Jagged Zen Monkey Posted January 7, 2012 Posted January 7, 2012 The Beginning It’s a funny thing to look back on life. Some memories are as vivid as this present moment, while others are buried away deep in the catalogues of our minds. Then there are the things we don’t remember at all as if the memories were somehow erased. I can recall nearly everything about my life, but for some reason I cannot recall the time I spent as an angel. We were all angels once you know. Most people don’t realize this, but we were sacred creatures, without fault, and the most beautiful of all God’s creations. We were loved, cherished, innocent, and precious in God’s sight. We were pure as the morning dew. I wish I could remember. I wish I could remember me before the world took hold, but that memory has been erased forever. I’m afraid these angelic memories have been erased from us all. I suppose God did this to make life easier for us. I suppose he did it so we could endure falling from his grace. My son Austin was born in 1997. He was the most precious thing I had ever laid my eyes on. His birth wasn’t an easy one, however. It was required for his mother to have a C-section in order to remove him from her womb. If I had to guess, I’d say he didn’t want to leave his the comfort of that place. It was as if he somehow knew what lay ahead of him. I recall a moment when Austin was age 6 vividly. One afternoon I began to say to him, “When you grow up…” but he stopped me dead in my tracks! He immediately began to cry furiously, pleading that he never wanted to grow up! He said, “I want to be a kid forever”. It was the sweetest, yet most heartbreaking thing I ever heard him say. I nearly broke down myself, knowing that one day he too would reach adulthood, and that the innocence he knew then would slowly wane as he grew older. Such is the reality of humanity I think, and our fall from heaven as angels. Innocence Lost As we grow older, we slowly lose our innocence. We lose our purity. We lose our angel status. I can’t pinpoint the day I became a sinner, but I can certainly recall the day I fell from grace. You know, death is a hard thing for young children to understand. It’s a difficult thing to accept when you’re a child. I recall fearing death at a very early age, and this fear haunted me well into adulthood. I suppose the day I realized my mortality was the day I killed one of God’s creatures. My father was a hunter, a fisherman, and an avid outdoorsman. One Christmas morning I received a bb gun from him as a gift. I thought it was one of the coolest things I had ever received. It wasn’t long after that I went out in the woods to shoot. I had never killed anything in my entire life, but that would soon change. A flock of blackbirds had landed in a tree above me. I raised my gun, took aim, and fired a single shot. The bird began a downward spiral, bouncing off branch after branch until it landed at my feet. I was horrified! I was so horrified that I cried for hours after. I never told anyone about this except for my son until now. That was the day I fell from grace. I had taken the life of an innocent creature and by doing so I think I realized my own mortality. It was the day I knew death was imminent for me as well. The incident is a memory I wanted to repress. It still hurts me to this day when I think about it. I was so naive and innocent, and I believe it was the beginning of my descent, the beginning of my fall from paradise. The incident numbed me. It hurt me so deeply that I repressed my feelings. What is even more disturbing still is that I eventually became a hunter myself. I eventually lost my compassion for God’s creatures, just as I eventually lost myself. To be continued .....
JenellYB Posted January 7, 2012 Posted January 7, 2012 You're on a good roll today, JZM.... ...just open a vein, and let it pour out onto the paper (or computer keyboard/screen as the case may be!) Jenell
Jagged Zen Monkey Posted January 7, 2012 Author Posted January 7, 2012 When it hits me, I write. Thank you for the encouragement, Jenell.
PaulS Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 JZM, Your post reminded me of doing the exact same thing when I was about 13. I too was given an air rifle of my own and was pretty pleased to be able to 'hunt' for myself whilst my Dad was out trying to knock over a kangaroo for dog meat. The first animal I killed was a common, but lovely, parrot we have here in Western Australia. I shot it out of the tree and it fell to the ground squawking. I began to cry as I heard its pain and as it tried to scuttle off into the bush I ran after it crying and apologising, before finally putting it out of its misery. I don't know why I didn't stop there, but I too went on to hunt more. Funny, you'd think that experience would have made me go "hey, I don't like this", but it didn't. Perhaps I deliberately hardened my heart thionking naively that was what I was supposed to do in growing up. After all, my father and others routinely shot animals for a purpose (whether it be for food or exterminating vermin). A few years ago I had a change of heart. No particular experience other than a gentle waning of interest in hunting anything until finally I think one day I just said I don't want to hunt any more. I sold or gave away my guns and don't intend to teach my children to hunt. In fact, I hope to teach them to appreciate all manner of life. Cheers Paul
GeorgeW Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 A few years ago I had a change of heart. No particular experience other than a gentle waning of interest in hunting anything until finally I think one day I just said I don't want to hunt any more. I sold or gave away my guns and don't intend to teach my children to hunt. In fact, I hope to teach them to appreciate all manner of life. Paul, first welcome back. I hope your trip went well. I had a similar hutting epiphany shortly after I finished college. I went hunting with some friends and lined up a poor animal in my sights and suddenly thought, why is the world do I want to kill this poor creature. I put down my gun and have never used it since. (But, it is in my closet with no ammunition as a keepsake since it was my grandfather's) George
PaulS Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 Thanks, George. We had an absolute ball. It was a little sad to have to hand back our rented motorhome at the end!
JenellYB Posted January 22, 2012 Posted January 22, 2012 Raised in a hunting famly, i learned early, shot a few rabbits, and have killed a few predatory varmits, but couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on the only deer I ever drew crosshairs down on. But mine was also a family that strongly instilled not only safe and responsible gun handlng, including never point a gun even into the general direction at anything I wasn't prepared to kill, but also to kill or even shoot for only one of two reasons..meat, or protection/defense, whether from threatening human or damaging/predator varmits actually endangering people or property. I became a very accurate shot, not for any fascination or love of gun handling, but for it demanded of me, that I always make a clean quick kill. And to never pull the trigger if I wasn't sure I HAD a clean sure shot. I think I'd have had my skin flayed bloody and hung from a tree by my toes if I had ever got caught making an ass-end gut shot on meat animal, becasue we weren't starving. It MIGHT have been slightly less drastic had it been a predator actually known to be doing or threatening to do damage. Maybe. I did spend some years in a farmsteading lifestyle, and did "process" meat animals for our table, including the killing, but always respected the animals as they were in my care, made sure they had a comfortable life, and dispatched in a calm, clean, quick manner. As for would i do that now, or again? Possibly yes. I have actually considered keeping a few chickens again, for meant and eggs, for a combination of health and humane reasons. I am uncomfortable both with the hormones and other chemicals heavily used in the commercial poulty industry, and thus in the meat and eggs I eat, and, perhaps now even more, my aversion to, now I've become aware, of the horrible, inhumane, outright torturous conditions inder which those animals are raised. I can actually see how that if i continue as I have for several years to feel more and more strongly about that, more so the humane issue of commercial meat and egg industries than for matters of my own health, I could come to a point being forced by my concience to make a choice between becoming vegetarian or raising my own meat and eggs, or finding a private individual source that does. While I do not enjoy the thought of killing and processing my own meat animals, I find my own personal aversion to killing them myself, or to killing a wild meat animal, far less than what is on my conscience about the suffering by those whose "anonymous" meat and eggs I buy at the supermarket. With both meat animals I might raise, and wild meat animals killed in a hunt, I have the comfort of knowing that while that animal was alive, it lived as natural, comfortable, and even happy a life as possible, and that even at the event of their death, it was done with as little trauma, suffering of pain or fear, and as humanely and kindly as possible. Just where i am on this. Jenell
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