Rules to Hunt By!

On NCIS Jethro Gibbs has a list of rules that all the members of his investigative team must learn. They are all rules about investigating a crime, dealing with people, and what he expects - and some are generic rules for life. I think the number of "Gibbs Rules" is up in the fifties and maybe higher.
We all have rules of living. We may not have formalized them or put them down on paper, but there are rules - i.e. principles, beliefs, guidelines, and truths - that drive how and why we do the things we do. After nearly four decades of preaching, writing articles, doing bulletins, writing books, and - the last six years - writing blogs, I have a long list of Rootisms that I live by and share when I teach or preach. Many of them have appeared in this blog over the last 66o plus blogs.
It's hunting season - in case you haven't noticed the trail camera pictures I've shared and the picture of the nice buck I got last week. I mentioned in that blog that my good hunting buddy and brother-in-law Kevin was in town last week to hunt with me in IL. We have a lot of hunting trips in our memory scrapbook, not the least of which is twenty something trips to Colorado to chase mulie deer and elk all over the mountains. Notice I said "chase" not "kill".
Here are a few of our spoken and unspoken rules about bowhunting.
1. On a hunting trip there are two things you never count or worry about - cost & calories.
2. When it stops being fun, I stop doing it. (I have nothing to prove to anyone about my dedication to hunt in the cold, wet, and nasty.)
3. If it is followed by a good breakfast, there is no such thing as an unsuccessful morning of hunting.
4. It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. (It's all about the equipment)
5. A trophy is something in the freezer as the result of a good bow kill.
6. "Be still and know that I am God" was written for tree stand hunters.
7. Harvesting is for vegetarians. Bowhunters kill deer for dinner.
8. No, I don't hunt Bambi, but I am after his great, great, great, ........great grand-dad. (By the way, they don't talk and play games with rabbits.)
9. It's never about the kind of weapon you use, but about spending time in God's creation and enjoying the fruits of being a good steward.
10. While you're at breakfast, after a morning hunt, the deer are doing a Conga Line dance under your tree stand. It's still a good day.