Life through the Crosshairs: February 2010

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.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Button Bucks

Well it has been nearly two years since I last posted on this blog and so much has happened in my life since then, both in the church and in the woods. The vision which I felt called to, was to lead an outdoor ministry and though it has taken years to emerge it is finally taking shape within the Call of the Wild Ministries. If you are reading this please take time to read the previous posts because there is some sound wisdom given in them. Many of the lessons I have learned in life have come from mistakes I made as a young person in my early twenties, just as most of what I have learned in hunting has come from the mistakes I made as young hunter.

Hunting is in my blood and I believe it is passed down through the side of my mother's family who for generation after generation were hunters. But after my parents divorce when I was eight, I was left to wander in the woods of life like button buck, (without a true father figure to teach me or guide me, with the exception of my scout leaders) and figure out things for myself. If you have hunted long you know how awkward and dumb a button buck can be, and that is why so many are killed by gun hunters every year. Sometimes in bow season I just like to mess with button bucks. I call them over under my stand with a doe bleat call where they catch the scent of a doe in heat on one of the scent wicks hanging, and get them fired up and then I do a deep guttural grunt that sets them on edge. I know it is somewhat cruel but quite amusing.

Well my point is that in the postings to come I want to share some of what I have learned in life and in hunting so that you are not running through life like a button buck and to save you the pain I endured in life and in the woods.

Our goal in Call of the Wild Ministries is to connect you with other men who share the same passion of the outdoors and form bachelor groups (ie. bucks who before the rut travel together in groups), because in life we are not only the hunter, but we are also the hunted.