If you’ve become accustomed to reading my short fiction writing lately, today is a short break from that, to discuss something that’s taken up some space in my mind.

It occurred to me today that I’m not sure that I feel the way that I used to feel about certain things.

2020 has been the kind of year that gets a lot of people looking at a lot of things differently.  But, I feel like I’m also getting to the point in my life where a growing level of maturity has me also questioning what it is I’ve been fed over the years.

* * *

Someone tried to pick a fight with me today, on social media –in a private message, at least– and times were that I would have entered into a battle of wits with this person. I knew that their insult was off-base and ill-informed, and as easy as it would have been for me to lay low this particular individual with some witty repartee, I decided not to –> through an exercise of much self-control.

Rather, I got to thinking about swords and baseball bats.

When I was a kid, probably in my early teen years, I wanted to purchase a sword, made out of real metal, that I’d seen in an antique store in a nearby town. This desire was part of a larger early-teen-years set of interests in things like throwing stars, all types of knives, and other implements of destruction. When I told my dad that I was thinking of saving up the money to buy that sword, he asked me –“What would you use it for?”– to which I most certainly shrugged my shoulders or gave some other ineffectual response to his question.

And, it wasn’t that I didn’t know what I would use it for, it’s just that I knew how silly it would sound saying it out loud to my father.

Of course, I was going to use it to protect my family in the event of an attack of some kind.

Kind of like the baseball bat in my mud room.

In the mud room of our home, at this very moment, there is a baseball bat, a sturdy aluminum one. I don’t play baseball; neither does anyone else in my family. I can’t say if any of my children have ever hit a ball, suspended momentarily in the air, with that particular bat, or any other bat for that matter.

The bat is there for protection.

Of course, you are starting to see the theme, here. That sword, that I never ended up buying and also never ended up needing, is just like that bat, that is sitting in the same spot that it’s been sitting in for years.

Do you know who Linus van Pelt is? A gold star if you don’t need to read on to know who Linus van Pelt is, and a mega gold star if you see why I would be bringing him up right now.

Linus van Pelt is probably the most famous example in media of a boy and his security blanket. Linus is the little brother of Lucy van Pelt, and the best friend of Charlie Brown. Linus takes his security blanket with him everywhere he goes because he feels insecure without it. He’s afraid.

And I know the feeling.

* * *

I own guns. Not because I’m a hunter, or because I love the hobby of freeing gunpower from the bullet casings that manufacturers tend to trap gunpowder inside. I don’t even really like the idea of getting good at marksmanship, practicing being as accurate as possible from some distance on a consistent basis. Rather, I have guns for the protection of my family.

Up to this point in time, I’ve never needed them for that purpose.

Just like the bat, and the sword that I never ended up buying.

Basically, I’m starting to wonder whether or not I’m Linus van Pelt.

At the end of the day, as a man of Christian faith, what attacker do I have to fear? Certainly, my God is greater than any attacker, or any attack, that I might face. Certainly He will protect me, if it’s His Will to do so, from any and all attackers. What good are these implements of destruction if I only keep them with the intent that I would use them one day against someone else?

Doesn’t it make me look a little hypocritical if I am anti-abortion/pro-life, but I’m also pro-gun, with the assumption that I would use that gun one day to attempt to end a life?

I’ll tell you what word gets thrown in here a lot, to legitimize what might otherwise seem like quite the conundrum.

Innocent.

How do I explain away the contradiction of being opposed to abortion, but in favor of shooting someone who comes into my home? Well, an unborn child is an innocent life, but that intruder had it coming to them.

And that’s where it rears its ugly head –> our tendency to pass judgement on others.

The fact is this: God loves the unborn child, and the home intruder. For if this isn’t true, then some measure of sin can cause us to become unloved by God. And, if that’s true, the sacrifice of Jesus is cheapened.

I dare any fellow Christian to tell me that God loves the home intruder any less than He loves the unborn child.

Then, of course, there’s that security blanket; it sure has its appeal. Holding it makes me feel safe. Having that bat in my mud room makes me feel safe. Having the gun in my gun cabinet makes me feel safe.

* * *

Looking back over this essay, in an attempt to tie up its loose ends here in this final section, I realized that I started off this whole shebang with a short discussion of not using the tools that I have at my disposal for launching a counter-attack against someone who attempted to insult me earlier today.

Then, it would seem, I got a little off-track after that.

Not actually, though.

What we have to work with in this life –the tools at our disposal– can be used for good purposes, or for ill. The steel that makes a sword can make a plowshare. The tongue that can build a person up can also tear one down. The mind that can devise inspiring and beautiful artistry can also plot and conspire and scheme. Without faith, without moral principles and guidelines, without maturity and self-control, humans tend to go their own way, to choose evil over good, to use their tools for vile ends.

And, over the course of this past year, I’ve come to feel a growing conviction that the greatest impediment to the advancement of the kingdom of God is the people who claim to be His followers, people who misrepresent, in increasingly public ways, Him at every possible turn.

While I am not willing to suggest that all Christian gun owners are off-base, I do wonder how many of them would bear some resemblance to Linus van Pelt. I know that I do. If our guns, or bats, or antique swords, are really just insurance policies against a God that we think will protect us, then you can’t blame the heathen world for looking at us and scratching their heads the way they do.

I’m sorry if this has been offensive to anyone; I certainly don’t mean to be offensive. But, I do think that we are responsible for thinking about the things that we believe, for knowing why we hold the convictions that we hold. I’m not sure that Christian gun ownership holds as much water for me as it used to, not when my Savior had the arsenal of the universe at His disposal and He allowed Himself to be crucified instead.

That’s the greatest of all ‘turn the other cheek’ moments.