When is a Window Not a Window? When It's a Pane.

Not one [sparrow] falls to the ground without the Father knowing it. Matthew 10:29

I was sitting at my computer the other day, happily minding my own business when I heard a heavy thunk out front. I recognized the sound, for I’ve heard it a number of times before. It was the sound of a bird smacking up against the living room window. The last bird that did that had died instantly. I have a set of outside blinds I use to cover the window to help prevent bird-strikes. Birds don’t realize the reflection of sky and trees off the glass isn’t real, so I generally roll down the blinds to eliminate confusing reflections. Sadly, we have had so much wind blowing lately that I can’t leave them down, lest they be ripped away by our wintry gales.

I stepped outside and, just as I had feared, found a red-headed sapsucker crumpled up on the walk below the front window. I hurried over to check it out and noticed faint eye flickering. I covered her with my hands, gently folding her splayed wings closer to her body. The oblivion of her stunned state was suddenly becoming a living nightmare from which she desperately wanted to wake. Her movements provided me with some relief, as well as concern. As much as I approach all living creatures as if I am St. Francis of Assisi, it is my experience that most critters perceive me as Frankenstein's Monster (or a near relative).

Be that as it may, I’d made the bird a little more comfortable, so I backed off a smidge and assured my feathered friend in soothing tones that she would be fine. She continued to blink and shake away the cartoon stars circling her head and, after a few more heartbeats, decided there were better places to recover from her adventure than there at Ogre-Central, so she hopped up and took flight.

In truth, so did I. Well, I didn’t actually take flight, but my heart was glad to see her up and about. Sapsuckers are related to woodpeckers and spend a lot of time banging their heads against trees, so perhaps they are more resistant to concussions than sparrows, Steller jays, and thrushes that flit about hither, thither, and yon.

It is perhaps coincidental that January 19 is Tenderness Towards Existence Day, so while this incident made me somewhat (ironically) an early-bird, it also served as a not-so-incidental reminder that we are connected with nature. People sometimes talk about getting “back to nature,” as if cities and villages, highways and byways, and all the varied things we do are somehow unnatural, but they aren’t. 

Ants build underground dwellings; bats hang out in caves; beavers build dams and homes, and birds their nests. What we do is just as natural.

I have to admit I don’t think of sitting under a tree out in the middle of nowhere as getting “back” to nature, but it is a great way to find a quiet space away from the insane side of our more destructive natures.

Being Tender Towards Existence is an opportunity to pause and reflect on our lives. Empathy and compassion are hallmarks of humanity – our human nature. As much as we may point out our propensity to wage war and exploit our environment, the fact that we know we do so is a sign we know we don’t have to. Beasts have no choice but to follow their nature. 

The lion with a belly full of wildebeest doesn’t stop chasing another wildebeest because it has suddenly discovered compassion, but because it is full. We may want to do something that is harmful to self, others, or the planet, but we can choose not to. Maybe not forever, but at the moment. Yes, I can kill the messenger (we may say to ourselves in a heated moment), but I won’t – today. That’s a choice. That’s a choice we can make. 

Taking a day to be tender toward existence is a good place to start. If we do it several days in a row, it could become a habit, and that would be ever so sweet here in this, our (tender) valley.

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of newly released: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)

I Love the Smell of Chalk Dust in the Morning

May all that has been reduced to noise in you, become music again. Author Unk.

I walked into the classroom at the start of winter session following the school’s holiday break. It must have been about 1961 or 2. I don’t recall precisely. At that time of life, one doesn’t make notes for future reference; said notes are safely tucked away somewhere in the folds and recesses of the brain. Who knows why or when a stray memory will break the surface of the seas that pound the rocky shores of the mind’s gray harbor, but they will. 

I stepped into my classroom at Whittier Elementary School in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, and having taken my seat I looked up, and lo, there behind the teacher was a blackboard. But it wasn’t black; it was green. While we kids were out making merry during the ten or twelve day holiday recess, contractors were busy removing all the old, dusty, cracked, and worn blackboards, replacing them with boards of pure, clean, and unsullied slate. There before us was a green slate, a clean slate.

New things are exciting. New things are amazing. Whether it is meeting new people who may delight us in eventually becoming best friends, or new tools that help us accomplish our goals faster and easier than before, or new ideas that expand our minds in ways we’d never thought possible, new things bring with them new hopes, new dreams, and new realities. The green boards (which we continued calling “blackboards”) were an outward and visible sign that it was no longer 1908 within the rooms of Whittier Elementary; we’d become a part of the Space Age!

I have no idea what 2022 will bring. I do know that each of us alone, and all of us together will face a wide variety of challenges. We may turn the page on the calendar, but there are still issues that have hitched themselves to our giddy-ups. We continue to slog our way through a never-ending pandemic, societal unrest, political shenanigans, and a string of catastrophic weather events. Those could easily lead us to wallow in the pond of despond or sink into the swamp of sadness. On the other hand …

Yes, the world turns, and there is really no getting away from it – in some ways. But there are things we can do to improve life as we know and experience it. The first thing we can do is identify the noise we’re hearing and deal with it. Married couples who take off on their honeymoon with clattering cans tied to their bumpers (is that still a thing?) may either continue to drive away, hoping those galloping tins will eventually fall off, or they can pull over and take a few moments to cut the cords and leave the Symphony of the Cacophony behind. 

We can do the same with our lives. The key, for me, has always been to slow down, take a breath, and settle. My monkey brain doesn’t want to settle, but even when the monkey is off my back, I find the circus is still in town, so I need to find ways to unplug the calliope (and that ain’t easy).

I’ve mentioned before that a sigh is a body’s reset button. It is just enough of a pause that the body and brain stop what they’re doing for just a moment to try to figure out what’s happening. It’s like the maestra beating on the podium with her baton whilst giving the orchestra a cease and desist order, waving her hands and yelling, “No, no, no. That’s not right!” during rehearsal. Everyone stops what they’re doing; they look up from their music sheets and their instruments and focus on the One who invites them to stop playing the notes and start playing the music, to find the beat and become one with the rhythm.

There is nothing magical about turning a page on the calendar. The magic begins when we stop making noise, when we listen for the beat, and when we focus on our heavenly Maestra, whose only goal is for us to get it together. May God grant us a clean slate, fresh chalk, and a harmonious life here in this, our (monkey-filled) valley. 

Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of newly released: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)