North to Alaska

… there go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport with. Psalm 104

My better half and I just returned from the sea. We set sail earlier this month to check out Alaska’s Inside Passage. It’s a trip we’d wanted to take for (literally) decades, but could never put enough scratch or time together simultaneously to make it happen. It seemed like every “milestone” (like 10th, 25th, or 40th anniversary) was accompanied by some ship-wrecking family or parish emergency that took precedence. Life happens.

We’d reached the end of summer and I decided it was time to give mother nature and the fates the slip, so I booked the Alaskan adventure when they weren’t looking, and it worked!

I won’t bore you by detailing the trip. If there’s anything worse than sitting through someone else’s home movies, it’s sitting through those home movies without the pictures, slides, or super-8s (and accompanying narration). I will say that we had shockingly good weather considering the Alaskan coast sees rain 300 days of the year (we had only two wet days), and relatively calm seas (only two days of the nine where we pushed through eighteen foot swells and felt a bit like we’d signed onto a nautical version of rodeo bull-riding). 

Before we left, a friend asked what part of the trip I was most looking forward to, and I confessed, “Getting home.” I am a home-body. I know that, and my answer was true. But it was true only for the reason I wasn’t sure what to expect on our voyage. As a card-carrying pessimist, I prefer to let an adventure unfold and surprise me with something good happening, than to anticipate something wonderful and then be disappointed with a lesser reality.

We took in a few of the standard tourist excursions, like the White Pass train ride out of Skagway, a hike to the Mendenhall Glacier, followed by a whale watching expedition out of Juneau. We caught crabs in Ketchikan and could almost reach out and touch the Johns Hopkins Glacier as it calved a small berg into Glacier Bay. Each excursion was delightful in its own way, but none was what I would term memorable. I’m sure I will remember them, of course, the way one remembers bits and pieces of life’s experiences. But “memorable” as in life-altering? No.

I realize that Tourism is an important industry; I don’t intend to besmirch it. What I enjoyed most was being immersed in nature whilst disconnected from the world. We could pay for internet and cellular service if we wanted it, but my goal was to forego all of that. What good is it to get away if one doesn’t actually get away? I did check text messages and send location updates to friends and family when I had cell service in several ports of call, but beyond that, I let the world spin on (or off) without me.

It was being out in the natural world I enjoyed most. It was handling a live Dungeness crab on a small boat (not the Deadliest Catch variety - just a coastal runabout). It was spending time in the bays and inlets watching whales clear their spouts upon surfacing, dolphins porpoising past the boat, harbor seals and sea lions sunning themselves on harbor buoys or floating lazily about just off-shore, each ignoring their hominid cousins bobbing about for their own look-sees and amusement. 

Sadly, I did not see any bears on this journey. I was in a tour group that did see a momma Brown bear and her cub on the road on Chichagof Island, but folks crowded the bus’s windshield and blocked the view from everyone else. I did see the bear via several cell-phone view screens, but alas, not directly. That’s OK, though. I can bear the disappointment.

Our final stop before returning to Seattle was shortened due to weather, so that was a bit of a let-down. Still, I don’t think Gilligan and pals could have hosted a couple thousand additional guests to house and feed, so our captain made the right decision to steer clear of the autumnal storms that threatened us. I can live with that, too, here in this, our valley. It’s good to be home.

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

Snails, toys, and profiteers

“Jesus said, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They answered him, ‘How?’” Luke 9:13ff

The rains fell overnight. I was up early, as is my custom, and began rolling the trash bins out to the curb for morning pickup. As I steered them down the driveway, I made every effort to avoid rolling over the fleet of snails that were making tracks across the pavement from one side to the other. Most were headed north, and I couldn’t blame them. The grass is definitely greener there, especially as there isn’t any grass along the south side. There are weeds (which I presume snails would find most delightful), but it seemed they had tired of their diet of quack-grass and horsetails.

I found myself wondering how the critters knew to cross the great divide. Did they point their weird little eye-stalks in the direction of our maple tree and assume life would be better across the great beyond? Or did they smell the rot of falling leaves beneath that grand old tree and decide the time for action was now. No doubt snails and slugs have their own version of “the one who hesitates is lost,” and when one moves with the speed and alacrity of a gastropod, getting an early start makes sense. I presume they suffer less road rash when the pavement is wet, too.

I don’t know what motivates a slug, snail, or worm. No doubt food is involved in that equation, by which I confess a certain sense of brotherhood. I can get around pretty good, but there’s nothing like the smell of fresh-baked cookies to stop me dead in my tracks. Like a snail, my gut and feet are of one mind, one soul. I can try claiming to be “above” such things (as the sight of a salad does not appeal to me the way it does my slimy brethren), but that would not be exactly true. The grass is always greener across the road, but for me, that lawn will always come in the form of a steak or burger. Cows eat salads so I don’t have to!

Ground level, snails-eye view of our maple tree

Food. I miss the fun of food. You know what I mean; kids’ meals. 

I still buy the same cereals I ate as a child, but they were much more fun back then. We used to get little treats in specially marked boxes, as if sugar itself wasn’t “treat” enough. Today’s cartons may have a five word crossword puzzle printed on the back, or a few dad jokes to read while munching away on the captain’s crunch or fruit-flavored rice. But seldom are consumers treated to some bit of plastic chintz that says, “We love you.”

My all-time favorite toy was a spectacular submarine, complete with working torpedoes and a ship that actually blew up if struck! No digital game on earth today packs the same punch. It was fun putting the torpedoes into their spring-loaded ports and rigging up the ship with its pressure-plate (which would blow the superstructure off the ship when it was struck by the projectile or a carelessly misplaced thumb). I was a crack shot, I’ll tell you. 

They don’t make or include toys like that any more. 

A toy was a manufacturer’s way of saying, “here’s a little something for you, for no better reason than this: you’re here. You exist. You matter. Yes, your parents bought the product, but this is for you and for your enjoyment.”

Profiteers are too interested in feathering their corporate bank accounts these days. It’s hard for them to appreciate the smile of a child digging into a box of oats, seeking their treasure, their fortune. For some, that bit of plastic could be the only “win” they’d have that day. But some CEO making seven figures will never see or care about that smile, that moment of ecstacy. They see a cheap toy and say, “Let’s save a penny.” They never see the smile. It’s their loss.

I suspect snails and slugs smile when they reach their destination and start munching on their foliage du jour. It’s God’s treat. God sees their smiles, even if we can’t. God can. Smile: You’re on candid fescue here in this, our valley. God’s treat, meant especially for you.

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