Category: Uncategorized

We’re a culture addicted to the idea of bargains. Most of what we buy into as a bargain isn’t a bargain at all in the long run, but we’ve brainwashed ourselves to believe that a short-term bargain is some sort of victory that we can’t pass up.

Watch behavior at the fast-food counter. People opt for the “supersize deal”, because it seems like such a bargain. In reality, they’re generally not saving much off the menu price, but more to the point, all the extra calories they’re forcing on themselves is a gigantic health risk to themselves, and a long-term healthcare cost to the nation. But it seems like such a bargain, we just can’t pass it up.

Big-box stores? Let’s just give them the generic name of Big-Mart, since I’m not aware of any chain really named that. It’s a good generic name. Study after study has shown that the prices we pay at Big-Mart are no lower than shopping at the local grocery store or sporting goods store. In fact, many studies have shown that we pay more on average. Worse yet, produce wholesalers find that these Big-Marts are the place where they can unload their lowest quality products. Pay more, get less. No bargain there. The highest cost is that these stores come into a town, drive the local businesses out of business, and many of them refuse to abide by generally accepted fair-labor practices. This means that local businesspeople lose everything, and local workers make less. The community as a whole pays more, gets less, and suffers a big price to both small businesses and the local workforce.

Yet, when the Big-Mart opens up, the shoppers flock there, believing they’re getting “a bargain”, when in fact they’re paying more, getting less, and damaging their local economy. Hardly a bargain…

How about dining choices? In my little city we’ve got the typical national chains, generally with a waiting line on the weekends. Yet, we have several locally owned restaurants that struggle to stay afloat. Why don’t the local folks support their neighbor rather than supporting the big corporate chains? Do they feel like they’re getting a bargain? This one baffles me. I go way out of my way to avoid a chain and support a local business whenever I can, and I find that I get better food and generally pay about the same or less than I would at a chain. I certainly feel better about myself when I’m done.

It might be because I’m a small businessman, and I understand clearly the value of the relationship between local merchant and local customer. But it’s not rocket science. A chain of any sort comes into a community to pull money out of it – that’s its job. They have a corporate structure somewhere else that must be fed, and the local outlet is nothing more than a way to suck as much money from the community as possible. Of course they provide a service – that’s why we give them money. But the local merchant provides the service as well, and he reinvests the money you give him back into the community. He buys locally, and sends his kids to the local schools, and pays property taxes on the home he owns locally.

This is happening all over America, as we let the big boxes and the big corporate chains siphon money from our local communities, draining them of their vitality. Even worse, this is our behavior at a more macro level as a nation. We have no problem with the fact that our economy is now a consumer economy rather than a producer economy. We’ve allowed the big box stores to ship all the jobs overseas, so that we can save a couple bucks on a pair of shoes.

Throughout history, this step of becoming a finance based consumer economy is the final step before the demise of an empire. We still have the power to thwart this fate, but it will take a concerted effort on all our parts in every single buying decision that we make.

Refuse to walk into a big box discount store, and shop instead at your local grocery store, hardware store, or sporting goods store. When you go out to eat, patronize only locally owned eateries. Next time you buy a vehicle, see if you can find one that’s truly made in America, and buy that one. The beauty of a free market in a democracy like ours is that you get to vote not just every couple years, but every single day.

Every time you let money leave your hand, you’re voting for a lifestyle, or a way of “being”.

Let’s stop looking for the bargain, and start looking for the good investment.

The cold weather this weekend has the birds spending lots of time at my feeders. They’re equal-opportunity feeders, meaning that while seed-eating birds flock to the feeders, the occasional falcon takes advantage of the congregated birds to take a songbird as a snack of his own.

I watch a Kestrel (a type of falcon also known as a Sparrow Hawk) sitting on a branch above the feeders. While a Kestrel will sometimes take a bird, their primary diet is usually little creatures like mice. This one has apparently figured out that mice glean the seed that falls beneath the feeders, and he watches the ground intently.

The songbirds seem to know a falcon is sitting in the tree, as they stay away from the feeders while he’s there. I see them gathered not far away, clearly wanting to feed on this frigid day, but nervous about the falcon.

In most cases, hunger will eventually trump risk, as it does with the sparrows and finches. The flock might lose one individual, but the flock as a whole needs to eat.

