Deer Season 2014

I lost interest in deer hunting years ago.  It is a sport which is slow even on a good day, and generally accompanied by bad weather and cold.  But, I still try to take at least a couple of days off during the season to pursue deer shooting as I do it.  I sit in relative luxury on the top back porch of our home at Briarwood.  Here I read books and articles with gun at the ready and hot beverages of my choice.  If things get too cold, I can step inside to warm up and do a few chores.  If something manages to stumble in under the apple tree to eat a bit, I have no aversion to putting it into the freezer, but my main purpose is an uninterrupted day away from the phone to read and think.

The view from my "Deer Stand." Note what a great bench rest the bar makes!

A hide fit for a king!

This morning's reading has consisted largely of  "How the Scots Invented the Modern World," by Arthur Herman.  It is a rather predictable romp through Scottish history which spends a lot of time on people like David Hume and Adam Smith, who I consider some of the greatest intellects and greatest wits of western culture.  Consider Smith's description of the University as a "sanctuary in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices find shelter and protection, after they have been hunted out of every other corner of the world."  I guess things haven't changed all that much in the last two hundred and fifty years!.  I would love to be able to write in such vein. 

But I am restrained by a blog article I read last night from Bishop Dan Martins, the Episcopal Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, in which he points out that our position in the church, or arguably in any broader institution, ought to limit our grand philosophical generalizations because of the impact such statements have on the institutions we serve.  (You can read the entire article at http://cariocaconfessions.blogspot.com/2014/11/as-bishop-i-am-quasi-public-figure.html .)  His argument makes absolute sense to me.  We are all part of a broader community of some sort.  When we choose to speak boldly or rashly, even if our motives are the best, we often find that there are unintended consequences to our exhibitions of individual free speech and claims of individual liberty.  I have seen the tragic consequences of such acts in my own faith tradition as many have been pushed out of their congregations by the loud political exhortations of leaders and conventions assembled.  It does not matter whether the opinions expressed are on the left or right, or in the center.  They set us against each other and damage our ability to live together in harmony and prosperity.

And so I guess I will have to wait until I no longer wear a collar or draw my income from a parish to write after the fashion of Hume, Smith, and others.  Perhaps one day that time will come, but until then, I just sit in my deer stand and think.