From our friend, Sister Therese.

I just received this from a lady I met a few years back who teaches at Training Ground the ancient practice of contemplative prayer. She is a benedectine nun here in town. I call her my spiritual grandmother. She wrote this in response to a newsletter we sent out at TG about our time hunting.

Dear Xan: Thanks for the update. You are coming along fine.
I have a question - Why does hunting to kill an animal make a man?
Many blessings on your ministry to young men.
Sr. Therese

Many different thoughts are there. John Muir spent time with Teddy Roosevelt, and one of their more argumentative topics was on enjoying animals vs. killing them. Muir the naturalist. Roosevelt the hunter. Muir thought a man was meant to come out of this place. that killing for sport was an adolescent experience.

Here is a quote I read from Muir,

"All hale, re-blooded boys are savage, the best and boldest the savagest, fond ouf hunting and fishing. But when thoughtless childhood is past, the best rise the highest above all this bloody flesh and sport business, the wild foundational animal dying out day by day, as divine uplifting, transfiguring charity grows in."

There are many sides to this argument, but a look at the fall, tells us death will come. And maybe even God was the first hunter. Killing something in our place for Adam and Eve to put on their shame and nakedness. a shadowing of the blood needed to come. There is so much in this conversation. so much. There are some who hunt for merely trophies, other for the meat, others for the bonding time. not an easy one to try and sum up. but i believe any sane man, who hunts, needs to ask that question. and live from it in the hunting process.