Life through the Crosshairs: Blood Brothers

Life Through the Crosshairs

This blog is going to be an experiment of mixing my passion of the outdoors/creation with Christianity. "Life through the Crosshairs" is the title I chose because the crosshairs are the reticules in a rifle's scope. A scope generally has different power variations similar to a telescope or pair of binoculars. By using a scope one can glass an animal entirely or zoom into to see just a blade of grass from hundreds of yards away.

I come at life through two lenses, one through the focus of my faith, backed up by formal education of seven plus years. The other lens is a more simple view of life. I lived in Western Iowa almost my whole life,it is there where I learned to hunt- deer, pheasants, and waterfowl, as a youth. It was from my time spent in the woods in treestands, as well as the countless hours bass fishing on the neighboring small pond,that shaped me as a youth.

This blog will not just be about hunting, but it will be a view of life looked at through a Christian hunters human senses. When I hunt I feel alive, all my senses are at their peak, my eyesight catches movement from hundreds of yards away, my feet feel the sticks breaking underfoot,my ears can hear the rustle of a whitetail's stride, and my mouth can taste the essence of Fall. When that cool north wind blows in late September and October, every predatory instinct in me is turned on, and I am ready for the hunt. I long for those days, and I can't wait to someday be able to share them with my son.

I want to figure out how I can live everyday like that, everyday looking at life through the crosshairs, examining the mundane and seeing God at work in front of our very lives. I want to have my senses at their peak all the time, and not just when I am in the woods.

Maybe we need to approach life more like a hunt. We all need to slow down, breathe easier, and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. To quote a line from Bagger Vance, "God is happiest when his children are at play." Creation is my playground, and I hope to be able to share a piece of that sacred space with you.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Blood Brothers

The week of the 5th through the 11th of November this year was a dream three years in the making. I had spent the last three hunting in Michigan in the big woods, while going to seminary. I really enjoyed that time, but my heart was really back in Iowa, the Land of Giants. I have yet to kill one of those giants but that day is coming. And if it doesn't I will still spend my free time and vacations in the pursuit of taking one with the bow.

I took vacation in early November, and I was just about a week too early for the Rut to really kick in, but the experts were predicting an early Rut. Just as in life things do not always go as planned. The weather pattern turned very warm and everyday was blustery, and very little sign of the Rut was to be seen. Sitting in the ground blind I could hear limbs crashing all through the woods, but evening and mornings quieted down. Two of the seven days were spent for the better part of them at home, strategizing over topos, and pouring through the latest wisdom on hunting as well as my other passion-Christianity, while peering over to see the guys on TV make trophy deer hunting look so easy.

Let me tell you, hunting whitetail is not easy. It will test you to the core. No one who is a bowhunter is a perfectly sane individual. Bowhunters are a breed of our own.

I am beginning to be a firm believer in the idea that hunters are not made- hunters are born. There is something in the blood-its instinctual. When the cool north wind starts to blow in early autumn and you don't feel anything; you don't feel the predatory instinct welling up inside you. You are probably not a hunter and you will never be one, and you probably will never understand those of us who are.

As a father of two infant sons, this is a great fear of mine. I pray that my sons will share my passions-Hunting and The Kingdom of God. Sometime later I will elaborate on these because admittedly I have to try hard to keep my passion tilted in favor of ministry. I have to keep my eyes in focus, and on the right target, so that my passion does not turn into an idol.

Those of you who are whitetail freaks, than you know what I am speaking of. It is not easy being us. We have to balance our work, our home-life, and our spirituality, with the pull of the woods. Many times it feels like no one wins.

So in the meantime I am trying to find a way to combine my passions. After all if I am a Christian and God created me as a hunter, than surely there is a way for me to offer worship in all my passions and do it in a way that promotes life in a lifestyle that has to do with death.

In the end all hunters shed blood, and while some are just blood thirsty vampires, the majority of us, especially bowhunters, we see the killing of animal as a spiritual/sacred yearly ritual. For us sacred space isn't found just in churches, its all around us, especially in the wilds of creation.