Whatever Takes Us Away

Since my youth I have loved and enjoyed being in the outdoors; fishing, hiking, exploring or just playing around in the woods. In recent years I have picked up the hobby of hunting, mostly for deer, and this by means of bow and arrow. My first year found no success, but good excitement and plenty of deer sightings. Last year I was successful and managed to take two deer, one buck and one doe. This deer season has been challenging, with plenty of deer sightings, however, I have been largely unsuccessful. I did manage to take a great deer in November, but have missed enough to make this season a frustrating one.

This year the state of Ohio increased the number of deer a hunter could harvest, double in all areas of the state from previous years. That said, where we live in the southern part of the state I could, in theory, harvest six deer from October through January. My problem this season has not been the inability to locate them, though their patterns have been much different this year, but my inability to judge distances in order to accurately place my shots. If my count is correct I have missed six shots due to distance. This is my frustration. These shots have all been short of the intended target, some as close as fifteen yards, most from 30 to 45 yards. I know there are products out there, laser range finders for example, that will help reduce greatly my inability to judge these distances, and in the off season I do plan to acquire one - I hope this will increase my chances of taking more and better deer.

My frustration was increased even more over the weekend as I cleaned out our refrigerator and freezer. Last year, with two deer in the freezer, that meat accounted for about 85% of my family's red meat intake. As I cleaned out the freezer I realized that I only have five packages of ground venison, not nearly enough to get through nine months of eating, especially when we have FOUR kids and our pseudo-adopted fifth - all who really do enjoy the venison over beef.

Thankfully, Ohio has a long bow season. I still have three weeks to try to get at least one more deer from the woods into my freezer. The good thing now, is that the deer where I am hunting are finally starting to get into a regular pattern and I should be able to take at least that one additional deer. The season is long, hunting can be frustrating, but it is worth the time spent when, at the end of the season, I can say that I provided for my family, myself and others - and with God's help I will do just that.

I start yet another semester at Liberty University online next week. After this spring semester I will have completed my associates degree in religion, the first of quite possibly a few. One thing I have noticed with my schooling, as well as with my wife's, is that text books cost so much more than the paper they are printed on. Not to mention the fact that last semester I had over a dozen books for 6 classes. Now, some I was able to find through a used online bookseller and save much coinage! However, the majority of the books were new and the average cost was over $80 (a few were well above the $100 mark).

I find it funny, amusing and frustrating all at the same time that in order to obtain a better paying job you have to pay out the nose, not merely for the schooling, but for the books that are used during the schooling. For this coming semester I have already spent over $425 and still have two more books to buy within the next week. The two I am still waiting on, if I buy them new, will cost $190 - so needless to say I am trying to find used or a place that rents these two required books.

All of this to say, that although I find schooling worth the costs, it feels like I'm being drained of any extra resources I thought I had. I really don't like money, but it seems a necessity in our world.

While flipping through the channels one evening I came across a National Geographic show on “The Lost Kings of the Bible.” I caught it after it had already begun, but Noah and I decided to start watching it (and when it went to commercial we flipped to a hockey game). Immediately after this program, which seemed mostly to be about King David, came another show about Alexander the Great. I noticed an immediate difference to how these two shows could take similar topics (ancient kings of the Middle East) and have tow very different approaches to the historical data.

With King David we have biblical data that speaks of this great king of Israel. And, in addition to this there are sources outside of the Bible that speak of this person and his “house.” Some of those on the program thought this was not enough to “prove” that David ever existed or that he was ever a king in ancient Palestine.

With Alexander the Great there are written accounts of him, and as a result of his conquests from Greece to the Middle East, much of the Mediterranean became very Greek (Helenization). Many of the written accounts we have of Alexander and his exploits come to us many centuries after the fact, but most historians take this as true as truth can be.

