The Miracle Factory

The Chief Executive Officer was deep in meditation when the vice president met him at the water cooler.

"What's wrong, LG?" asked the vp. "That's a mighty deep frown."

"Oh, nothing, Mike," answered the CEO with a nod. "Just thinking."

"Sure, LG, sure," said Mike, falling into step. Silently the pair walked down the long hall back to the Boss' office.

They stopped in the doorway. "Mike," wondered the CEO. "Are we still achieving our goals?"

"Well," the vp thought a minute. "Manufacturing is running three shifts a day. Inventory is above-normal. Customer relations gets more calls than ever—and delivery turn-around is miraculous. Yes, sir. I'd say we're handling our market more responsively than …"

"… no, no," interrupted the Boss. "I know the business is healthy … I just don't sense that our customers respect us the way they once did."

"I know what you mean, LG" said Mike quietly. "The miracle business just isn't what it used to be."

"It isn't satisfying anymore," agreed the CEO, turning to appraise the factory outside his picture window. For a moment, his eves glistened, as though filled with tears. Then he said, "Mike, I love this place. I built it with my own hands—every beam, every brick. Everything here shows my handiwork. And I put it where the customers should have no trouble seeing it. No trouble seeing it at all. It … it hurts when they don't even look up at us anymore."

"I understand, LG." said the vice president, patting the CEO's shoulder. "We're doing more for them than ever and they just take us for granted."

The Boss leaned on his desk. "We're moving more product every day now than we once did in a millennium—more miracles reach the customers than I dreamed possible when I started this business. But they don't seem to appreciate our products anymore. What's wrong?"

"LG, I personally supervise every miracle we ship," said Mike, concerned. "We're giving them fantastic value. I take pride in our quality. So does everyone in the factory."

"I know. I know you're doing great work," soothed the CEO. "It's not you, Mike. It's the customers. They don't acknowledge our efforts anymore. Their hearts have become so hardened. When they don't get exactly what they want, or don't get it exactly when they want it, they blame us … complain that we've abandoned them."

"Disobedient wretches," whispered the vp.

"Mail call." said a young fellow, carrying a huge stack of letters into the CEO's office. "More demands for new technology. More customers requesting intervention in one crisis or another. More sicknesses to be cured. More complaints that we aren't delivering fast enough."

The young man with the mail added, "I tell you, LG, the mail room is swamped. The hot-lines are reaching circuit overload. We've got every available angel doing overtime. Everyone down there wants a new miracle. And they want them all right now! I don't know how we can keep up."

The CEO turned to the vice president. "Mike, route the easiest ones down to Peter's novitiates—he knows what must be done. Turn the bulk over to the guys in the factory. Then bring the big ones back up here and we'll work on them together."

Mike picked up a random envelope and tore it open. Scanning it, he muttered. "Angel feathers. Here's another problem, LG."

The CEO sadly sat down in his chair. "Do I really want to hear this?"

"This one wants to know why you've stopped performing miracles. Wants to know what he did wrong that you constantly ignore him. 'I'm a praying man, too,' he says."

"He certainly is," agreed the Boss. "Round the clock. Hour after hour. Incessantly. And we sent him a miracle just last week—an answer to those prayers about his mother's failing health. She's never been healthier than she is here with us."

"I remember that one, sir," smiled the lad with the mail. "That was a good one. You took her pain away while she slept. Even the nurses were surprised."

The CEO sighed deeply. "You see, Gabe. They just don't comprehend anymore. It's just as I told my prophet Isaiah, oh, those long centuries ago." The silence in his office deepened.

"Do … umm … do we need to increase production again, LG?" wondered Mike, finally.

"Production isn't the problem," answered the CEO. "We're already running 24 hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year, 100 years a century. That doesn't seem to impress the customers anymore."

"M-maybe," volunteered Gabe hesitantly. "… maybe we need to improve the product."

Lightning flashed in the CEO's eyes. "Improve the product?" he thundered. "We're the best in the business. Our miracles are the finest in this universe. We turn out more different kinds of miracles every minute than they should use in a lifetime. Why, we've given them incredibly-sophisticated microcomputer technology. We gave them the ability to put half-a-billion transistors on a single silicon wafer less than two inches across. My Word, Gabe, it took us six thousand years to get them ready for that one. And it was only 50 years ago we gave them the transistor in the first place.

"They can do miraculous things with the planet's mineral wealth—look what they're making with oil these days: incredibly-strong building materials. Life-saving medicines. Mass entertainment. Toys. Tools. Cellular telephones. And nowadays, they can blast their space shuttles outside the planet's atmosphere anytime they want. A deep-space telescope so they can begin to relish the beauty and complexity of My universe.

