Oh the Life of a Branch Manager

The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature. Psalm 145

I am not a gnome, nor am I a yard elf. During the winter season I meander around the property to ensure the wind hasn’t blown away the roof, nor the rains flooded the crawl space beneath the house. I inspect the grounds to see if the trees have remained upright, maintaining their structural integrity. The house stands on a pretty decent slope, but there is no evidence of mudslides in the past, so I am confident I won’t soon be singing Carole King’s “I feel the earth move under my feet, I feel the sky tumblin’ down …” 

However, winter has ended here in the Pacific Northwest (at least in the lowlands). The daffodils are in full bloom out in the Skagit Valley and the tulips won’t be far behind them. The daytime highs are finally reaching the fifties. Migrating flocks of geese and swans are passing overhead each day (which is one reason I always wear a hat when I am on the move), and I no longer need to bundle up as if I am trudging forth on an arctic expedition when I go to retrieve the mail.

I’m not being serenaded each morning by our local nest-builders, but that could be due as much to the decline of my hearing as to birds not singing. The bird baths still have water in them from recent rains, but time has come for me to remove the anti-frost caps which have been covering the outdoor spigots, and hooking up the hoses so I can give those concrete ponds a spring cleaning and provide my avian friends fresh, clean water to drink and/or bathe in.

While I am not, historically speaking, a gardener, I do find myself breaking loose from the shackles of indoor living to at least venture out into the jungle that is laughingly referred to as my garden, to survey the scene and discern what toll winter has taken. While this area does not usually experience extremes of heat in summer or cold in winter, we did manage to dip into the single digits for an extended period of time a few months ago; some of our bushes and plants did not survive the experience. They will need to be dug up, removed, and newer, heartier varieties will need to take their place.

Such is the way of life. Sometimes we may be tempted to think our intelligence, ingenuity, cleverness, and attention will protect us from disaster, but the truth is we can only do so much. People and plants have their own, particular life cycles. There are things we can do to promote the health and well-being of creation (things like vitamins and good diet for us, fertilizer, water, and pruning for plants), but ultimately, all creation emanates from the grace of God, and all creation returns to the embrace of God.

I tend to take a mostly hands-off approach to the natural order. While I understand and appreciate the beauty of well-trimmed gardens and admire the skills of topiary specialists, I’m happy to let plants do their thing and just clean up when they shed limbs and branches. Some people may think I am lazy (and that’s not necessarily untrue), but I’m simply not obsessed with neatness, balance, or symmetry. Nature, to me, is to be enjoyed, not controlled or compelled to conform to some artificial human concept of beauty.

Sure, the yard may look scraggly, but so what? I’ve looked in the mirror and even with all the work I have done to keep this carcass fit as a fiddle (and in a shape that is not dissimilar), I find that I, too, am a bit scruffy. That’s OK. God does not look upon the outward appearance but the inner reality, right?

Each day brings me closer to meeting God face to face; I just want to be a little more like the Divine so that we’ll always recognize one another, both in heaven above AND here in this, our valley.

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)

Blessings Often Hide Behind a Red Light

O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure; be strong, and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord. Psalm 27

Traffic is light on Sunday mornings here in our neck of the woods. Even when going to the “late” service at 9:30, there are hardly any signs of life on Division once I get past the grocery store between where I live and the church. We have traffic signals, which are helpful during the week, but on Sundays they primarily serve a decorative function. Two of the three always greet me with a green,  smiling glow, but the third doesn’t like me. As I approach, it swaps over from green to red at light speed. I’m sure it skips right past amber!

What is worse, the signal remains red for an intolerably long time. I have a good view of the intersection in all directions, and confess I am tempted to just make my turn. “No one’s coming,” I say to myself. “No one’s looking,” I continue. I scan the cables and poles, confirming there are no traffic cameras recording miscreants. I survey the scene in all directions, probing for any signs of a law enforcement presence.

