THIS OUR VALLEY: Tickets are yet another bull by-product

"The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.” Voltaire

Good grief. I like to think I am sort of tech savvy. I’ve put computers together. I’ve had cell phones since the late 1990s. I switched from writing checks to using debit cards at stores decades ago. I organize travel plans and book rooms at hotels, seats on planes and trains, and tons of stuff one can do online or over the ether. But now?

I find the steps required to do anything are beginning to match the number of functioning gray cells I’ve got left. 

There was a bull riding event scheduled in nearby Everett that my wife and I were interested in attending. I went online to order tickets far enough out that the tickets could be sent by snail mail with plenty of time to spare. Sadly, that’s not how things are done anymore. We had to purchase e-tickets, which meant we had to pay for the event tickets online, as well as a surcharge for each ticket. Well, what’s six bits among friends?

Wait, it costs more than six bits to buy tickets? How much? The cost of several dozen eggs PER TICKET? Well, if the tickets are embossed with gold leaf, I guess that’s OK. I’m not happy about it, but it is what it is. But wait; there’s more!

They don’t ship the tickets. There is no ticket pick-up or ticket-waiting at the box office. The tickets will be available electronically on your cell phone. Oh, OK. But wait; there’s MORE!

Your tickets are not sent in a way that allows you to print them. You have to “accept” your tickets on your cell phone, which sends you to a site in which to create an account (new user name, new password, new app) in which to access your tickets. But wait; there’s MORE!!!

Once you get to your tickets (congratulations for making it this far), you now have to add them to your cell phone’s “wallet” (Good grief, now I have to set that bleeding thing up) where they will be available for the local docent to scan you into the event when you arrive (assuming you have access to both cellular service and your e-wallet and the theoretically attached e-tickets for easy peasy scanning).

I think I just qualified for an electronic decathlon event at the next Olympic games. Good grief. Again, I say, GOOD GRIEF!

Fortunately, it all worked out just fine. We made it to the event, gained entrance, found our seats, and cheered on the plucky riders and their bucking bovine companions. Yee Haw!

When it was over, I had to ask myself if it had been worth it (because I’m not only cheeky, but cheap, too). I must admit the idea of putting out a week’s wages for a minimum wage worker to watch twenty eight-second events over the course of two hours seems a bit much. 

We live in a world that has become highly transactional, and whether  I approve or not is completely immaterial. I don’t really know how to compute the value of an evening’s entertainment, or a meal, or a drive across town or across the country. I took a course in economics back when the earth was still cooling, and recall talk of supply and demand and its effect on prices, but I think a gremlin has snuck in over the fence and added some bull shine to the processes.

Everyone wants a piece of the action, and there is no correlation between the service offered and the price exacted for that transaction. No human being earned bread for their table or shelter for their family from my electronic transaction. Yes, maybe there was an operator standing by somewhere, but I can guarantee they didn’t get much of the six figures collected by the ticket merchants (for their fees). 

The Bible says a laborer is worthy of his hire, but that seems to have been turned on its head, where it is the purchaser who has to do all the labor, and pay for the convenience. I don’t like riding the bucking back of a golden calf; it takes far longer than eight seconds here in this, our valley. That’s a lot of bull, if you ask me.

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)

THIS OUR VALLEY: A raggedy tale of a raggedy man

 

"Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are.” Ursula K. LeGuin

It’s winter. The air is frosty, the ground frozen, and no matter how tight the house is, the air inside feels thin and cool. The thermometer says it is 70, but it doesn’t feel like it. I could turn the heat up, of course, and make the home’s interior toastier, but why on earth would I do that while I’ve got thermal unmentionables, sweaters, and blankets in which to bundle? 

Layering up is the key to conserving energy and staying warm. I suspect my chattering teeth are also burning calories, so that’s a good thing, right?

There used to be a fellow who lived on the streets just to the east of downtown Spokane. He was one of those “invisible people” who always seem to be around. I was a police officer back in the day (1970s!), and if I or my partner wanted to know what was happening around the city center when we had the paddy wagon detail, we would drive out near the railroad tracks just east of Riverside and Division. 

There was a mountain of rags piled up there (about ten feet in diameter and four to six feet high, or more). We’d call out, “Hey Rags!” After a moment or two, the mountain would start to shimmy and shake, and “Rags” would make his way out of his burrow where we could chat and catch up on what was happening. 

He wasn’t a TV-trope informant. He didn’t have details on who was doing what to whom, but he could give us a sense of what was going on or things he had noticed that could help us do our job better. When we finished our chats, we would hand him a token of our appreciation, he would burrow his way back to the center of his mountain, and we would return to our patrolling.

I don’t plan to live in the center of a mountain of rags, but Rags helped me appreciate the value of layering up when it’s cold. There wasn’t much we could do to change his circumstances, but then again, he never indicated that he was dissatisfied with his life or situation. He had no mortgage to fuss about. He was kind and gentle, and never a nuisance. 

I don’t know if God planned on Rags being a police informant or panhandler from the beginning of time. I think Rags simply fulfilled God’s purpose in being the best human being he could be, no matter what the circumstances of life steered him into making the choices he made. 

As silly as it may sound, I found him to be an inspirational character. He was a man of honesty and integrity, and I respected him for it. He lived by his wits and was among the most inoffensive persons I’ve ever known.

I have often counseled people who wondered what God’s plan for them is or was. I don’t think any of us are pieces on the great chessboard of life, with God and Satan moving us about here and there for sport. 

Life for some of us may be a tale of rags to riches; for others it may be a tale of going from riches to rags. Some will get what’s coming to them, while others will skate by never having to face justice for what they’ve done or failed to do.

What God requires of all of us, though, is to know we are part of the whole, part of the fabric of all that is, ever has been, or ever will be. We are rags in whom God finds warmth, light, and love. Rags don’t produce their own heat, but reflect the warmth of life within. 

We are rags, but rags in whom God dwells and warms here in this, our valley. We are God’s raggedy treasures. We reflect the warmth of God’s love. Wow!

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)