Having a deer stare me in the eyes as I took aim at him on opening day of rifle season here in Pennsylvania brought me to a new appreciation of the solemnity of killing for food. Watching him take his last breath because of violent action I took against him makes me sympathize with the literalist Biblical view that eating meat is a temporary provision only (see Genesis 9:1-4, Isaiah 65:25).

I kid not in saying that I considered vegetarianism that week.

In the end, I decided to continue my carnivorous ways, but with it in mind that I feast on the product of my own violence (in the case of my venison) or that of an agricultural mercenary (in the case of the rest of the beef, pork, poultry, and fish I eat). As Bill Johnson coincidentally tweeted on the same day I shot my deer, “A non-hunting meat-eater: someone who pays another to do their killing.”

And I want my children, if they are meat-eaters, to understand the same, so I plan to take them hunting once they’re of age. A taste of self-sufficiency, yes. The pride of having the cojones to pull the trigger, yes. But more than all of these things, an understanding that warm, breathing creatures lose their lives when we eat meat.

Thanks to my friend Brandon for the Bill Johnson quote.