The first to approach the feeders is a group of Titmice that stumble into the area. Their rapid flitting from branch to branch attracts the attention of the Sparrow Hawk, and as they notice his presence they decide to move along.

Just as the Titmice move along, the Sparrows and Finches move into the top of the tree. They seem to know the Sparrow Hawk is still in the tree, staying above his perch as they chatter and move about from branch to branch. The Sparrow Hawk is clearly on high alert – looking for a chance to take a little bird who lets his guard down for just an instant. Eventually, a group of half a dozen or so Goldfinches drop down to the feeders, and the Sparrow Hawk makes his move.

Fortunately for the Goldfinches, they’re agile on the wing, and the Sparrow Hawk doesn’t have enough space to gain any reasonable attack speed. The hawk flies off empty-taloned, and the Goldfinches resume their feeding after a couple minutes.

I’m always torn about who to “root for” when the falcons are around the feeder. It is a bird feeder, after all, and falcons are birds too, right? My immediate reaction is always to root for the underdog – the songbird. But common sense usually takes over and I figure it’s out of my hands – it’s just nature happening around me, and I’m blessed to be able to observe. No need to “root for” anybody.

Why’s that so hard for us – to just observe without rooting for somebody? Why do we always feel like we need to be on one side or the other of something?

After all, G-d isn’t rooting for one or the other, right? It’s just a balance thing, and it’s happening and balancing as we watch. And there’s beauty in balance, regardless of the outcome of this little confrontation or that little close-call.

We often mold G-d into our own image, and this is one of those areas where I think it’s most apparent. Our human nature (for whatever reason) pushes us to always take sides on things, rather than simply understanding things and solving problems. This is a human characteristic, not a Divine one, yet we can’t resist pushing G-d into this little mold.

I coached and refereed competitive soccer for years, and watched as many teams would have a “prayer” prior to the beginning of the match. While I have no doubt that the basic underlying intention of coaches was good when they did this, I also have little doubt that most of the time it was unconsciously a show – putting the “religiosity” of the coach on display in front of an audience. This aspect of the practice amused me.

But another aspect of the prayer disturbed me. The likely collateral effect these “prayers” had on young minds bothered me – implying that G-d might just provide the most help to whichever team prayed the best, or the most, or with the right words. As-if to imply that “G-d is on my team, not on the other team.”

While this might not by the explicit intent of the coach, I believe it’s one of the implied lessons beneath the practice. While I love the practice of prayer, I can only imagine how much more valuable the practice would be if both teams came together before the match, and prayed together. What a powerful lesson that would be for the players and the spectators. It would imply clearly the reality that G-d doesn’t “choose up sides” in this sort of thing, and that our need for prayer is our need to keep ourselves close to G-d.

It’s an unfortunate reality we face in the world, with so many all across the globe believing that their perspective of G-d is the one and only right version – that G-d rejects all the other people who happen to have been brought up with a different perspective or different traditions. It’s quite selfish behavior really, and the sort of self-righteousness that’s led to more war and misery than anything else in our history.

In my Christian tradition, we’ve got a really nice hymn that’s based on words Jesus spoke. The words from the refrain that are most memorable to like this:

“His eye is on the Sparrow,

and I know G-d watches over me.”

Maybe He watched the dance at my feeders. If so, His eye probably was on the Sparrow, and on the falcon as well. The falcon missed this time, but the odds may have worked in his favor later in the day, and he probably found a mouse, or a finch. And G-d probably smiled at the beauty of the balance that continued to be maintained.

I’m a fiscal conservative – one who really believes in the principles. One of the things that I’ve found really troubling in recent decades is the theft of that word – conservative – from the very foundations of the real meaning of the word. While I try and stay mostly a-political in this blog, I do like to post links to articles I write for others that do dig into political issues.

You can find the article at Tikkun – follow this link.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

Come by the Borders at Flatiron Mall in Broomfield, CO tomorrow (Sunday) from 12 – 2 for a book signing. I’ll bring cookies.

🙂

Each year, soon after I drag my giant Jade plant into the house for the winter, it explodes with delicate white flowers that grace my office for a couple months before fading away. I never knew Jade plants could bloom, and only stumbled onto the secret by accident.

First, they’ve got to be pretty old before they’ll even think about blooming. This one that blooms so big each year was 10 years old before it threw its first flower. Now, at close to 20, the blooms get better and better each year.

