Paradox in Practice

 I have mentioned in an earlier post that I sometimes find the Roe doe cull rather unpleasant. In order to keep the population under control, I have to cull a number of breeding females. At times they have what is termed "followers", which are immature offspring, and these, although they are fully weaned still hang out with their mother and seem to rely on her to teach them the ropes of survival and how best to become a really good Roe deer. If they are orphaned at this stage they will almost certainly survive, but they often exhibit signs of distress, and orphaned kids I have come across (usually through road traffic accidents or collisions with fences), even though they were fine physically, were often behaving strangely and somehow, as a colleague once said, "looked like little lost souls", bewildered and unsure of what to do. Therefore my unpleasant task is to shoot the followers first before then aligning the cross hairs on the mother. Some say kill the mother first as the kids are less likely to run at the noise of the rifle. "Boo! Bad form!" says I! Don't do it unless you really, really have to. If the mother runs she will be fine; if the kid runs, the situation I have just described happens, and it will be your fault.

Now, seen from one point of view, my killing of deer is nothing more than a legalised satiating of some perverse blood lust; merely the brutish desire to cause the death and suffering of the innocent. I mean, let's face it, the hunters in Bambi were such hideous brutes weren't they?

I can actually sympathise with that point of view. I really can. Until, that is, you first see the emaciated body of a deer that is starving to death. You see, there are no wolves in this country, no bears to predate on young, old, or infirm deer, and so the "wolf", the chief predator that now pursues our 6 native species of deer in the UK, is starvation. Starvation takes weeks to achieve population control, sometimes longer. A (decent) deer stalker does the job in a second or two, often less. And he selects the best beast to take, for the good of the remainder of the population (if he or she is worth their salt that is). Humans messed up the ecology of this island by hunting the predators to extinction. We must now take the responsibility of fixing the artificial situation we created in the countryside by using artificial means.

I am one of those artificial means! This is me, the Pastor, in some of my alternative work clothes:

All of the above reasoning sounds very clinical and scientific. It's almost as if I do this part of my life out of pure altruism, often with a sinking feeling and a heavy heart. But here is my problem:

I love it. I love hunting. I love the pursuit, the stealthy stalk, the aligning of the sights on the vital area, and I really love the sound of a big calibre rifle going off (it's called the report and it is more invigorating to me than the sound of the finest orchestra!)  

So the paradox that exists is clear: I genuinely love to see deer and I find it difficult to cull some of them at times, but I still thoroughly enjoy it all as well. This certainly does present me with a conundrum, a bit of a difficulty. Why don't I stalk them with a camera instead, some ask. Using a camera simply does not excite me the same way as using my .30-06. From one angle the responsible countryman sees the need to control a species that no longer has natural predators, culling them for the greater good of the remaining population and for the countryside as a whole. At the same time, the atavistic nature of the hunter is only satiated by the thrill of the chase and the successful killing of a beast. The excitement and adrenaline surge is far more enjoyable than merely harvesting venison (which is my favourite repast by the way). Some call it hypocrisy, arguing that one side of this conundrum must be wrong. Happily, though, as a paradox, both can co-exist. Indeed, the tension that exists between the two viewpoints can actually feed and help the other to maintain a healthy balance. It demonstrates to me that I have a real compassion along with my zeal for adventure; a self-control to go along with my excitability.

So there you have it. Find yourself a responsible deer stalker and an avid hunter in one person and you have a walking, talking example of a paradox.

One of the greatest paradoxes is of course the one of how a God who loves with an everlasting love, who sent His Son to die for all of mankind, could ever be so harsh as to condemn people to the fires of hell forever. It is one of the most hotly contested issues that is ever raised when Christianity is first mentioned, and is almost invariably raised as an objection to God in general, and to Christianity in particular. 

