Grilling An Elk

Grilling An Elk

It was a pristine winter morning in Montana, fresh snow on the ground and the sun bright against the blue sky. The road to White Sulphur Springs was snow packed and icy, a perfect day to hunt some elk. My hunting partners were Hal and Tyrell. We were taking advantage of an extended elk season in mid December.

Hunting elk is no easy proposition. It’s a lot of hard work hiking and scoping to find them. The elk tend to hang out in dense timber and come out in the early evening to feed on farmers’ haystacks. Once spotted, there is a technique to stalking them until you are in range to shoot. The work really begins when you kill one. There is on site gutting, quartering and hauling the meat out. You have to be in good physical shape to hunt these critters.

We spent the day spotting and sneaking but to no avail. As the sun began to set, tired and disappointed we called it a day. It was a two-hour drive back to Bozeman so we packed up and headed out. Just south of White Sulphur, we spotted a lone cow elk standing on the highway. Barreling down on the elk, we tried to maneuver around her but she turned around and looked us right in the eye.

Let me tell you what it’s like to hit a five hundred pound elk with a one-ton Ford truck at forty miles an hour. You see lots of fur and legs and flying plastic along with a loud thud! All the while the three of us were saying “Oh No.” Then there was a crunch, crunch as the truck and utility trailer ran over the now deceased elk. We were in shock.

By the time we got the truck stopped, we jumped out to survey the damage. There were plastic parts everywhere. The front grill was gone and the radiator pushed in and leaking fluid. We limped back to town and waited for a ride back to Bozeman. It was a long day of hunting.

You could say we got our elk and grilled it all in one without firing a shot. It turned out to be a very expensive hunt.

Other Side Of The Mountain

Other Side Of The Mountain

It’s funny how life takes you places you never thought you would go. It’s a good thing that we don’t always know what life has in store for us. Sometimes I wish I could see what the future held but in my more sane moments I am thankful that I don’t know. It would ruin the surprise.

Judy and I got married forty years ago in a little stone chapel in Duluth, Minnesota. At the time we thought we would make our home along the shores of Lake Superior. It wasn’t two months later; we were in a U Haul, heading in the opposite direction. Our life together started by running a ski lodge in the Bridger Mountains of southwest Montana. I would have never guessed that would happen.

But that was just the beginning. After three ski seasons at the lodge, we packed up and moved into a small parsonage in Helena, the capital of Montana for two years and then on to the inner city of Minneapolis for six years. Hard to believe but now it was back in the U Haul for a return trip to Montana, this time on the Hi Line in Havre. It was here we bought our first home and lived there for nine years.

Just when we felt that we had finally settled in for a long season in Havre, it was time to load two U Hauls and head back to Minneapolis. We bought our second home and prepared for a long stay. That lasted eight years before another and hopefully our last U Haul trip. Three moves from Minneapolis to Montana are enough for one marriage.

The irony of all this is that now we live on the opposite side of the mountain where we started all those years ago. Yes, here we are in Bozeman again where we spent the first years of our marriage. We have aged and the city has grown but the mountains remain the same. I must say that the Bridger Mountains grow on you. The beauty of the snow capped peaks against the big, blue sky continues to be a feast for the eyes.

The Bible says, “The mind of man plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps.” I confess that my mind could never plan what God had in store for us. All those miles have finally brought us home.

Giving

Giving

Many years ago I was at a large auditorium for a conference. There were thousands of people there praising and thanking God. When it was time to take the offering, the leader gave an animated plea for hilarious giving on the part of those attending. He asked us to bow our heads and seek the Lord as to how much we should give.

I dutifully bowed my head and told the Lord I was willing to give $25. I thought that was a generous amount considering my present financial condition. It was not an audible voice, but I am sure He said. “How about $50?” I thought I can’t afford that. Then again He said, “How about $100?” I though “wait a minute this is getting out of hand.” Before I heard more instructions from on high, I wrote a check for $100 and dropped it in the white plastic KFC bucket when it came my way.

I was not a happy camper when I let go of my hard earned cash at that conference. I had always put something in the offering plate but never that much. Sometime later I read in the Bible “God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.” Another translations says, “God loves a cheerful giver.”

I’ll be honest with you; it has taken a long time to change my attitude from thinking like Scrooge to being a “cheerful giver.” The real issue is who’s money is it? The bottom line is that all that I have comes from the Lord: my job, my health, and my very breath. It took encouragement from the Bible and friends to realize what a privilege and blessing it was to give cheerfully out of my own resource to bless others.

As I look back on that experience, I see that I needed a real heart change. Giving out of a generous heart is far better than giving because I have to. In the Book of Proverbs it says: “The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.” Amen!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year

Parenting

Parenting

I remember my Dad saying, “When you get as old as I am, you will understand.” He would repeat this whenever there was a conversation about parenting. I would go to my Dad for advice because he was wise man, who with my Mom raised eight children. I confess that I thought his remark was a cop-out. I was raising four kids and needed a more substantial answer.

Raising kids is an imperfect science at best. All the handbooks, seminars and sermons don’t quite dispel the confusion, fear and joy that goes along with being a responsible adult trying to encourage your kids and directing them along the safe path to adulthood. I have yet to read the definitive work on child rearing.

Then I remembered what my Dad said, “When you get as old as I am, you will understand.” Well, I am about as old now as he was when he kept repeating this mantra. I have four adult children who are making their way through life. They are responsible, productive citizens some of whom are raising families. I even get a call once in awhile asking for advice. I don’t repeat what my Dad told me but I have my own mantra, “This too shall pass.”

Life keeps coming at us without much of a chance to catch our breath. It seems like yesterday Judy and I were changing diapers (she did most of that), strapping kids in car seats and looking for a little peace and quiet. Now that we are well trained, we keep in practice with the grandkids. Parenting kept us young for long time. Now we have many memories, few regrets and more understanding of what it takes to survive parenthood.

There is one thing I now understand and maybe this is what my Dad had in mind: “Parents give us life, they don’t give us perfect.” As I reflect back on my parents, it isn’t hard to see their faults. They were not perfect but they were there to provide what was needed to set us on the road to maturity. For that I am very thankful.

The Bible says: “Parents rejoice when their children turn out well; wise children become proud parents. So make your father happy! Make your mother proud!”