Sending Him off to the Hunt

Later today, I’ll be putting my 13-year-old son on the train to Oklahoma. He’s going to be spending Thanksgiving week out hunting with his grandfather. It’s one of those rites of passage in Texas and Oklahoma society that boys (and a lot of girls) grow up and go hunting.

While I’m not an avid hunter myself, I am a fan of the venison which will fill our freezer if this hunt is successful. I’m also a proponent of the self-sufficiency that hunting brings. More than one family member or friend has supplemented a too-meager income by hunting in order to feed their families.

Deer hunting is also a part of caring for the ecosystem in this part of the world. The deer populations no longer have any natural predators but man. Without hunting to cull the herds, the deer overwhelm the land and consume the vegetation. Not hunting means that herds of deer starve to death, so killing off some of them has become a necessity. That they are tasty doesn’t hurt things.

But I’m a mom, and I can’t help but worry.

I can vividly remember my own first hunt. I know the satisfaction of bringing down game that is swiftly followed by the pang of conscience of having actually killed something. Something that was beautiful and alive only moments before. Something that would still be alive if not for me.

It’s a part of life that modern Americans don’t often get to see. We buy our meat from butchers and slaughter houses who do the ugly work for us. By the time the burger lands on our table, it doesn’t resemble in any way the cow(s) it once was. I’m not sure that’s a good thing for us, to be so removed from the truth of what we’re eating.

Perspectives change when we see things as they really are. The things that we eat have to die, and it’s up to us to make sure that happens as humanely and responsibly as possible.

Which is all a part of why I’m sending him away for this hunting trip. He’ll get to spend time with our family, and he’ll also get a glimpse into what it takes to feed people and care for the world we’re responsible for. I know that he couldn’t be learning these lessons from a finer man than his Opa. He’ll teach him that it’s wrong to kill for the sake of killing, and how to hunt in a way that helps strengthen the herds by choosing his targets wisely and with care. He’ll teach him about respect for the land, and walking softly upon it.

So, as you sit down this week with your family, will you please say a prayer for my boy? He has a lot of hard lessons to learn this week, and I hope he learns them well.