The shop looked like something from the movies- large and dusty. Sunlight poured in through capacious windows but didn’t light much of the space. The cinder block building housed an old Mercury that was only half-covered by a canvas sheet that had probably been there for at least ten years. Wrenches, hammers, screw drivers and tools I didn’t recognize hung from hooks and pegboard that covered large portions of the vast walls. Shelves held jars  and coffee cans filled with screws, washers, nails and marbles. The whole place was in disarray, but seemed to have been organized at one point in time, probably in the fifties, when my great-grandfather was in his prime.

Maybe the place wasn’t so large, and perhaps the dust wasn’t so thick, but everything seems to come in dramatic portions and consequences to a six-year-old. My great-grandfather died. The long, Mormon funeral was finally done. The wake had just started, and my father and I wandered off to the place he spent a lot of his time. One of us hunted for memories while the other desperately wanted something to do. I found it when I picked up a rusty, dirty chain that had somehow been wrapped into a ball.

I don’t know why I wanted to untangle it. I just knew that I wanted to do it. The task fit the occasion perfectly. I’d be quiet and out of the way, not bugging any of the mourning crowd. I sat down cross-legged in a square of sunlight beneath a giant window.

My hands had turned a disgusting orange-brown only moments after starting my task. Flakes of rust and dirt fell on my slacks and the floor as my six-year-old hands tugged and pulled at loose parts of my newly acquired giant knot. I kept wondering, “Why was this chain rolled up in such a terrible mess?”

★                     ★                     ★

You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

How could Eve resist? What did God know and see that she didn’t? How could she ever stop thinking about the forbidden fruit after a remark like that? And why was this snake talking to her? Something wasn’t right here, but a seed had been planted in the woman. She had to know…

★                     ★                     ★

Rusty fingerprints covered my slacks and starched, white shirt. My father had left a while ago and nobody else had come looking for me. I made progress on the rusty chain that had been so mistreated.  Long stretches dangled away from the core of the knot and I had even found one of the ends. The messy bundle was still more than twice the size of one of my little fists. At this rate, I had hours of entertainment ahead of me.

★                     ★                     ★

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves…”

The people had been working together for months. Some built bricks, others made mortar. Many labored on the tower, putting them together. The tower reached higher than anything they had ever built before, it was beautiful. The hope that they’d build it to the heavens pushed so many people to work hard. But then the communication began to break down…

★                     ★                     ★

God made us to love a challenge and a mystery. He gave us incredible minds capable of marvelous work. Something happened though and some of us think we’ve figured it all out. Some of us think we can untangle God. Not that He’s a mess, He’s just rather complex. We don’t get Him or His ways. We can’t- at least not all of the time. I have to admit, I like the idea of trying understand Him, knowing that I have a lifetime of work ahead of me and that I won’t get there as long as I’m trapped in this body.

I sat in that dusty old shop picking at a knotted-up old chain for almost three hours. I never got it completely unwound and was mad as hell when my parents found me and made me leave it there. My toil left me with nothing more than dirty hands and clothing. I thought about it for days to follow and clearly, haven’t forgotten about the challenge.