"We've given them sophisticated analysis techniques to deal with mental illness. We've given them magnetic resonance imaging to see into the very depths of the working body. We've given them powerful research techniques to fight cancer. In fact, we've given them a whole range of surgical and medicinal ways of saying lives—they don't have to rely on 'folk' remedies anymore—not that anything was ever wrong with those old, natural methods.

"And every day, they learn more about the world. They are beginning to understand the inner mechanism we built into everything in nature. Nothing escapes their scrutiny. They send instruments into the deepest seas. They dig into the deepest mines. They map the winds with satellite mapping. They irrigate the driest deserts. They dissect the tiniest parts of the atom. They genetically manipulate plants and animals to enrich their foods. All miracles! All produced right in this factory! We even gave them refrigerators so nothing gets spoiled. And microwave ovens that use very little energy.

"My people have never lived so comfortably or so miraculously. Improve the product … I should say not!"

"But we've done everything else, LG." said Mike. "Perhaps a new kind of miracle, a new way to send our miracles, perhaps that WOULD turn them around and impress them."

They stood silently, each admiring the celestial miracle factory.

"I'm just too old," sighed the CEO finally, quietly. "Too old to look for ways to improve a good product. They've always been happy with our efforts in the past."

"True, LG," agreed Mike. "But now, all they do is complain that we aren't there when they need us. How can they not see us? They say we've abandoned them. How can they not feel our presence among them? I've even heard them say you're dead. Heavens, LG, do they think we're going anywhere else?"

Mike continued fretting. "Look at the way they bicker among themselves. Everything is so splintered. You talk to them, show them your mercies, and they still argue about whether it's really you."

"I know," said the CEO. "All I ever wanted was customer satisfaction—the kind we got in the old days. I've tried hard to earn their respect, their faith. We all work hard to give them quality miracles …" The silence deepened. The sound of miracles under construction came faintly through the picture window.

"… too many of them express disbelief in you," said Mike finally, completing the thought. "They value goods. Money. Property. Material happiness. Oh, LG, they're even worshipping false idols again. What happened to faith in You?"

"I'm losing my patience with them," said the Boss. "These just aren't the good old days anymore—like the time I sent them across the Red Sea with Moses."

"I miss those days," said Gabe. "I liked it when they were thrilled that the sun came up every morning. When they were excited that the rain came for their crops. When they were happy You held back the floods—and delighted when the floods deposited rich new soil for their fields. It's … it's like they DON'T WANT to be satisfied anymore."

"I agree, LG," Mike added. "Everything is so complicated now. The customers believe the only way we can improve things is to make them more elaborate. More moving parts. More diodes. More doctors."

"And they find so many trivial reasons to fight among themselves and blame us," added Gabe. "Color of skin, color of clothing, kind of car, place of birth, type of education. There are too many political differences, too many religious dogmas—it's just not fair to us."

The Chief Executive Officer stared out the window, waiting for his staff to vent their frustrations. "We'll weather this, too," he whispered. "I've worked too hard to abandon them—despite what they say about me. I just need a way to reach them, to wake them up, to get their attention."

"I know, I know!" Gabe sparked eagerly. "Why don't I go down and blow the trumpet of doom? Like in the old days?"

The CEO silently analyzed the options. Mike and Gabe waited patiently, as only angels can wait, until the Boss spoke. "No. I don't think that will boost their faith anymore."

"I guess not." shrugged Gabe. "Too bad—it would have been great."

"I have an idea," said the CEO, stroking his chin as he let the suspense grow.

"What, LG," they wondered in unison. "What is it?"

"I'll send …" the CEO paused dramatically. "… I'll send My only Son. He'll teach peace and love, faith and obedience, redemption and salvation."

"Not sure that'll work, LG," the vice president frowned. "The customer base is too fragmented. There are too many languages, too many denominations, too much diversity. This is the twenty-first century, the eve of the new millennium. Your media budget would eat us alive."

"Not now, Michelangelo—THEN!" and thunder was in the CEO's voice. "It'll be our greatest miracle yet. I'll send My Son back 2000 years. The world was ruled by a common force, spoke a common tongue. Look, I already primed Isaiah that I might do this. I'll send My Son to speak with parables that people will understand throughout the ages, even today."

"He'll be a teacher, then?" asked Gabe.

"What would you have Him be, Gabriel? A truck driver, preaching to travelers at rest stops? A convenience store clerk with customers in line? A librarian, shshhing them so He can speak?"

"Uh, no. Sorry, LG," backpedaled the office boy. "I only wondered. A teacher, a rabbi, will do fine."

"A rabbi. Yes. Good," said the CEO, sitting behind his massive desk to give orders. "Now, you two scram out of here and get started. Spare no expense. Put our top people on this right away. Put the factory on full-capacity status—I want My Son to count on the finest miracles we can make!"

Copyright © 2004. Michael Quin Heavener. All Rights Reserved.