God is a poet.
He wrote us into his story and allowed us to
roam free within its pages. But they are still His pages and He can arrange
them and edit them in any way He chooses. He chose to write some of us in as hunters.
I never knew it. I never appreciated it. I never even
thought about it much. But I was one of the lucky ones.
My dad loved me as much as humanly possible and he shared
himself with me in ways that eventually brought me closer to the truth. He was
a man who loved without words. He was a man who showed us how much he cared by
his actions. He was a man who gave everything to his family and his friends and
asked nothing in return.
I was born into a devout Catholic family. My parents never
missed Mass on Sundays. My mother said and continues to say the rosary every
day. They tried to teach us how to live by what they did. And I wish I could say
it took sooner than it did, but some of us are just slow learners.
Now my dad was not a “bible thumper.” I did not see him
reading scriptures all that often, but I saw him participate in the Mass and I
saw him participate in life. What was more important and what eventually
influenced who I wanted to become was how he participated.
I have heard it said that God has two great books: the
inspired words of the Bible and the created world he wrote our lives into. Unfortunately,
I ignored the first book for much of my life. But God’s other book, the book he
breathed life into and set free because He is the ultimate creator, because He
loves it, and because He loves us and wants to speak to us through it, has
spoken to me for as long as I can remember. I felt I could always hear Him
there, even if, at times, I did not realize it.
My father introduced me to outdoors by taking me fishing at
a local pond. He taught me to hunt in a goose pit. He presented to me the
sometimes harsh beauty of life set free. God’s words, whether in the Bible or
written into a lonely wildflower are sometimes hard to understand. And sometimes,
they are just plain hard.
I have discovered those words hiking through a cornfield, or
wading across a warm-water slew, of often walking in my father’s tracks. I have
heard them in the lonely call of a goose on cold winter morning or in the
promise of a quiet rustling of leaves. By taking me hunting, my father offered
me a true taste of freedom. He gave me the opportunity to listen to a whisper
from a familiar voice I had never known.
These moments are so much more than memories. They are the
moments that set the cadence of a story not yet finished. They are the sounds
of words without end. They are proof that no matter where I have been, I have
never been alone. And they are an understanding that everything we do matters.
What a simple thing for a dad to do - to take his child hunting. The impact on my life cannot be measured.