So let me ask you a question. As I explained my little conundrum about deer stalking, did it not at least start to make sense, how both attitudes can exist together? If you have no previous experience of deer stalking or management of the countryside, did the explanation I gave not at least start to make sense of a difficult issue, and perhaps change your view, bring in a smidgen of doubt, or at least alter your perception a little? Now, imagine if you spent the same amount of time listening to how the seemingly double standards of God might actually not be quite so impossible to reconcile as you previously thought. And if you are coming from the angle of a Christian, how often do you take the time to try to understand the nature of this difficulty that non-believers have, and try to put yourself in their shoes and answer them with simplicity, openness, frankness and honesty? One of the most endearing responses, so I am told, that I give to people quite frequently is "I don't know", but for some reason Christians rarely give it, apparently!

I feel good about my attitude to deer stalking, complete with the difficulties. I feel great about my relationship with a God Who I often do not understand. But if I cannot figure Him out, that in itself gives me cause for relief and peace; it means He is too big to fathom, and so He is big enough to be completely relied upon. Have a think about it. Post a comment if you like. About God, deer or shooting. I don't mind!

Ah, one man, his (fairly) obedient dog, and another walk in the dawn woods, rifle slung, dawn chorus in full bloom, and the Roebuck starting to feed his way toward you...so long as you see him first! Life makes sense, for a while at least.

Starting Points

It has been rather cold and snowy recently, with some excellent days of freeze and thaw, which makes for good ice conditions in the mountains. Good if you like climbing that is. I went out earlier this week for a mountain walk, along with a friend and his group of clients. It was to be a long, fairly steep walk in places, but a very straight-forward day out, taking in England's highest peak, Scafell Pike.

Grand. A walk in the mountains in full winter conditions. Great fun; dead easy; what could possibly go wrong?

My boots were misbehaving and the integral gaiters in my salopettes were obstructing my view to sort out my laces. Basically I couldn't put my boots on. No problem though: I could hear the chatter of voices nearby indicating the group had not yet set off. I treated myself to a quick bite of hill fuel and slowly emerged from behind the car to join the rest of the team.

The team which had long since departed. The voices I had heard were those of the farmer, accompanied by the babbling stream nearby. They could not be more than a couple of minutes ahead I surmised, so I dashed through the farm yard expecting to see the tail-ender merely a couple of hundred yards away.

Seeing no-one anywhere puzzled rather than alarmed me. Following this initial debacle I legged it over the footbridge, and, spurred on after hearing a shout higher up the mountain, I stepped up a gear and strode up the tiringly snowy path. Being an expert tracker (Hmmm...) I could see a number of fresh tracks, even dog tracks of the size made by Pippa, so I knew I would soon catch up, make my excuses and apologies and get on with the day.

Ten minutes later, having run out of tracks and examining a view devoid of any humans I took out my map, and decided to plan a route which would intersect a point where I knew we had all intended going. It was only then that I found that my map started just a little South of where I was actually standing.

No possibility of navigating an intercept route. No chance of finding a real path, and absolutely no chance of meeting up again with the team.

What a twit.

I did try to circumnavigate the hill I was on, and kept trying to find good vantage points from where I would surely catch a glimpse of someone. All I succeeded in doing was to become increasingly tired as I cut into the soft snow with my boots, and on occasion having to concentrate rather too hard on avoiding some pretty serious consequences should I have lost my footing (consequences like broken limbs, plural, or worse). Of course, as a Christian minister I never once became frustrated or evenly slightly fed up. And of course because I have such a sense of value, being in Christ and all that, I never once felt foolish for taking too long to put my boots on, and then not knowing which flaming footpath I was meant to start out from.

Yeah right.

So as I loitered back at the cars a couple of hours later, something took shape in my fiendish preacher's mind: It's all about starting points. If you get that wrong, if you do not know the actual fact of where you start from, then you have no chance of continuing the journey and certainly no chance of achieving the right end point. Here are some erroneous starting points that will really land you in the mire:

• There is no God therefore just do what seems right to you. 
• All roads lead to Heaven so follow whatever you want, as we all end up in the same place in the end anyway.
• God exists to make me happy. Therefore if I am not happy it is His job to sort it all out. Otherwise I have a right to be angry with Him.
• Because of all the bad things in the world that means either God is not there or He is a rotten swine.
• There is nothing that exists that we cannot see, feel or touch. There is no spiritual realm.
• Hell does not exist. A loving God would never send anyone to hell. He's just too nice.
• God would never ask me to do something that I did not like doing.
• I have certain rights. If God is a loving God He will allow me to fight for my rights.
• Evangelism is someone else's job. It's just not my calling.