Second, the secret that I stumbled on was hardship. Jade is a tropical plant, and if the frost gets on it, it’s done. Here in Colorado, our evenings get cold all year, and in the fall, they can get down close to freezing pretty early in September. The trick is to watch the forecast carefully, and leave it outside in the sun and cool nights as long as possible. Then, when you’ve waited as long as possible, and made the plant suffer through as many cold nights as possible without freezing it, you bring it in and put it close to a nice sunny window for the winter.

And wait a week or so.

Something about that combination triggers the plant to put nice pink and white buds out, that eventually open up into the delicate white flowers.

We’re like the Jade plant in many ways I think. Deep branches with heavy scars come with the wisdom required to foster the delicate flowers of beauty in life. Our early years are focused on the intense growth and development of youth, with little time for tiny beauty that we might be able to coax from our experience. Spending some time out in the cold, suffering through close encounters with killing frost, helps us to understand the real value of the warm side of the sunny winter window.

With enough years, and with enough scars, we learn to flower as well. Not the big showy flowers or the stunning growth of youth, but the delicate white buds and flowers that can only happen if you stumble on the trick.

You generally have to sit a lot of hours in a treestand before you get a chance to see a truly spectacular buck within bow range. Before this morning, it happened once to me, when I didn’t have a tag for a buck. On that morning, I watched as the monster pawed and dug up the ground on a little hillock in front of me. After a good 10 minutes, he finally meandered slowly over to my tree, looked directly up at me, and sauntering slowly into the forest behind me.

I wasn’t expecting another chance this morning. When it happened, my lack of good preparation of shooting lanes from my stand forced me into a difficult ethical decision regarding the shot I was presented with.

It started soon after sunrise – maybe 45 minutes or so into shooting light. I’d rattled a few times, but hadn’t seen anything yet. I hear the casual rustle of a deer behind me, and slowly crane my neck around the tree to see what it was. A buck who was probably a 2 year old is back there, sniffing through the leaf litter on the forest floor.

A short rattle brings his head up, and gets him headed across the creek over toward me. He isn’t an animal I’m going to shoot, but I’m hoping I can get him headed up the hill toward my brother-in-law, who is looking only for meat, and isn’t going to be picky about antlers. Luckily, he points himself up the right path, and I’m able to drop a line to give him a casual little spook up that trail.

I sit and wait, expecting to hear the twang of an arrow soon, but am disappointed when the young fella’ spook out of the hedgerow and into the meadow in front of me. A nice try, I think, but we missed out chance at that one. But watching him looking back over his shoulder into the hedgerow, there’s something different about the way he spooked out. He’s watching something intently, but if he’s seeing a person, he’d be runnin’.

I’m wondering if it might be another buck that spooked him out, when movement a little higher up the hedgerow catches my eye. Stepping slowly but deliberately toward the young buck is a magnificent animal about twice his size. His swollen neck was in perfect proportion to the huge basket of antlers he carries like a crown on his head. The mahogany colored antlers sport at least 6 points on a side, though I didn’t really do a detailed analysis. The upright prongs are long and deadly.

The young fella wants no part of this big boy, and they both know it. After assuring the young guy is headed safely away from his territory, the big boy slowly starts to move across the open field. This action has all taken place about 50 yards in front of me.

I’m not sure what happened back there in the hedgerow, but my intuition tells me that this big boy had been attracted to the rattlin’ that I’d been doing, and was slowly making his way down toward the sound. I’ve seen this happen before, where the big boys approach a rattle like a grey ghost, staying silent and hidden until they get a good look at who’s sparring. I suspect the big ones let the battle play out, then move in to chase off both the victor and the defeated – both of whom are likely worn out by the battle they just played out.

In either case, I know I’m glad this big guy decided that the young fella was the source of the noise, and had come out into the open. Now that I had him out, I want to see if I can get him over to me and into one of my shooting lanes. I’m cursing silently to myself that I didn’t do a better job of clearing lanes.

