Shooting Flies

I may have been born in Circleville, Ohio many, many moons ago, but my Granny and Grandpa Tharpe and my Mom, in particular, made absolutely sure that my heart and soul were Southern; and I thank God above for that.

I think Southern, and I eat Southern. Waffle House is my culinary church, and sweet tea is my wine. I fish Southern; largemouth bass, bream and shell cracker are my prey. I’ve got no use for pike or walleye. For the most part, I talk Southern. I still have a little trouble saying the word “sin” with more than one syllable, and from time to time my fifth gear mouth can’t catch up with my second gear brain, and I trip over an adverb or a participle or two; but other than that I talk Southern.  Along with all of that I shoot Southern.

In my younger days, I could drive a 16 penny nail from fifty yards with my great grandpa’s old Iver Johnson single shot 22 rifle. That thing is well over a hundred years old now, but it is still the most accurate gun I have ever seen.

I was raised to believe that if you need more than one shot to do the job while hunting, then you shouldn’t be hunting. 

One of my favorite scenes from the old Beverly Hillbillies show was when Uncle Jed and Jethro were on the front lawn. It’s a lawn in California, it’s a yard here. Well, they were shooting at a wall about a hundred yards away when their neighbor Mr. Drisdale walks up and asked, “What are you shooting at?” Uncle Jed says “flies.” 

Mr. Drisdale squints off in the distance and says “Huh?” and Uncle Jed says, “Yea, it’s fifty points for every fly on the wing, but only twenty-five if they 'light before you shoot em.”

Now I was never quite that good, but I sure wanted to be.

The key to good shooting, by the way, is concentration. It doesn’t matter if you are using a scope or open sights. The key is to focus on one, well-chosen spot and one spot only and then keep the cross-hairs or the bead, depending, on that spot. It doesn’t matter what is going on around that spot. That spot is the universe to you. Nothing else matters. If you lose the focus, you lose the shot.

Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is like being a good shot. You can’t take your eyes off of the spot for a second. And that spot, of course, is Jesus.

Love,
Pastor Tony

---