Unexpected Items in Bagging Area?

As our supermarkets get busier at this time of year, if we’re shopping in person the queues to pay for our goods get longer, inevitably. Few people remember a time when there were no queues in the run up to Christmas but how the queues and payment systems operate has, of course, changed over time.

Some years ago, people queued to have their shopping itemised manually, the cashier pressing buttons on a cash register. Payment was made with cash or a cheque.

Then bar codes appeared on products and scanning machines were installed at tills to speed up the check-out process. Cashiers still operate many of the tills but, as the scanner is responsible for checking and entering prices, it’s possible still to have a chat with the cashier. For some customers, that quick chat may be the only conversation they have all day

Today, more and more supermarkets are decreasing the number of staffed tills and enlarging the area for self-scanning check out tills. No doubt this helps them rationalise numbers of staff and how they’re being used. Yet, as more and more people are encouraged to, or are choosing, to use them, it doesn’t seem to help with the queues, particularly at this time of year.

Nor does it help those who value talking to the cashier. Indeed, one supermarket recently removed all of its self-service tills in response to customer requests.

I do like to talk to someone as I’m packing my shopping so I came late to self-scanning but I usually use if I’ve got a small number of things in a basket to pay for. However, I don’t think I’ve managed to pack and pay for my shopping more than two or three times without having to summon help, usually because of an ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ or because I’ve got confused (yet again) about where the supermarket’s basket should go and where my shopping bags should go.

It’s very frustrating but with the slight advantage that I do get to speak to someone, albeit briefly, when they come and wave their magic electronic card over things and restore order (at least until I try to scan the next item)!

We’ve just entered the season of Advent, a time of waiting, reflection, prayer and self-examination leading to repentance, as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, both during the Christmas season and his second coming.

How do I feel about carrying out a self-scan as I move into Advent? What in the basket of actions, ideas, emotions and sins that I’ve collected this year am I happy to have scanned by God and which do I wish I could hide? What do I need to add to my basket before I feel confident enough to start scanning?

Fortunately, I don’t make those decisions alone. There’s another very real presence, that of the Holy Spirit, with me as I review my life.

There’s no pressure to rush, no queue of tutting people behind me and no one to tell me that I’ve put things in the wrong places. I can lay everything out before the Lord and wait for Him to show me the right bag to put things into.

Which things do I spend too much time on? Is that because they seem the easiest to me? Perhaps I’ll be guided to put them into a bag which I need dip into only when I’ve worked on other tasks which are more important to Him.

Which things need to go into the bag I’ll carry closest to me going forward? I need to consider prayerfully and then be led into staying with those tasks, ideas, even dreams perhaps, which will nurture me on my Christian journey.

Finally, what about those unexplained items in the bagging area? The things which seem to have crept in but which are causing, and may continue to cause, problems? They’ll be gently scanned: no loud electronic noises or flashing messages here. Instead, the Lord will deal with them patiently and gently and place them into the position in my life where He’s intended them to be all along.

Advent has only just begun but I’m finding it a time of great spiritual refreshment and renewal, inspired and challenged as I am the Advent book An Advent Manifesto by Martyn Percy, (pub. Bible Reading Fellowship 2023; ISBN 978 1 80039 094 2).

I’m enjoying many new insights into this familiar season and praying that you, too, will find the self-scanning process rewarding. Especially as it can be done in your own home and whether accompanied by seasonal music or no music, at least you won’t have to cope with the supermarket’s dreaded Muzak!