There are none! But I wait. I do not yield to the temptation to disobey the law, overruling common sense with what is often referred to as the “spirit of the law” (by “letter of the law” breakers). It’s a fitful sort of waiting I do, sitting at a red light against which I “know” I could safely turn. But why? Why should I make that turn against the red?

Even if I were not caught by traffic cameras or law enforcement, the fact is I would be caught by me. The only advantage I find in breaking a law is that I would finally have something to confess in church once I got there. I mean, I hate going to church empty handed, no sins to confess: “Sorry God, you died for nothing again this week.” 

I josh, of course! Sin is sin, and even if I obey traffic laws meticulously, I can’t say the same for the Big Seven (Sloth, Lust, Anger, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, or Greed). Try as I might to be a decent human being and a reflection of the Divine, I know I’m “anything but.” That’s where God comes in. I’m “anything but” in life, but I’m a “work in progress” as far as God’s concerned, and it is that for which I am eternally grateful. Church is “Our Carpenter, who art in heaven’s” workshop.

Traffic lights, slow shoppers, insufficient registers open at the store: those are all irritants and produce a restless sort of waiting. But the psalmist places a different sort of waiting on the table in front of us. It isn’t the tapping of your toes and drumming of your fingers in the doctor’s waiting room kind of idleness. Too often I think we approach life and one another with a “Come on! Let’s get on with it” kind of impatience.

The psalmist’s “tarry” kind of waiting is like what we experience when Christmas finally arrives and we can open our gifts, or when it is our birthday and Mom walks out of the kitchen carrying a big old birthday cake thick with frosting, loaded with blazing candles, and the family exploding into the (now copyright-free) Happy Birthday song.

That’s the kind of waiting to which the psalmist is referring. There is that happy kind of waiting we can see at a traffic signal if we just let God sprinkle our eyes with a bit o’ faith.

Red lights serve a particular function: Yes, they command us to stop, but they also allow us time to look for “cross” traffic. Cross traffic has the green light. God always gives cross traffic a green light to engage in faith, hope, and love. Our joy comes in knowing that soon we, ourselves, will be someone else’s cross traffic. It will be OUR turn to face green and engage in faith, hope, and love.

That’s why we tarry. The Lord is at work, and we get to pause, to catch our breath, and to live “in” the moment. That’s why we wait patiently for the Lord. We tarry here in this, our valley, delighting in the blessings hiding behind the red light. 

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)

We Auto Know Better

As far as the east is from the west, so far has [God] removed our sins from us. Psalm 103

Why are people so cranky? I’m not going to comment on national or international affairs; that’s not my role. But I do find myself increasingly agitated with a world that seems, itself, to be increasingly agitated. It’s like everyone has buttons, and their buttons are either being pushed, or they’re running around pushing their neighbors’ buttons every chance they get.

What on earth is going on?

I have studied the matter and do believe the fault lies with Detroit. Not the city, but the automotive industry. Now, please hear me out.

When I was a child, I enjoyed watching Saturday morning cartoons with my brother and sisters. We would delight in Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, and the like. We had our favorite characters and knew which studios produced the creme de la creme of animated mayhem (Looney Toons, by a mile). 

While we were occupied slurping down corn flakes (or a wheat, oat, or rice alternative), Dad would finish his coffee and head outside. He’d make his way to the car, pop the hood on the Studebaker, grab a few small hand tools out of the trunk, and start moving things around the engine compartment. After a few minutes, Howard from across the street and Ron from next door would join him and ask, “Hey Fred, what’re you up to?”

Dad would tell them, “Oh, time to adjust the carburetor (or clean the spark plugs, or change the timing, or …).” He’d grown up tinkering with cars all his life, and if it was Saturday, he was going to find something under the hood that he felt needed fixing. The three of them would bury their heads under the bonnet and discuss cars, motors, kids, wives, sports, politics, or anything else that was bugging them that day. My Dad’s Studebaker was a Study-baker!

Today, of course, cars are so well designed and put together, there is nothing a commoner can do under the hood. There’s nothing to adjust or fix, so neighbors no longer gather ‘round to discuss or debate the Topic du Jour. The interesting thing, though, is conversations seldom devolved into binary sets of black and white, right or wrong, liberal or conservative. 

