What if someone came into the house to kill us all?  They would probably have a shotgun.  What would I do if they were headed to the room I am in with my son?  I would slide him to where he wasn’t visible upon entering the room.  Then I would stand behind the door as much as possible.  The person entering would have to open the door and come in enough to where I could remain out of sight at least until their body or the gun barrel was in the room (this only works if they have a long-barreled weapon, hand guns would require them to come into the room further without seeing me and I don’t think that is possible.  So if I can get the guy to partially enter the room I can do some combatives stuff to disarm him.  If I disarm him I am going to kill him with a head shot (sorry, but I have a whole slew of folks depending on me in this scenario and one bad guy down will save us all nightmares).  But wait…

Say there are two gunmen.  One is the guy I just blew away and now his partner is wondering what just happened.  He starts calling out.  If I know where he is in the house then do I go towards his call without responding?  What if he doesn’t call out but goes quiet and has my wife hostage?  I enter the living room where they all are and he has her pulled up to him just like in the movies with a gun to her head.  If I seize the situation by voice then I might walk into the room confidently with my bead on the guy’s head.  Then I would tell my wife something like, “go to dead weight Sweetie”.  She would instantly relax her entire body and he would have to use both hands to hold her up but he would expose enough of himself at that point for me to get a pretty clean shot.  If my wife catches some frag it will not be life threatening and the situation will be over.  Let’s say though…

He doesn’t have her pulled up to his body close.  In that case I would come in with confidence and just blow the guy away.  But what if he had his gun to her head?  Then would it go off when I killed him?  Do I take that risk in an intense situation like that?

But say he isn’t in the living room yet, and he is coming to inspect.  In that case then it is game on.  If I heard the shooter moving in my direction with me in the room still then I would do one of two things.  Crouching position by the bed to wait on movement at the door.  As soon as I saw movement then I would slide forward still low and take a shot.  Or I would go towards the noise and do a close proximity shoot out.

Would any of this work?  I have no idea but hey, I have a plan.

Does anybody else do stuff like this?

Protective or Paranoid Daddy Moose

Well, I don’t necessarily mind this.  First, I believe Christians should know and recognize the origins of the holidays that we celebrate, in this case Christmas.  If you do not know the history then you cannot guard yourself from falsely holding something sacred that God did not institute for us to observe.  But you can observe it and not be in sin, if you are not lying to yourself while doing it.

Second, the commercialization of Christmas has already competed with and won over Christian homes regarding where our priorities are.  The closest most families come to honoring God coming to earth as a man is when families practice lighting advent candles and reading the passages that go along with each one.  In most non-traditional denomination or non-methodical denominational homes even knowing that there is something called advent candles is news.   My point here is that if the priority for your family at Christmas is not Jesus (you can know this by your bank statement, what you do to celebrate Christmas such as parties, tossing back loaded eggnog, watching A Christmas Story 24/7, etc…) then maybe you should not claim the holiday as a religious holiday at all.  Stick with making Easter your primary Christian holiday.  But beware, this will not bode well in conservative circles where the blinders are still on about the sacredness of Christmas.  The point here is to no longer hold Christmas as a Christian holiday at all.  Let it go ahead and morph into a season of goodwill towards our fellow man.  It is already that anyway as a Western culture, you have to choose to make it something else.  Which brings up point three.

Thirdly, and lastly for time sake, if you want to keep the holiday as a religious time then what are you doing to make it happen? Here are my suggestions.  Do them all, do only one, do none.  But make a decision about whether to keep this holiday as a religious time or a secular time with religious undertones for next year.

1. Watch The Nativity Story

2. Spend time in prayer as a family thanking God for His salvation

3. Go to Walmart and pray about who to help bless by paying for their last minute Christmas shop, then ask them for permission to pay for it and tell them why, “Because I believe the greatest gift we can receive happened over 2000 years ago, and I have been blessed because of the gift and want to pass on the immense love that God has shown me to someone else in a tangible way.”  Write it down so you don’t forget what to say.

4. Purchase or create your own advent wreath and download an advent calendar with scripture annotations.  Use the advent calendar to help you focus on Christmas as the time we remember Jesus’ birth. (there is no proof that he was born on Dec. 25th, see my first reasoning above).

5. Read out of Luke 2 the Christmas story including the prophecies after Jesus’ circumcision.  Use this as a catalyst for praying as a family or for discussing the impact of Jesus’ birth in your own lives.

6. Ask your Christian friends their suggestions.  Get creative.  Pray about this.  Make it a reality and build your own religious traditions.  But keep in mind that it is about your heart and focusing on the “Reason for the Season”.  And I don’t feel cliche about writing that.  Jesus really is the reason for the Holiday Season as we know it culturally.  We just need to get back to focusing on Him.

Merry Christmas,

Daddy Moose

Yesterday I thought we were going to be at the office all day due to the high winds so I brought a frozen meal for lunch.  We ended up servicing all day.  The only other thing I had was a can of sweet peas.  I was ten minutes from the office but believed that if I went back to cook my meal and then headed back out once it was done that my actions would be frowned upon by my boss and his wife.  I did not go back to the office, got way too hungry, ended up feeling miserably sick the rest of the night, and went to bed extremely early.

Neither of my bosses have ever said anything about not coming back for lunch.  I had another job where I was told not to come back to the office for lunch, even if it was within the allotted time allowed (weird, but whatever).  The results of my decision were that I didn’t finish four properties (no energy and with a headache it wasn’t happening), my time with my family was not nearly as enjoyable, and I didn’t get to spend time with my wife last night after the kids went to bed.  All I had to do was call the office, have the secretary heat the meal up, swing by, grab my lunch, and head back out.  Plus I could have grabbed more fertilizer to enable me to finish the four lawns that needed to get done.

We do the same thing with folks at church, at the grocery store, driving down the road, if we get sick with a disease, etc… We basically lie to ourselves.  “She won’t come to my group because she is still mad at me over the conference trip we took together last spring.” “The folks behind me in the checkout are impatient with me, I have to hurry up.”  “I have been sitting here waiting to turn for five minutes, the cars behind me are going to start honking if I don’t take a risk and pull out.” “The doctor didn’t see it was life-threatening or give me a timeline til death, but I know time is short.” The list can go on and on.

They are all lies, but the ones I want you and I to pay special attention to are the lies we tell each other about people we have a relationship with.  Those are the ones that matter the most.  All you have to do is start questioning why you think someone thinks something or said/says something.  If you do not have hard evidence (i.e. you heard them say those EXACT words) then you need to go to them and ask them to clear things up.

That is your task.  Now have a great week.

Daddy Moose