Running for Treasure

 “O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure …” Book of Common Prayer

I am told running is good for people. I see folks jog past my house every day and, to be completely honest, most look like they’re in misery. Frankly, I know I would be. My body has never produced a run-induced endorphin scientists or lab techs could ever hope to detect!

I don’t like to run. Not now, anyway, but neither did I enjoy it as a child or teen. If I needed to go somewhere, I went by bicycle. Wheels were where it was at. Running? Heck no (with one exception I will now confess for probably the first time ever, so gird your loins and prepare yourself for the shock of a lifetime):

As a young lad, it did not matter where I was or what I was doing; there was one thing that would get my legs to churching as if the hounds of perdition were hot on my heels – the sound of the ice cream truck coming up the street. I would hear it a block or two away and I would immediately drop everything, scramble at something nearing light speed for home and/or the living room and I’d scream at the top o’ my lungs (even if Mom was standing inches away): “The Ice Cream Truck’s a-comin’ – can I have a dime???!!!???”

Now, money was tight in our home and there was a lot we went without; there was a lot we couldn’t afford, but somehow Mom seemed able to plumb the depths of her purse and find a dime or two for ice cream. Not always, but often enough to encourage me to run for a few seconds most days of the summer. Occasionally she would only have one coin, in which case we got one of those ice creams or popsicles with two sticks so my brother and I could share.

I hated running, but oh was the reward worth the effort on those hot, dry summer days.

That’s the image that comes to mind with the Collect (a short community prayer) excerpted above. “Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, RUNNING to obtain your promises may become partakers of your heavenly treasures …” 

That’s another childhood word that leaps to mind. Treasure! Who doesn’t yearn to win the lottery. I never play the lottery, but I still dream of winning it (silly me). I’d never go deep sea diving looking for gold doubloons around Caribbean shipwrecks, either, but boy would I love to walk along a Gulf-coast beach after a hurricane and accidentally stub my toe on an ancient wooden box tangled in seaweed and wrapped with a black flag emblazoned with Long John Silver’s skull and cross-bones! Treasure! Aargh, matie!!!

I love prayers that take me back to my childhood and child-like sense of wonder. Sometimes I think I have gotten all old and crusty and just a bit crotchety. I’ll admit I was all of that this week. I had an attitude that really stunk, but I just couldn’t hang on to the ol’ stinkin’ thinkin’ when thoughts of running for ice cream and treasure took me over the threshold and into God’s presence. My spirit rejoiced; my heart freshened up; and I got off my derriere long enough to realize God has made me a “partaker.” 

A group of Pharisees asked Jesus one time by what authority he said and did the things he said and did. The poor dolts didn’t realize that Jesus was playing ice cream music in his life and ministry while they were listening for dirges to go along with their theological pickles and conundrums. They’d forgotten what it was to have mums, with dimes hidden deep in the inner recesses of their purses – treasures waiting to be found. Chained to millstones, they’d forgotten the joy of running free and screaming for undeserved, unmerited treasures! Such was their loss.

Life is a popsicle with many sticks. We each get a part. That’s why we are part-takers, and for that, I am ever thankful here in this, our Valley. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

Arachnid Wars and Kitchen Webinars

 “Christ claims us for the great task of building humanity. We will not know what it means to be human until we are one.” Timothy Radcliffe 

I was watching a spider outside my kitchen widow the other day. Fall is often referred to as the Season of the Spider, and with good reason. As the sun shines throughout the day, I see their silken strands spread from one side of the yard to another. They’re hanging from trees, bushes, weeds, and even from thin air (it seems). 

When I come in from doing yard work, I sometimes resemble Indiana Jones coming in from some great adventure, all covered with webs, dirt, dust, and Lord only knows what else. I went out the front door the other day, which is quite unusual, as my preferred means of ingress and egress is through the garage. In any case, I whipped through the front door to go get the mail and heard the tell-tale sound of ripping webs as the door opened. As deaf as I am getting to be in my dotage, the sound could only mean one thing. I had entered the Kingdom of the Spiders, and my life was now hanging precariously by a thread and subject to the beneficence of the Arachnoid Royal!

Fortunately, he/she/it was in a good mood. I presume they had just finished munching on a cow or some other hapless critter who had gotten all tangled up in their web of intrigue. So I tossed aside those sticky-strands-threatening-entrapment with windmilling arms that, surprisingly, did not get me airborn, despite the number of RPMs I was generating.

My rule of thumb when dealing with wildlife of any sort is that if it is in the house, it is subject to my disciplinary measures, which include removing gently (when possible), or smashing smartly when kindness doesn’t work. I’m really quite binary that way. Life outdoors, though, is a different matter, and I really do try to respect their space. However, I’ll admit that doorways and pathways are off-limits to anything with more than two legs, so I took the broom to the porch and entryway and removed (with some sadness, I’ll admit) the engineering marvel that had been placed there so carefully by the eight-legged MacGuyver who’d claimed my ‘hood as his or her own.