I give a short, rapid rattle. His head snaps back toward me immediately. I realize immediately that I was probably too hasty, as he’s now approaching me from my most visible angle, making it hard to pull a draw on him unless he turns away from me. To make matters worse, the breeze is blowing right across me and toward him. It would have been smarter to let him get across the field before I rattled, so his approach to me would have given him less advantage than he now has. Too late – write this one down in the lesson book. Patience, grasshopper…

He saunters toward me with that “cock of the walk” embodiment of pure strength and grace that only a massive whitetail buck can display. I’m sitting dead still, avoiding a direct stare into his eyes as he stares directly at me while approaching to find the source of the rattle he’d just heard. At about 30 yards, he stops to evaluate. If he’ll only look away for a minute, I can draw and be ready for him. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, he starts his walk again, stopping at 25 yards and presenting a perfect broadside shot to me. But I can’t get a draw on him while he’s staring directly at me.

I wait, and he walks out of the shooting lane and behind some brush. Rapidly but silently, I draw and aim at his form moving behind the brush. Rather than walking into the next lane, he detours a bit, and decides to rub up a small sapling. I’ve been holding this draw for long enough that my arms and shoulders ache, so I let down to wait.

Four times I draw on him as he moves around in the brush beneath me, and four times I let down as he stays out of the shooting lanes. There are two lanes that I should have cleared, and had I done so, I’d be planning a trip to my taxidermist. Few things in life bring the bitter taste of regret to a hunter’s heart as much as holding a draw on the animal of a lifetime as he moves behind some twigs that should have been cleared in preparation for the hunt.

A couple times he stops behind sparse vegetation, and I can easily loose the arrow. There’s a good chance the arrow will clear through the twigs and make a good hit where I’m aiming. There’s also a better than fair chance it will glance off one of the twigs, and result in a poor shot.

I hold and wait. It’s the right decision – the ethical decision – and the one that stings the most.

He eventually catches a big enough snootful of my scent that he decides this is not the spot for him, and trots off. I try rattling again, but am unable to get him to reconsider. He’s seen what he needs to see, and doesn’t like it.

My curses are aimed at my laziness in not clearing shooting lanes well enough, and they aren’t quite as silent as they were a few minutes ago. I spend an hour in the late morning doing the work I should have done when I set the stand up, clearing the lanes properly. Like a penance that helps focus thought and reflection on the deed that earned the penance, I use the work to drive home the need to be more meticulous in my preparation in the future.

While I’m upset with myself for making such a novice mistake, I’m also grateful for the chance I had to watch this guy walking around within 20 or 30 yards for as long as he did. My encounter with him taught me some practical lessons. The bitter regret in my heart for a rare opportunity squandered is only slightly eased by the recognition that when faced with the tough ethical decision about whether or not to take a low-percentage shot, I came down on the right side of the decision.

I know that as time goes by, I’ll replay the events of this morning many times in my memory. I know that on many days, I’ll tell myself that I should have taken the shot through the branches.

I’ve made those sorts of bad decisions in my life, and I know the taste of the guilt and remorse the seeps out of the memory forever. On those days when I convince myself that I should have taken the risky shot, I’ll be only slightly comforted in the knowledge that it’s a regret that’s a lot easier to swallow and taste than the regret of a poor decision gone bad.

It started raining just as I got set up in my treestand this morning. This is my hilltop treestand, one that I need to drive to get to. I park my truck about half a mile away, and walk in while it’s still good and dark. By the time I’m in the stand and ready, I’ve generated quite a bit of heat to keep me warm for the 30 minutes until the sky starts to show a little light.

It was a slow process this morning – the sky showing light. The clouds sort of mushed night and day together, so darkness crept slowly away as a gray light grew on the meadow in front of me. The rain was never particularly heavy, but combined with the wind, quickly burned up the reserve of warmth I built up hiking in. It wasn’t long until I was trying to work all the muscles I could internally, while remaining still on the outside, in order to generate a little more heat.

I started rattling as soon as the light was good enough to shoot. Nestled up against the face of the dark timber behind, I watched the gray meadow in front of me, and the edges that lead to the meadow.

The sound of the wind and rain jams one of the key senses that a deer has – their ability to hear – so they like to stay hunkered down when this sort of weather comes up. True to form, they stayed tight to their beds this morning, and I never saw a single deer moving.

I took a long and circuitous route back to my truck, exploring other corners. I found a spot or two that looks like it’s had more buck activity than the one I choose, but I’ll stick where I am.

