The Forest or the Trees?

Increasingly, I identify with the old adage that talks about how our perspective can be skewed when we are too close to a situation. Sometimes, it’s hard to look at the big picture. The small view may be so immediate that we just can’t get past it.

When I was in charge of teaching Cub Scouts about nature at Day Camp, I used an exercise that I renamed “Honey, I Shrunk the World”. This involved sitting on the ground with legs crossed Indian-style, and throwing a loop of rope down in front of ourselves. After all of our little “worlds” were formed, we took turns describing what was contained there. Many things were the same, but we noticed differences. Some had more green grass, or fewer rocks than others. Maybe there was even wildlife, in the form of an ant-hill. We might have been fortunate enough to lasso a lizard. The idea was to remind these budding ecologists of the complexity and detail of God’s creation. I think it also reminded our young campers that none of us have the same view of what happens around us. After all, the world we come from is a little different than our next-door neighbor’s.

At the opposite extreme, I’ve often been fascinated by the changing view as I’ve flown higher and higher in an airplane. Vehicles that are large enough to contain several fully grown humans began to look like the toys my youngsters played with. Eventually, they looked more like bugs scurrying about, and then disappeared from view altogether. Fields that had been cleared for farming stood out against the forested landscape. They started to look like patches in a crazy quilt, with bodies of water edging them like blue rick-rack.

From my semi-comfortable perch in the sky, I thought about the drama that might be unfolding beneath me. Families were going about their daily business. Happy times and sad times played out while I soared above, oblivious to the details.

During a recent brush-fire, we literally had a bird’s eye view from a distant mountain-top. From our balcony at Mount Magazine lodge, we could see the plume of smoke, and with binoculars, the flames that were consuming acres of trees and brush, and threatening lives and property. Residents and firefighters endured a nightmare. From our perspective, it appeared as an aberration to the beautiful landscape, but with the comfort of our air-conditioned room close at hand, it provided no real threat.

There are times in our lives when we focus on tiny details. During a crisis in our own life, or in the life of someone we care about, we can’t get past the next change of a bandage, the next dose of medicine, the last news we heard from a doctor.

A young mother who is a long time friend of ours currently sits at the bedside of her son, who is awaiting a heart transplant. She endures criticism from those who think she posts too many status updates online. They have no experience with the minutiae she deals with, and can only hope to never need knowledge of such things. Others who have been through a similar situation are able to interpret the confusing details for her, and offer concrete suggestions and encouragement. The rest of us simply promise prayers, and send gifts and postcards to try to provide a more cheerful atmosphere. Social media provides a lifeline, a way to reach out for a cyber hug when it’s needed.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, young people will be competing for medals in the weeks ahead. We won’t have to wait for a weekly tally of results, as technology will allow us to watch in real-time if we so desire. But, from our easy chairs, we can’t possibly have the same sweaty palms, butterfly laden stomachs and adrenalin charged heartbeats as those who are there in person. It’s all about perspective.

Whether you’re on the ground gazing up through the branches, or soaring high above the treetops, your view of life is unique and important. The rest of us will just do our best to understand.

Preparing To Launch

A nineteen year old, newly married Saline County girl drives her red Oldsmobile Cutlass to a job interview in a former church building on Kavanaugh Blvd in Little Rock, just a few blocks north of War Memorial Stadium. The beginning of one of my fictional stories? No. The day that changed my life forever.

To put this in perspective, this mostly windowless building housed the Office of Personnel Management, a division of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, and this story occurred in the spring of 1977, just a few months before Elvis died.

Computers were still a science fiction dream in those days. They were mostly housed at NASA, and took up a whole room. We did have electric calculators with rolls of white paper that piled up on our desks as we added columns of figures in an effort to make sure everything in our sight was balanced.

One of the most important functions of the employees in that building was to approve the payroll every two weeks for the thousands of workers employed by the State of Arkansas. This involved someone from each agency carrying stacks of paperwork and actual checks from one place to another, collecting signatures and stamps of approval. One very famous incident occurred in the elevator shaft when a trusted employee lost his grip on the precious papers, which slid into the gap between the elevator and the third floor landing, and went all the way down to the bottom. That brought progress to a clunky, damp halt for awhile. Of course, due to the dedication and hard work of all involved, those employees were paid on time anyway.

My specific role involved opening mail to begin the process of accounting for health insurance premiums deducted from the paychecks of State employees. I was the backup typist in the office as well, and although I believe there was one photo-copier on another floor, carbon paper was still the preferred method for producing more than one copy of correspondence. An indelible memory involves a green felt-tip marker that my boss used to mark up a letter she had dictated. That wouldn’t have been unusual except for the pronouncement at the end: “No, I think it was fine just like it was.” No problem, just stick another triple-decker carbon paper sandwich back in the IBM Selectric and start again, right?

 Fast forward over thirty years to the tenth floor of another repurposed building, a former bank with expansive views of rooftops and parking decks. Here, I helped train the people who process the payroll for their agency’s employees. Their job mostly involves reviewing the work done by other employees in their division, running reports to be sure that every hour worked by every employee is properly accounted for. Then, they push the right buttons to be sure that money is transferred to the bank accounts of those employees in time for an ATM withdrawal to finance the weekend’s activities, and to enable transfers and online payments to take care of household bills. Paper paychecks, green felt-tipped markers and IBM Selectrics are all dim memories.

 One of my proudest moments was when we traveled to the Headquarters of the National Federation of the Blind. My friends and I were chosen to prove our agency’s commitment to making sure that everyone who wanted to work for the State of Arkansas would be able to take advantage of the latest technology to perform their daily job. We represented all of the hard-working analysts and programmers back in Arkansas who took their work very seriously. I believe that the folks in Baltimore recognized this, and we all came away with the feeling that we could make things easier for all workers, regardless of physical limitations.

  Imagine how excited that nineteen year old young lady would have been to hear where her career would end up.

   Today at a retirement party, with hugs from her friends and family, she stands ready to take a new leap of faith. With all of the knowledge and confidence they have given her over the years, how can she fail? With God providing the wind beneath her wings, she’ll soar to all sorts of new adventures. The story is getting more and more exciting!