Boy, I could go on all day. I would welcome a bunch more if you want to comment. So as a minister, here are a few of my Starting Points. I say them not to offend or make people take sides, but I merely want to point out a few things that I believe are real fundamentals, true cornerstones of my Christian faith and daily walk. It's not exhaustive, but addresses a few of the points raised above:

• Of course there is a God. You can't have order inventing itself out of chaos, and you cannot have design without a designer. 
• A loving God must hate. He must hate evil, He must hate what is contrary to His character, and a Holy God must hate all that is not Holy. To do otherwise would make Him unholy. And that would never do now, would it?
• The end of all things is the glory of God, not the happiness of man. Man exists to glorify God, whether we like it or not. God does not exist to make man happy. Jesus will be worshipped by everything that has ever existed, once He returns to claim that which He has paid for. Love it or hate it, there it is.
• As a Christian I have one right. Only one right. It is found in John's gospel chapter 1 verse 12, "But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name." Everything else, everything, is a bonus: health, money, happiness, family, career, you name it. Joy, however, is a promise, if we focus our minds on eternal things, rather than on the here and now.
• As Christians our lives should focus on Jesus all day, every day, and that is the best evangelism in the world. If you claim Christ and yet do not reflect Him in your life in some way, if you never have conversations that bring Him up and what He is doing in your life with those that do not claim Him, than I have to challenge the nature of your "Christianity". Ask yourself this: "How has Jesus changed me forever this year?" If you have no answer, be very concerned and start a conversation with Him to find the answer.

I need to stop. I am preaching, I know. But if you  were lying in the snow next to a car for over 4 hours wishing you were not such an incompetent twit, and hoping your feet would not hurt any more from the cold, then perhaps you would start to preach to yourself for a while as well.

Exasperating Children and Dogs

Today I am preparing my sermon for this Sunday's service. As a church we are going through Paul's letter to the Colossians. I have been dealing with this letter for a good number of months already, but the text I have just recently looked at is more than a little baffling. I am sure, for example, that the scribe for the apostle Paul made a mistake. Instead of writing, "Children, do not exasperate your fathers" he made the nonsensical statement, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart." (Colossians 3:21). I am sure I have never caused exasperation to my daughters.

My wife has just chirruped in with, "All you have to do is to be seen in public with them". Irony abounds.

All I have ever required of them are a few basic things. Things which, by the way, demonstrate not only my desire for their own good, but also that I take the leadership of my household very seriously, as every God-fearing man should. Just writing that fills me with a warm glow of a job well done, and the thought of smiling angels looking down and nodding approval, in a benign non-committal sort of way. These requirements are based around the foundation stone of obedience. Obedience to both parents. Perfectly scriptural. Usually this is well-explained and carefully and calmly pointed out to them. There is hardly ever a raised voice of course, nor are there instances of disobedience because of mis-communication on my part. My motivation is always, of course, that of looking out for the good of my children, and never, you understand, based on any personal agenda. I merely want to raise them, "in the fear and admonition of the Lord" (there goes that glow again). In short, it's never my fault.

Once you have obedience the rest falls quite naturally, so I am told, into place. Now, how to instill this obedience.

It's actually ridiculously easy. All you do is tell them three times what the order is, or what you require. During these three times you can be really calm, softly spoken, and allow for mistakes to be made. On the third time you can use a slightly stern voice. If there is a fourth time when obedience to the command is not instant and total, you start to hit them, either across the muzzle or with a whip across the rump.

Wait. A bit confused now. This was the method by which I was told to get obedience from dogs rather than from children. Strange how the two methods get overlapped in my mind. It is understandable I suppose when I point out that I was actually taught, and I quote, "You train children in just the same way you train a dog: pleasure and pain. Obedience is rewarded with one, disobedience with the other." Just one problem with this, whether applied to children or to dogs.

