Folded Towel

To give just a bit of background to this story, I will have to admit that:

1. I like to watch crime shows.  Not the overly gory and over-sexualized ones, but things like Dateline and the old 1990s real-life forensics shows.

2. I can't keep my house clean by myself.  I just can't.  I can admit that now.  There I said it.  Over the summer, I chatted with my friend Karen about organization (a topic we are both interested in), and she let me know that she has a side business helping people with that.  So in the fall I hired her to come help me declutter and clean out my house.  When we were all done, I realized that I lacked the motivation to keep it that way; so I hired her to come back and help me clean on a regular basis.  Now my house is mostly clean once a week for about an hour before the kids get home from school.  (Don't get me wrong, my kids still have to do chores and help around the house; I didn't let them off that easy!)

Often, when Karen comes, I let her do all the stuff I don't want to do (toilets and kitchen) while I vacuum, declutter, and put away laundry.  So yesterday, I was working on a pile of towels that had been washed, dried, and dumped on my bedroom floor.  As I was going through the towels, I came across a towel that had already been folded.  I must have folded it, forgotten about it, and dumped it into the pile without realizing (or caring?).  When I came across the towel, I knew I must have folded it; or at least someone did.  It couldn't have just magically dropped in such a perfect way as to end up with three folds producing a (nearly) perfect square.  It seems so obvious that the simple explanation is that the towel was already folded before it landed in the pile.

Many of the crime shows I have watched show how forensics can prove that someone was somewhere doing something.  The prosecution can suggest with near certainty that someone was somewhere doing something.  That the chances of the evidence being there without someone doing something is impossible.  Therefore, they solve crimes, criminals get convicted, and balance is restored.

As I pondered the folded towel, it was clear to me that I had folded the towel and dropped it in the pile.  It was not really a question of if, more a question of when and why.

So why is it so hard for some people to believe in God?  If a rectangular towel, folded three times, can't land in a pile neatly, then how can you explain more complex systems we see in the universe all the time?  What about the planets, the stars, the solar systems, and the galaxies?  What about the telescopes and photography that allow us to see them?  What about atoms and molecules and chemicals?  What about organic systems like reproduction, digestion, respiration, circulation, nervous; just to name a few?  If my towel didn't just drop neatly into three folds, then how could our world, with all its complexities, just drop neatly into place?

It brings new meaning to the scripture that "all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator" (Alma 30:44).

I do believe in God.  I believe that it is clearly apparent that He is there/here.  All we have to do is look around us, and we can see that He is in all things; He is watching over us.