They shared common values, and they embraced those values. They stood united against fascists, Nazis, and Commies. They were perplexed about more complex issues, such as civil rights, school bussing, or integration. They didn’t question that every American was entitled to enjoy the same rights, privileges and responsibilities of every other American. Like everyone else, they didn’t know “how” to level the playing field, but they knew the playing field “should” be level. 

“There’s such a thing as basic fairness” was a chorus that often rose from beneath the hood, like the kyrie sung in church. Although their thoughts regarding Martin Luther King, Jr. and the NAACP were sometimes colored by those who slandered him and the movement in and out of government (or what we called “The News”), they agreed that people should be judged by the “content of their character and not the color of their skin.”

I appreciate that the automotive industry is doing everything it can to build cars that last longer, go farther, run smoother and more cleanly than ever before for the sake of a better environment, but it does so at a cost of a reduced unity that backyard mechanics (or seamstresses) sewed into the social fabric of our too-brief post-war nation on Saturday mornings. 

I don’t like to point out problems for which I’m not also willing to suggest solutions, of course. It is true that the auto industry will never reverse-engineer our world into anything like those halcyon days of the 1960s, but they don’t need to. They simply need to add a feature that will require drivers (whom I’d label auto-crats) to get under the hood weekly to maintain optimal functionality. If they included an espresso machine and pop-up flavor squirter, that would be even better.

Maybe we’d learn how to talk to one another in a civilized manner once again so that even a grizzled old introverted geezer like me would be willing to go out to see what’s up here in this, our auto-corrected 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)

Scanners Are Reading No Life Signs

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord … they shall be like a tree planted by water. Psalm 1

I went into one of our local mega-marts the other day to buy an item that was not otherwise available nearby. I’ll confess I have an aversion to using this particular store for historical (and sometimes hysterical) reasons. But I needed one item and didn’t want to have to order it online and wait days or weeks for it to be delivered. So, I put on my big boy pants, headed to the store, and wandered around for what seemed to be forty days and nights (as there was no staff to point me in the right direction). I really could have used a burning bush, but the only thing burning were my cheeks.

I finally found what I was looking for and headed to the Red Sea, er, uh, check-out lanes. The bank of two dozen registers were closed, except for two, and they were clogged by shoppers I assumed were survivalists considering the tonnage they had packed into their baskets. If there was a register for people with fifteen or fewer items, I either didn’t see it or it was also closed.

Now I had a choice. I could stand in line and wait my turn, or I could use the self-checkout registers (which I detest). I dropped my head in disgust and chose the self-serve option. I went to an open machine, scanned the item: Beep – “Item not recognized. Call for help.”

I turned and saw a clerk straightening up a nearby shelf and asked her for assistance. She arose from her kneeling; you could almost hear arthritic joints snapping and crackling as she struggled to stand upright, all the while muttering, “Yeah … I’ll … be …” (deep sigh) “… right … there.”

She shuffled over. Long stringy graying hair hung down over her face. I wondered if she might be a shirt-tail relative of Cousin It. She came and stood next to me and I had the sense she wanted me to scan the item again –  probably needing me to prove that I hadn’t pulled her away from her other duties for no reason. So I ran the item over the scanner again, and again: Beep. “Item not recognized. Call for help.”

Miss Helpful took the item from my hand, looked at the barcode on the back of it, blew some gray hair-strands out of her face and said, “You scanned the Canadian barcode.”

I looked, and sure enough, there were two barcodes. One was American and the other was Canadian. But they were right next to each other. I hadn’t scanned the wrong barcode; the machine had read the wrong barcode. That wasn’t my fault, and frankly, I resented her tone. I already didn’t like doing a job someone in the store should be doing. However, I also knew the poor woman, whose only goal each day is probably to get through a shift without being yelled at for things over which she has no control (like opening or closing registers or replacing staff with machines), wasn’t at fault, either. 