It is absolute cobblers.Total garbage. And it's not because it advocates corporal punishment. It's because of Psalm 139:13-16. We are, each one of us, fearfully and wonderfully made. We are individuals, every one of us. We are not blobs stamped off a production line. And here's the key; here is why parents like me need to be closely in touch with God for the rearing of their children: only God knows how to train each one of us individually, and as parents we are merely guessing if we do not find God's way of training up each of the people He has entrusted to us. Each time we use our own clever methods we are in great danger of causing exasperation to our children. Or perhaps that's just me.

Now here is where I can use my dogs as an example, without demeaning children, parents or anyone else for that matter.

Meet Gunnar and Maximus:

The guy on the top is Gunnar, my German Wire-haired Pointer pup. He's just 5 months old. Maximus is my English Springer Spaniel and a veteran gun dog, approaching 12 years. The pup, as a breed, is very wilful, headstrong and slow to train. The spaniel, as a breed, is very keen to please, extremely hard hunting and are devoted dogs. So training them by the method above is easy: beat the pointer into submission and lavish praise on the devoted Spaniel.

Nice idea. Garbage again. Guess what? Both are individuals. The Spaniel is indeed devoted and an extemely hard hunter. He is also dishonest and will go self-employed the moment my head is turned (even now in his dotage). I need to be on top of him, even with a shake of his scruff, on most days. Conversely, if I even raise my voice to the Pointer he runs away and looks at me from a distance, wanting to be close but at the same time a little fearful, desperate for reassurance (I don't raise my voice any more). Training for them both starts with certain premises and has a specific goal in mind, but the methods used are very fluid and the pace fluctuates daily, dependent not upon me but upon the dog.

Now my challenge is this: do I fluctuate, that is, am I responsive to my children's needs in the same way, or are they not allowed to have individual personalities? I am not talking about letting them get away with determined disobedience, rebellion, rudeness and the like, I am referring to nurturing their God-given personalities, complete with all the parts I do not understand, and allowing them to become, within a good, Biblical framework, the people He designed them to be. The difference is, I can read dogs pretty well because they are not complex (no soul to get in the way and complicate things) but with children, I only have a chance if I am listening daily to God in this matter. Otherwise I am guessing, and that will exasperate both parties involved, especially my girls.

So I suppose the scribe of Paul's letter did not make a mistake. I need to make sure I don't exasperate my girls. Perhaps my obedience to Him will then rub off on them a little.

And as for the lads... they are doing pretty well actually.

I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I tell people I am a minister. Apparently I don't look like one. The same eyebrows raise and merge into the hairline when I say I am a minster who likes rock climbing, ice climbing and the like. Finally, even the worst comb-over hairdo is amply buffered by eyebrow when I say I am also a deer stalker, managing deer on a couple of estates. The line, "so you actually shoot them?" falls disbelievingly from mouths as if I had just confessed to serial polygamy. It makes for some exciting discussion, so I thought it might be interesting for a couple of you out there in cyberspace to have a peek at this minister's daily grind.

Firstly, here is my outlook. As a rock climber it is my playground, as an ice climber it is far too warm, as a deer manager it is the neighbour's estate, responsible for far too many yearlings running from here to trash my patch, and as a minister, it is a part of my parish and my mission field.

Let's face it, there are worse places in which to eke out a living. In the winter, it sometimes looks like this:

Which is rather nice. The rock climber in me retreats to the haven of the indoor climbing wall, the ice climber starts to sharpen his crampon points, and the minister tries to look ministerial as he puts on his warm camoflage jacket to go to church.

The deer manager looks for his extra set of merino wool gear and prepares for the long sits on the cold, bone hard ground, and the difficult and I think, sometimes unpleasant task of the doe cull.

The hairy guy in the picture is me. the very hairy guy is my German Wire-Haired Pointer pup, Gunnar. More of the lads later...