Reynolds Life and Times

If you know me, you know it is time for the beard. The beard is the annual signal to friends and family that it is now hunting season. This is that time of year when men, women, and children all over the US prepare to hunt the warm-blooded beauty of God’s creation, the white-tailed deer. For real hunters, which I would arbitrarily define as someone who thinks about hunting at-least weekly, hunting isn’t only a hobby, a pastime, or a sport, but a lifestyle choice.

Let’s face it, hunting isn’t popular. The vast majority of the American population look down their noses at this timeless tradition. Some of my own family (not blood related) are content to pay others to kill their meat for them. The defense is often that the animal is raised specifically for their consumption. As though this reasoning can wipe the blood from under the finger-nails of their hired mercenaries. Oh no, this reasoning will not stand. At the turn of the century there were not a hundredth of the number of white-tail deer that there are today. You see, hunting has made the white-tail deer population grow. Through improving habitat, self-selecting mature animals to kill, supporting state and federal agencies with their license fees, and through spending their money on the sport, hunters have enabled white-tail deer to flourish both directly and indirectly. In a very real sense, deer are raised specifically for the hunter’s pleasure and consumption.

I could make this post four or five times longer than this with all the reasons why hunting is good for our environment and our nation, but I will hold off. I won’t bring up things like the fact our best snipers learned to shoot and kill when hunting as youth. I won’t bring up the fact that overpopulation of deer can ruin our environment in the absence of a serious predator, or that deer herds contract massive epidemics when over-population occurs. I will leave out the fact that prior to 250 years ago, if you weren’t hunting or hiring those who did, you didn’t eat much meat in this country. I won’t focus now on the reality that a cleanly placed shot by a hunter on large game is a way of honoring these animals and that the alternative method of gathering meat for the family is much more cruel and unclean.

I am going to leave that out, and instead show you a picture of the crossbow I got a really sweet deal on a few weeks ago. This crossbow will help me honor the following commandment by God about his economy and have a lot of fun in the process:

Genesis 1 (NASB)
V.27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.