Once she realized where the problem lay, she manually punched in the code; I completed the purchase and thanked her for her help. I don’t know if she heard me, for by then she was gone. Once again her shoulders succumbed to the pull of gravity as she shuffled back to the shelves from which she had sallied forth to help. I could almost feel her eyes glaze over as she returned to shifting products around, filling gaps, and turning labels out in an effort to entice shoppers into making impulsive purchases.

Miss Helpful struck me as a woman who’d been planted far too far from water. Whether my observation was correct or not is immaterial. Sometimes we are the only streams flowing through the deserts of a person’s life. There’s no reason to make things difficult for others.

“Blessed are those who thirst,” says Jesus. If a tree can’t get to the river, we can bring the river to the tree. 

To those who thirst, we must always remember to be kind – to be living water gushing forth in this, our 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)

Is Dancing a Competitive Sport?

The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a wilderness. Havelock Ellis’ The Dance of Life (1923)

I was at church a week or so ago taking care of business which, for me, is running the audio and video equipment for our church services. I miss being in the pulpit and behind the altar, but I’m glad I can be a part of extending the church’s reach during this seemingly never-ending pandemic. 

If it hadn’t been for the virus, we would never have learned how to get the excellent preaching of our pastor, the wonderful music of our musician, and the devout worship of those gathered beyond the four walls and roof that keep the work of God’s people otherwise constrained. Those for whom travel, weather, or health prevents their getting out and mingling are able to join us for worship, adding their prayers and voices to those who ARE able to gather in person.

I have been feeling restless, however; two years of captivity has gotten me down. I am ready to break those chains that have kept me toiling (with nary a break) in the cotton field they call the Organ Loft. Two years. Can you believe it?

I found myself grumpily groaning about laboring through two years of (mostly self-imposed) isolation and confinement. But then our deacon, Dennis Taylor, got up to speak. He was the preacher, and he referenced our two years struggling with the pandemic, and compared it to the forty-seven years the Children of Israel were held captive in Babylon. Oof. That put things into perspective, didn’t it?

The trouble with my brain, though, is it doesn’t stop when it gets a thought (although it often cramps up). I looked at those decades of captivity and compared them to 246 years of American slavery (and another seventy-five years of Jim Crow). Hmmm.

It would be easy to feel guilty or regret (and those would not be inappropriate or uncalled for). It is important to look at our lives (individually, and as Americans) and ask what, if anything, we can do better, make amends when and where it is warranted, and find ways to move forward without trampling on those around us. It is important to ask those who have been oppressed what THEY think they need for reparation. Otherwise it is too easy for us to try to get off the hook with a simple, “Sorry” (and expect them to be satisfied with that).

In some ways, it’s awkward, of course. Have you ever gone down an aisle at the store and you and a person coming the other way try to find a way past? Sometimes it works smoothly, and other times the two of you will engage in a dance you haven’t rehearsed until you’re able to magically switch places and continue with your shopping.

Life is like that. I am sure that most of us mean to do the best we can to be honest, open, and flexible, and yet we get to a spot where it seems everybody is trying to move in differing directions, and instead of dancing our way out of trouble, we turn it into a competition. We’d rather fight over who has the right of way than yielding to the Spirit of peace and cooperation.

I have no desire to be a slave, except a slave to the One who said, “Blessed are the poor … blessed are the peacemakers … blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness … blessed are they who mourn …” 

I’ll admit I struggle with what Jesus said. I have an echo chamber where my ego’s line “Don’t let people walk all over you” competes with his, “turn the other cheek” and “go the extra mile.” There are people who cheerfully take advantage of God’s multi-cheeked children. It’s a struggle, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Lama Surya Das says, “If it looks like wisdom but is unkind, it’s not wisdom.” My job isn’t to get my way, nor is it to be a doormat (and thereby growing a fine crop of resentments), but to change my trudging into a dance where more of us can reach the promised land over time. 

May God break our chains so that we all may dance more freely here in this, our 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)

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)