Anyway, getting back to the spider with which I’d started this missive, I was amazed by the size and extensiveness of the kitchen window spider’s abode. Her lines stretched from the eaves of the house to the ground, and spread out about five or six feet in a half dozen directions. I often wonder how spiders construct their homes. I always see the webs after they’re finished, but never during construction. Do they drop down from a high spot and then push off from the wall, swinging from a strand, and doing a Tarzan yell? I don’t see how else they could accomplish the feat (or feet).

Anyway, this kitchen spider seemed to be quite at peace until unneighborly birds began flitting around looking for tender morsels to consume. Something alerted my friend to their presence, for after just a minute or so she crabwalked off the center of her web and found a nice little hiding spot beneath a nearby leaf, and hasn’t moved from there since.

Spiders tend to be solitary creatures, and being a solitary dude myself, I can appreciate their desire for dark corners and safe places. During this Covid situation, I’ve become even more hunkered down than usual and am beginning to wonder if I won’t engage in spinning webs myself. Radcliffe (in the quote above) suggests that one of Jesus’ goals is and was for us to be about the business, not of building webs for entrapment, but for connecting with one another, building up one another, supporting one another during times of trial and tribulation and, ultimately, creating the oneness God intended for the human race from the beginning.

That’s how I prefer to approach life, to be honest. I don’t want to hide – not even from enemies real or imagined. I want to connect, build, unite, and be a source of joy and strength here in this, our valley. If I am to be a web-slinger, that’s the kind I yearn to be!

All Creatures Great and Small

 

“… no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” Albert Camus

This has been a month for nature’s wilderness creatures to come visiting. A few weeks ago I mentioned birds flocking to bird-baths; the other day a deer and her fawn strolled past the house with nary a care in the world; last Sunday I found a couple of raccoons wrestling around out in the backyard “big as life.”

Now, none of these incidents would be all that unusual for folks in Madison County. I recall a moose waltzing up to the house to graze on a bit of spruce out front while its calf nibbled on other trees out back. Wild life always amazes me; I never tire of seeing creatures that “belong out in the wilderness” wandering about town. 

Here, though, wildlife tends to be fairly scarce. I live in the middle of a small city. Oh sure, Mount Baker and the North Cascades aren’t that far away; there are undeveloped parcels and some wetlands within a stone’s throw of the house. But still, I find it all rather thrilling and hope to heaven I never lose that sense of wonderment when animals come a’calling.

No matter how many generations separate me from Adam and Eve, I still feel a special kindred with nature – with all creatures great and small. I suppose I could do without the viruses that afflict us (especially this nasty Covid-19 variety that’s got us all flummoxed), but even they have their place. As my Dad said, “If everyone was healthy all the time, they’d complain about losing all their sick-leave when they retired!”

I must admit I don’t think about nature all that much, so when I do see something out of the ordinary, like raccoons wrestling out back, I sit up and take notice. If I’ve got my thinking cap on (boy, that’s a term I don’t think I’ve heard or used in decades), I’ll run, grab my camera, and try to snap a few pictures before they disappear. Most critters have a knack for vanishing when I run for my Instamatic (which is actually a phone and not a camera, or vice versa), so I was pleasantly surprised when the ‘coons stuck around.

I don’t know why I wanted to take their pictures. I suppose that if I had gone out and asked them to stand still they would have made tracks for the fence, hole, or some other point of egress. But they continued playing while I stayed in the house, and I snapped a couple photos to post online and a minute or two of video for posterity. Their antics brightened up an otherwise dull day.

I know there’s a lot that goes on when I’m not watching. Thinking about those few creatures I have seen over the past few weeks suggests there are many more out there fending for themselves – and mostly without much help or attention from me. I’ve avoided putting out bird feed or other food, mostly because our area is so rich with nutritional resources that such efforts would be counter-productive. Birds and animals need to learn to make their way in life and, judging from their girths, I think they’ve been amply successful.

As I meditate on all these little things, I am reminded that while we humans tend to think nature belongs “out there” somewhere, and our turf is defined by silly lines we draw on paper (keeping surveyors and tax-collectors in business), the world really knows no bounds. Deer and squirrels and skunks go where they want to; spiders build their webs to catch prey, and viruses hitch rides upon drops of vapor to make their way person to person like in the days of old time long distance calling. 

Why we humans think we’re masters of anything is beyond me. Sometime in the next few years – or a decade or two – I’ll be feeding the worms, and that’s OK, for in the words of that old rascal, Job, “I know my redeemer lives.” 

I expect He’ll look out his window one day, see me wrestling with my siblings, and yell to Jesus to go grab his camera. That’s a picture of heaven here in this, our valley.