The juxtaposition between the two programs and the two men portrayed is this: if you were a biblical character, person, king, prophet or otherwise you probably didn’t really exist; but, if you were a non-biblical character, person, king, or otherwise you probably did exist and even if there are no archeological records or evidences of your existence you can still be proved to have existed, if by no other means than to “recreate” ancient cities virtually with computer generated graphics or cartoons. This has become our “truth” and many today believe these so-called facts to be just that, the truth. It is a sad state of affairs when the biblical accounts that we have (in the myriad of ancient manuscripts) are discounted as meaningless and without substance or truth. Likewise, it is a sad state of affairs when things such as Alexander’s tomb (of which we know absolutely nothing) are made to be of more importance and given more “truth” points than things which we do have in written historical form.

This is a sad reality of where our nation and our world are heading. We have seen Europe grow increasingly more violent towards anyone claiming to be Christian, and so many of the beautiful cathedrals built in Europe are nothing more than historical sites for tourists to visit. The U.S. is rapidly heading down that same path of truthlessness and is a place where Christianity is constantly under attack. We are supposed to embrace tolerance here, but that tolerance does not extend to Christians.

These two TV programs didn’t make me realize this, but only put a stronger emphasis on what I had already known. For those of you that chance to read this, whether you are a Christian or not, know that truth is relevant and that it does exist, you need only to look into the matters at hand to find what the truth is for any given subject. The media controls what truth has become, but at some point, they too will be subject to that same measure.

I really enjoy hunting, it is something I picked up only a few years ago, but I have found I am quite fond of it. However, I have a problem: I work second shift (until 11:00 pm) and like getting out in the woods before sunrise. That alarm clock sounds more and more like that annoying co-worker in the next cubicle that has no volume or tone control with their voice. Each time, after about the first month, I hear the alarms go off it gets harder and harder to get out of bed; and yet here I am at 12:53 in the am and I am typing this post. Am I just crazy?

6:00 am rolls around much quicker when you're sleeping!

Maybe tonight I will dream of that giant herd of deer that have no sense of smell, no sense of hearing and are all blind in one eye - I think my chances would be greatly increased if only I could find that herd. I'm not a trophy hunter, I enjoy a decent "mountable" animal, but I am more in it for the sport and the meat - yeah, I'm sure P.E.T.A. isn't going to like me any - I eat what I go after.

At any rate, the alarm is set, my gear is ready for the morning and the coffee pot timer is waiting for 5:50 am, at which point, when I fall off my side of the bed into my clothes I will at least have one small thing accomplished: Fresh Coffee!

Only five hours five minutes til' the alarms sound.

In this digital age of (in)convenience it is overwhelmingly easy to reconnect with people from our pasts. And this post is about just that thing; reconnections with old friends.

A few months back I started a Facebook account, not really knowing what Facebook is/was/could be. As it turns out, people really dig deep into their mental memory banks to try their hardest to remember the most obscure people they could possibly remember from their pasts (yes that sentence was intentionally long and arduous). I happen to be one of those people (on both sides of the account). Finding friends from years gone by, friends that I worked with, friends that shared common interests - I am finding that there are some connections that just were not meant to be lost.

Now, take into account that not everyone wants to be found. There was a point in my life that I wanted as few people from my past to remember me or know how I was doing or where I was living, I've gotten over myself since and hence, I can be found as YOUR friend on Facebook. Some people from my past haven't changed much, others have. Me, take me for example. Many of the people I am linking up with through Facebook know me in a short time span (three years or less time spent in "friendship"), and the person they remember was vastly different from who I have become. Over the last 10 years my life has changed in dramatic ways. As a young teen I wasn't really a fan of children, yet here I am with four kids of my own and the fifth added teenager in the house. There was a span of five years that I didn't really attend church on a regular basis, but here I am studying Christian Theology and finishing my first degree in the coming months. Some knew me as one of the fun party guys, hitting the "regular" spots on Friday and Saturday nights from San Diego to Los Angeles, and here I am staying at home on those days.

All of this to say, it is interesting to catch up with old friends, acquaintances, and keep in touch with new friends that have moved away. If you have some time and wish to find old friends, take the time to check it out. You might be shocked, you might be sad or you might find that old familiar friend lives in the town next door.