One of the best aspects of working at the shop was that there was a large variety of jobs to do and different skills to learn for each of them.
Good
We had two bookstands to fill with the month’s top ten bestselling titles. Similarly, we were given a list of the top 100 bestselling book titles and we had to display as many as we could, in a prominent place on the ground floor. This was updated by Head Office on a monthly basis and when we were sent the updates, our bookshelves were expected to reflect these changes.
It was a fearsome task because titles by the same author were supposed to be displayed together. Philip Yancy, Max Lucado and Joyce Meyer had many books on the list, but because they were of different sizes, and the widths of our shelves were different sizes also, the titles had to be scattered around. It was quite an assignment trying to make it look like it had some semblance of order and it would take Trudy and Casper up to 3 days to complete.
One day, Trudy suggested to Casper that the job be passed onto me. The two of them usually had other staff to rely on to cover the tills and serve customers while this job was being done. Casper agreed to Trudy’s suggestion but when he first asked me to do it, the job was already weeks overdue. Added to this, we were extremely short-staffed, so I was expected to serve customers while tackling a duty I had never done before.
I stood before the large, oddly sized bookshelf and stared at the books in disbelief.
I began talking to myself quietly:
“So…what normally takes one familiarised person to do in three days, with no extra duties, has to be done by clueless me, in one day, with a whole load of other jobs to do. Great!”
Just before Trudy went upstairs, she gave me a sweet smile and whispered,
“Bless you.”
It was not appreciated. I was furious.
As I flicked through a four-page document of titles, I decided that anger was going to get me nowhere. As much as I wanted to impose a form of asphyxiation on Trudy for, ‘dropping me in it’, I had to get a grip of the situation.
I thought back to times in the bank when my superiors would expect me to be in two places at once whilst producing an empty in-tray by the end of the day. I recalled the times I had put my own work on hold, to cover somebody’s desk so they could have a boozy two-hour lunch because it was their birthday. I had prayed. I had asked God for help. I had raised my faith to believe that God would not allow me to be given anything to do that I couldn’t handle with his assistance.
By this time, six customers were browsing and there was one heading towards the till. Each time I got inspiration about how to tackle the task, I would have to put my sheet down and serve somebody, losing all ideas to the back of my mind.
During a quieter spell, I rushed back to the bookshelf and took a deep breath,
“Lord, you know how unfair this feels. I haven’t a clue what I’m doing or where to begin! But you are sovereign and mighty, and I know wisdom comes from you. Forgive me for being angry. Help me to keep calm and trust in your providence. Please help me to not only get this job done properly, but in record time. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but I really need your help right now, please!”
All of a sudden, I felt the Holy Spirit say,
“Remove that book and put it there. Take that one from there and place it here. Swap those two rows around and put that one in the corner. Those over there need to go here. Look at the bottom row – it would look really good if all titles pertaining to that subject go down there. Those ones are too big for that side, so take these smaller ones and pop them into that space. Right, now move this to over there…”
Two and a half hours later, I was done.
On the way home, just before we reached the train station, Trudy turned to me and asked me how I managed to complete to job so quickly.
When I told her that it was the Lord who helped me, I think it sounded rather super-spiritual, but there is no way of explaining some things other than simply saying,
“I asked God to help me, and he did.”
It really was a miracle. There was no way I could have done any of it in my own strength. If I hadn’t prayed, I would have probably had a meltdown and thrown copies of “Run Baby Run” over my head like a juggler who’s been drugged. Several editions of, “The Purpose Driven Life” would have probably ended up landing on someone’s temple before I made a dash to the mezzanine balcony to successfully perform the leap that Casper hadn’t yet accomplished.
But prayer works because we have a loving father who is concerned about the little things that annoy us, just as much as the biggies.
Looking back, I am so glad that Trudy and Casper made the decision that they did. I remember exactly how ridiculously hard this job was and therefore, I am reminded once again, of how good God really is.
Bad
Amongst the many other tasks there were to do, Louise and I found ourselves with an extra one. Discarding books on Hinduism. I don’t mean books explaining what Hinduism is about, I mean books promoting it. When Head Office first began sending us books for the bargain basement, we assumed they could just be placed on shelves, tables and in baskets. But we soon discovered that every single one needed to be vetted, for, the occasional book was against Christianity in its promotion of another religion or idea. We promptly binned them but did not understand where our superiors were getting these titles from.
Lou and I also had a bit of a problem with the Apocrypha. We knew that some Christian scholars used it as a reference book, but to us, our stance was that the bible is all the reference one needs. Being ever aware that God warned mankind to not add to the words of the bible, Louise and I were particularly disturbed at the bible versions like the NRSV, that included the Apocrypha within them. There was nothing we could do about those, but for the individual Apocryphas, I would convulse with laughter as I watched Louise hide them behind the large-print hardbacks.
Ugly
Every 3 months, a large box would arrive that was ushered to the first floor. I would look at it with trepidation. I knew that the time had come. Inside that box were the ugliest, scariest books that I’d ever seen. No, they were not demonic – they weren’t destined for the bargain basement. These books were for the learned. They were for people obsessed with theology. They were the most doctrinal books known to man. They were… the “Nota Bene”.
(These were theology books sent to us by a religious book company and their catalogue was called, Nota Bene, so the staff collectively gave all those books that same name.)
A colleague would shout across to Casper to let him know they had arrived, and it would send shivers down my spine. Who is it that determines that books for bible scholars should be so ugly? The front covers contained pictures of matchstick men on a cross turning up their eyes, pictures of uninteresting architecture, depressing landscapes or unattractive shapes. The colours of the dust jackets were usually a boring brown, or a dull grey. They were also usually hardback, very large and extremely heavy.
These books were sought after by the town’s pastors, curates, theologians, wannbe preachers, vicars in training and those with a deep interest in Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew and Greek.
One of the most popular titles was, “Systematic Theology” by Wayne Grudem. Other titles were penned by authors who had a penchant for printing the first two initials of their name on the front cover. Thus, we had books by NT Wright, JI Packer, RA Torrey, FB Meyer, AW Tozer, FF Bruce, DM Lloyd-Jones, AW Pink and RC Sproul. The mothers of Karl Barth and John Murray are probably regretting not being more adventurous.
There was a young couple who visited us regularly. She had the longest hair I’d ever seen. He was Nota Bene’s most devoted fan and would spend a fortune on the books each quarter. He was a lovely man who was always had a cheerful disposition and he enjoyed blessing us each Christmas with delicious boxes of Panettone.
I used to enjoy watching his face light up whenever Casper told him the next lot of books were ready. The sight of the front covers obviously did not faze him one bit, but I often wondered what his dear wife thought about them. She was always rather quiet, and I wondered if it was owing to visual trauma, after all, his house was full of these books!
For me, one of the scariest titles is a book called, Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology. On the front cover, it has a ghostlike face of what I assume is the man himself, drawn in grayscale. He looks like his right eye has been blinded and that if you come too close, he will slice your ears off. Thankfully, I do not remember seeing this book amongst our Nota Bene collection, and if I had, I probably would have battled bouts of insomnia.
Go on, ‘Google it’ – you know you want to.
