Non-linear thinking

Our grandson's new baby bed brought me to my knees all right. But for awhile there, I thought I'd probably lose my religion before I discovered anything redemptive in this little construction project.

Ezra plans to spend some time with us during the next few weeks. Actually, Ezra isn't planning to do anything just yet. He's only seven months old, and planning isn't part of his skill set, although he's great at sticking toys and bibs and fingers and toes in his mouth. He pretty much goes with the flow of his parents' plans. Nevertheless, he's going to stay with us for a few days or so.

In anticipation of Ezra's arrival, Jodi (his grandmama and my wife, Joanna) and Marvo (that's me), decided to buy him a bed for our home. "It'll be a good investment, not just for Ezra, but for all the grandkids to come," Jodi/Jo declared with confidence as she searched the Internet for good buys on baby beds.

Sticker shock

Jo eventually found a bed that appeared to be (a) safe and (b) reasonably priced, and we set out for the baby furniture/clothing/toy/doo-dad store.

By the way, did you know you can spend $649.99 on a baby bed, and that doesn't even include the mattress? We didn't, but you can. Amazing. And you can spend $250 for little bed linens upon which a baby will poop and/or spit up before you can say, "Chubby little cheeks." We didn't, but you can.

The baby store kept Ezra's bed and mattress in stock.  So, the young man who works in the back of the store and rarely sees sunlight came wheeling it out to our car. The bed had been packed in an incredibly small and impossibly dense box.

Fearsome phrase

As I helped the stock boy with his cart, I realized a certain truth I knew all along but denied until that instant: "Some Assembly Required."

Can you think of more innocuous  words that draw from a deeper well of dread? "Some Assembly Required." That little phrase has signaled a Waterloo for wrenches, a Dunkirk for screwdrivers, a Little Big Horn for socket sets to generations of dads and granddads.

I encountered my first major "Some Assembly Required" crisis when Ezra's mama, Lindsay, was just a bit older than he is now. Popo, my grandfather, gave me money to buy a swingset for Lindsay, his great-granddaughter. I bought the set, brought it home and opened the box. It contained approximately the same number of parts as the Space Shuttle. 

A full Saturday and a Sunday afternoon later, Lindsay and I stood in our backyard and admired her new swingset. Fear muted my joy. See, I filled every hole in every piece with a bolt or screw, and I still held a six-ounce bag full of parts. But Lindsay and, later, her sister, Molly, climbed, swung, teeter-tottered and slid all over that swingset. And nothing ever fell off or broke down.

The big test

Twenty-seven years later, I knelt in our guest bedroom and surveyed all the parts for Ezra's new bed. I pulled out the assembly instructions, read all the warnings, checked the parts list and gathered several tools. Then I started putting the bed together.

After decades of experience with "Some Assembly Required," I'm fairly adept at deciphering instructions written by sincere and well-meaning people whose first language obviously is not my own. Instructions for assembling most toys and furniture make Yoda's syntax seem sensible. "Insert Flange C into Slot QQ you must, whilst toggling Switch J counter-clockwise is mandatory." Fortunately, for the most part, if you study the pictures carefully, think carefully and use brute force, you can put stuff together.

Unfortunately, the person who developed the directions for assembling Ezra's baby bed is not fluent in linear thinking. On multiple occasions, the illustrations and instructions for connecting the Whatnot to the Hosenose contradicted the previous instructions spelled out on the preceding pages. Logic and sequence are concepts with which the instructions-writer obviously is not familiar.

So, the baby bed assembly became a project of assembly, disassembly, reassembly. Eventually, I jammed, rammed, screwed, twisted and otherwise connected every part to another part. The bed stood in the middle of the floor.

I leaned on the bed—hard—just to make sure it wouldn't fall in on Ezra.  And I took inventory of my vocabulary from the previous hours. I don't recall that I cussed, but I think if I had, even the Lord would've said, "Amen."

Christians and confusion

Later, I reflected on my frustration with utterly confusing instructions. And then I thought about how confusing Christians' conversation must be to unbelievers. I wonder how many folks live far from God because the Christians they encounter make a relationship with Jesus sound either inane, arcane, complicated or simply not worth the trouble. 

We need to think about how others hear the gospel. And then make it plain, direct, compelling and simple.