick oozing down my forearms. I hate it when that happens.
• Finding my car keys. Typically, I'm halfway out the door when I realize I don't have them. I need to be at church in five minutes, but I spend longer than that tearing the place to pieces, searching frantically. They're usually in my coat pocket. I tried one of those beeper key rings--clap your hands, and your keys announce their location, or so the theory goes--but it refused to work.
• Slow drivers. The car in front of me creeps along 10 m.p.h. below the speed limit, and 20 m.p.h. slower than I want to go. If I'm not in a hurry, the road is clear all the way to Budapest and beyond. But if I'm rushed, I quickly get stuck behind a pokey Plymouth with a bumper sticker chiding, "I may be slow, but I'm ahead of you."
• Losing things on my desk. If I need my pen, it's playing hide-and-seek. If I need scissors, my pen is in plain sight, but the scissors have slipped the country. Whatever someone asks me for, I know it's buried down there somewhere, perhaps desperately gasping for air. But finding it requires a) a major multi-nation rescue operation, or b) my wife.
• Getting all the pins out of a new shirt...except for one, which I don't find until it performs amateur acupuncture on my back. Why do new shirts require so many pins stuck in practically every square inch of fabric? Who puts them there? Is this some ridiculous federal regulation imposed after intense lobbying by the powerful Small Sharp Thing Makers of America? How do they fold fitted sheets without using any pins?
• Untangling clothes hangers. This is a biggy for me. I'm hanging up my shirts, with a pile of hangers laying on the table. I grab the top hanger, but somehow, it has hooked, twisted, and otherwise intertwined itself among every other hanger in the pile. My blood pressure rises and I futilely try to dislodge it. Finally, I shake the whole stupid mess in the air until one hanger falls loose.

These and other thorns constantly implant themselves in my mortal flesh. Maybe it's just a sign of the times. "And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars, and stubborn eggs, and prickly shirts, and space-hogging cycles, and...."

And then I begin wondering: What frustrates God? If God can, indeed, feel frustration, I imagine He's frustrated--

• When we read a biblical command, and we get out our Greek lexicons so we can fully understand the intent of each word, and then discuss its context and cultural implications...rather than simply obey the command.
• When a church board spends the night discussing whether or not to change a doorknob, and if so, what hardware store to buy it from...rather than dealing with how effective they've been in ministering to people.
• When one cantankerous person who opposed the doorknob selection makes a big fuss out of the thing, saying the pastor railroaded the idea through the board and bypassed the Property Commission. This prompts people to voice other discontent about the pastor until, ultimately, he's forced to leave the church...while the real problem remains in the pews for the next pastor to deal with. And the doorknob never gets changed.
• When someone receives a clear call to some form of ministry but ignores it, citing a dozen reasons why it's not a good idea...rather than obeying simply because it's God's leading and He doesn't make mistakes.
• When Christians argue over which Bible translation to use...when many people don't have a single translation in their own language. When we spend millions of dollars on yet another English translation for ourselves...rather than pouring that money into Bibles for Bibleless people.
• When Christians get wrapped up in peoples' interpretations of Bible prophecies, haggling over what will happen in which three-and-a-half years, and how supercomputers and bar codes and arms control and the West Bank fits into all of this...while their present lives fall apart and they produce no fruit.
• And finally, I imagine God is frustrated when we mistakenly think our troubles, like obstinate fitted sheets, are so great and our lives so difficult...when actually, Western life is a cakewalk compared to what most of the world's people face.

Copyright 2005 Steve Dennie