Bye, Bye Beard (AKA The Miracles Behind Giving Thanks)

No Shave November? Not exactly. At the beginning of November I started a spiritual journey of transformation from one who relies on society to one who relies on the land for sustenance. As described in a previous blog (The Dear Beard, Nov. 8) man's natural rhythms which parallel nature's are mostly forgotten or blocked in an effort to merely survive the life that society dictates. It's only in changing one's frame of mind or immersing onself in nature that the primitive man can again regain his natural rhythm (and priorties for that matter.) Since immersion reqires on-site failure, I opted to change my frame of mind. Making an abstract concept tangible, I decided that a symbolic statement like growing out a November beard would prime my natural instincts. Well, tonight I shaved it all off in the wake of a miracle.

This was opening weekend of Oklahoma's deer gun season. Feeling lucky, or perhaps wanting to hedge my bets on selecting the sex of the deer that was to pass my stand, I opted to buy both a buck and a doe tag. My original intention was to butcher the first deer myself, something I have never done but have longed to do, so that we could have meat in the freezer for this winter. Being so fortuitous as to harvest the first deer, my intention then would focus on the philantrophic nature of the holiday season which is engrained in every red-blooded American, and not just during the holidays. Using the popular program Hunters against Hunger, I would then donate my second deer (again if I were lucky enough to get this far) to a processor who would then give the meat to needy families. Naturally, this entire plan was contingent on my harvesting two deer in two weeks. A few days before the start of the season, and at my wife's urging for she doesn't care much for venison, I decided that I would donate both deer. After all our needs are already provided for.

So Saturday morning I rose at five o'clock, made all preparations, rubbed my beard for good luck, and found myself sitting in my ground blind at 6:30. Legal shooting light officially began at 6:42 A.M. and eighteen minutes later my doe was on the ground. I had planned on one shooting lane and hoped for luck to bring my deer into that perfect position a mere forty yards from where I crouched behind some farm machinery. Thankfully God provided: the doe stopped in the right place and my bullet found its mark. In the process of field dressing the animal, my wife called and informed me of a family in need. It wasn't a large animal, weighing ninety pounds dressed, and of that ninety pounds, an estimated thirty-five percent of it was meat, but that meant that the family would eat through the holidays and part-way through the winter. And when I dropped off the deer at their doorstep to be butchered, a family of six with very little income was there with smiles of thanks that couldn't be substituted for a thousand words of the same. I felt a little like Ebeneezer Scrooge when he has the poulter deliver the prized turkey to Bob Cratchet's family. It was a lot more personal than putting change in the offering plate.

So it really surprised them this morning, the Sunday morning prior to Thanksgiving, when the offering plate went around twice. A buck this time, fifteen minutes later than the doe the day before, stood in the exact same spot and again the bullet ran straight. Being much larger than the doe, this animal will surely feed them through the winter and well into 2010. Again the smiles on the "Cratchet" children did my soul well for God always provides. Going to church on Sunday is important, but doing God's work is like putting your money where your mouth is. Never have I had a deer hunt run this smoothly nor have I had success come so easily. And lightning never strikes twice in the same place. So to have two deer on the ground twenty-four hours and fifteen minutes apart under these circumstances is nothing short of miraculous. That's how I see it through my human eyes, but I know that it's just part of a day's work for the Big Man.

And so on my way home this afternoon, I recalled writing that I would have to find a reason to keep my beard after deer season, but for one of the only times in my life (and the first time in many years) I felt a strange sense of completion. Mission accomplished. There was now no reason to keep the fuzz. Going into this Thanksgiving week, I thank God for all the little "miracles" that sustain those in need.