I like the spot where I have this stand set up. I’ve had a couple of pretty magical encounters with deer while sitting here, and have come to think of it as my special mystical hilltop. Regardless of what happens this week while I sit at that meadow, being there fills my heart and soul with goodness and a deep connection to this Place.

The rain seems intent on keeping up all day. Even if it does, I’m thinkin’ I’ll spend some more time this evening with my mystical little corner of the world.

I usually try and stay out of politics in this blog, but just can’t resist today.

It is amazing to me that the Democrats in the House of Representatives re-elected Nancy Pelosi as their minority leader. She was completely ineffective as the majority leader, and I see no reason we should expect her to do a better job now that her party is in the minority. I would go so far as to say that in my opinion, her personality, style, and lack of effectiveness was one of the big reasons why the Dems fared so poorly in the majority.

As for the Republicans, John Boehner wins without a contest, which is even more appalling to me. The fact that this guy walked around handing out big tobacco checks to Senators who were kind to big tobacco made a mockery of our democracy, rubbing our faces in the fact that he and his ilk are owned by big money. Over the past 2 years, his entire career has been nothing but an effort to thwart any of The People’s business from happening on the Senate floor.

Shame shame shame.

A nice buck is standing right behind the tree I’m in, sporting for a fight with another buck. There isn’t another buck here, but he thinks there might be based on the antlers I’ve rattled twice. He’ll walk into range for me in just a few minutes as he sniffs around looking for an opponent to size up.

He’s a nice buck – probably 4 on a side but maybe 5. I saw where he likes to lay up late yesterday afternoon, and figured I could rattle him in to this spot early this morning. I was right…

I watch him walk past me. He’s within range, but he’s headed up to where my brother-in-law is sitting, and he’ll probably have a better shot than I will. Plus, it’s early in my week of hunting here, and I don’t want to use up my buck tag this early unless it’s a real big boy.

This morning is pristine and perfect. Right at about freezing, with the promise of a nice day, and the rut is just coming into bloom. Climbing up into this stand this morning I was reminded of how scary the climbs in the dark can be when there’s frost on the handholds, footholds, and stand. That last hoist onto the platform always gets the heart pounding.

I enjoy the scenery for the rest of the morning, not seeing any other deer. The squirrels who call this little corner home aren’t at all happy that I’ve taken up temporary residency here, and make their opinion quite clear to me. To make up for it, though, there are a couple of really friendly Chickadees who are quite curious about me, and often will land within a few feet of me as they flit about the branches. A pair of Hairy Woodpeckers find a good cache of something under the bark nearby, and work away for quite a while.

At one point, a Cooper’s Hawk, (of course, it could have been a Sharp Shinned), is flying silently through the branches straight toward me, and veers at the last minute. He flies within 2 feet of me, but far too fast for me to make out many details. The grace of his silent dance through the branches is breathtaking, and I suspect he’ll find breakfast pretty quickly as thick as the birds are in these trees.

In the evening, as I’m back in the stand again, the Chickadees have become even more curious and friendly. Though I wish the hawk good luck in his hunting, I’m glad that these little guys who add some social complexion to my solitary treestand didn’t end up as a meal for him today. Before the light goes completely, I’m able to get a new buck down here into my corner, but he’s not one I’ll shoot either – he’s probably a 3 year old.

After climbing down out of the tree, I squat quietly in on the damp ground for a few minutes to listen around me. Hoisting my pack and picking up my bow, I start a slow and quiet walk toward the house in the dappled moonlight of the lane. I’m comforted by the look of the house as I approach it, hearing the dogs barking up the lane a ways.

Few things feel as good to the heart as the sight of home as you approach it in the dark of a chilly night. The warm light pouring out of the windows into the chilly darkness fill you up inside with the promise of a warm fire inside. It’s hard to keep a smile off your face while looking forward to the friendly banter of family inside, and warm comfort food spooned into a bowl.

It feels good to be me right now, and my heart is full of thanks.

Though I try and stay generally non-political in my blogging, Tikkun recently published an article by me that I’d like to link to here. I’ll offer a bit of a warning and spoiler: If you’re either truly conservative or truly progressive in your leanings, you’ll enjoy the article. However, if you’re either extreme right-wing or extreme left-wing in your leanings, you’ll not like the article.

Fair enough.

Progressives and Conservatives – A Case For Exquisite Harmony