Hands
By Scott Harrup | March 21, 2008
When I look closely at my hands, details of my life come to mind.
Scars speak of accidents large and small. One of the smallest scars is from one of my worst injuries. I sliced the end of my right ring finger with a razor blade—deeply. But razors make for very thin scars. A more visible scar near the base of my right middle finger is from a minor injury. I was running through my bedroom as a boy and my hand caught a dresser knob.
During more than 21 years with my favorite person, my wedding ring has pinched a small groove visible whenever I take the ring off. That small line represents so much joy, so many shared challenges, the birth and growth of three children.
In our hands resides a wealth of skills critical to our livelihood. Mine have learned to navigate a computer keyboard. Other people train their hands to pick out the intricacies of a Chopin etude on the piano. Guinness World Records notes such strange accomplishments as the fastest time to carve a pumpkin (about 24 seconds) or pluck a turkey (90 seconds).
The Bible talks a lot about hands — human hands and the hands of God. Human hands, capable of expressing love and creating art, all too often carry out acts of hatred and violence.
God’s hands, viewed poetically and from the grandest scale, shaped the universe (Isaiah 40:12). God’s hand is also described as working in behalf of His chosen people Israel (Exodus 3:20) and even more specifically in individual lives (Psalm 37:24).
In the great story of redemption, human hands and God’s hands meld in the person of Christ. Which is why today the Christian world reverently celebrates God’s greatest act of love — most powerfully expressed in two, very human, nail-pierced hands.
Topics: History, Bible | No Comments »
Ripples
By Scott Harrup | March 14, 2008
Four people died in a McComb, Miss., bank shooting on Wednesday. The casualties were two bank employees, a customer and the gunman.
The gunman came into the bank shortly after 11 a.m. and opened fire, killing one employee and one customer. He then took the other employee, his ex-wife, and drove away in a truck. He apparently shot her before shooting himself.
Police believe the incident was a domestic situation rather than an attempted robbery. If they’re correct, the loss of life was a direct result of one man’s inability to accept the loss of his marriage.
Divorce is tragic in itself. But here’s another level of tragedy boiling out of the initial breakup.
I’m convinced it’s impossible to calculate the full effects whenever we pursue a line of action in opposition to God’s laws. There’s a domino effect, an ever-growing series of ripples…pick your analogy.
Four people went to a bank Wednesday morning. Three of them probably thought the day would be like any other. Perhaps even the gunman never planned to take things as far as they went. But something terrible was brewing from that earlier divorce, and people who probably had no connection with it ended up dying.
Topics: Family Life | No Comments »
You Cannibal, You Ogre, Your Majesty
By Scott Harrup | March 7, 2008
A friend recently gave me a desk calendar of random historical events. The February 26 entry listed a series of newspaper blurbs from France in 1815. Journalists of the day were following Napoleon’s escape from exile on the Island of Elba and his renewed attempts at European conquest.
On March 9: “The Cannibal has escaped from his den.” March 10: “The Corsican ogre has just landed at Cape Juan.” The slurs continue for the next week and a half until March 21: “His imperial and royal majesty last evening made his entrance into his Palace of the Tuileries, amidst the joyous acclamations of an adoring and faithful people.”
Thanks to a growing number of ever-popular Shrek installations, Napoleon might get by with “ogre” today. But how do you shed the odium of “cannibal” and receive “the joyous acclamations of an adoring and faithful people”?
Most of us take media pronouncements of the famous with a grain of salt. Mark Twain, in his speech “License of the Press” observed, “That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.”
If we look with a jaded eye at the constant shift in public opinion, how many of us allow a similar fickleness to filter into our relationships? Ask yourself if your perception of a spouse, sibling, parent or friend dramatically morphed the last time that person pleased you or disappointed you.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on 1 Corinthians 13 and its list of love’s characteristics. I see there a passion for valuing others and building them up, regardless of the mistakes they make. I like being valued and built up—and I make more than my share of mistakes—so I’m thinking life will improve for all us individually and collectively in proportion to how seriously we live by that little manifesto.
Topics: History | 1 Comment »
Here, Kitty-Kitty …
By Scott Harrup | February 29, 2008
She found her way into our garage during a recent winter ice storm, then ran into the house when I opened the door to the garage. She’s been living with us ever since.
After canvassing a stretch of our neighborhood for possible owners, Jodie took Alex (or Kit-Kat, or Kitty, or whatever—she ignores all names equally) to the vet for an array of maintenance medical procedures. Our children desperately prayed no one would show up to claim her. I joined their prayers. With the cost of various shots, de-worming, de-clawing and de-reproducing procedures, I shuddered to think I could be underwriting everything for another owner.
Not to mention what a civil suit might cost if said owner was intent on breeding an obviously superior specimen of American Stray. With juries awarding millions in damages over spilt coffee, there’s no telling what a pair of missing cat ovaries could cost me.
I haven’t had a cat since the sixth grade, haven’t had one I really liked since about the third, and have maintained a one-pet rule in our home. As long as Suki, our Lhasa apso, was breathing, the Harrup household was to be a strict no-immigration zone.
But in the middle of an ice storm my defenses evaporated when this near-frozen feline shot through the door into our living room and began purring the instant I picked her up.
You’re not the kind of guy who would put me out in the cold, are you?
I guess I’m not.
She’s made herself at home throughout the house, including at the makeshift litter box in the basement bathroom. Our exhaust fan has come close to melting. Pound for pound, Kitty trumps anything the Defense Department has in the way of a biological weapon. Nerve agents, anthrax, sarin gas — these are toys compared to the festering lethal compounds she buries in that box.
Of course, moi is the primary kitty litter changer. I’m thinking of checking E-Bay for a haz-mat suit.
Reviewing this whole unforeseen adoption process, I’ve taken a closer look at my sense of priorities. Here I am going out on a limb to rescue a lost cat, and spending more hard-earned cash on her than I have on any number of worthy charities lately.
With my family’s happiness as my primary motivation, the sacrifice is not entirely unwarranted. All the same — if I’m willing to do this for a lost lump of fur God brings across my path, what should I be willing to do the next time He confronts me with a fellow human’s need?
I’m thinking about that one.
Topics: Family Life | 2 Comments »
Secrets
By Scott Harrup | February 22, 2008
A few weeks back I spent some down time watching a DVD of The Company, the TNT mini-series based on the book of the same name by Robert Littell. The story follows about 40 years in the lives of a mix of characters — some historical, others fictional — during the Cold War.
I enjoy novels and films on the subject of espionage, and The Company focuses on the CIA. The film convincingly portrays real events — the unmasking of British double agent Kim Philby, international tensions in a divided Berlin, Hungary’s crushed revolution, the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba. Fictional characters allow for fascinating in-depth treatment of subjects that must remain classified to average citizens such as myself.
And that’s where I note a paradox.
Littell did his homework. His research produced a 900-page book that garnered high praise four years before the film was made. He has been called America’s John Le Carré. While Littell reported on the Cold War extensively for Newsweek before turning to novel writing, however, he was never an employee of the CIA or any other espionage agency.
Littell’s research gives him enough material to lend an air of authenticity to his story. Yet the very nature of the clandestine operations he describes means that no amount of research can bring to light many of the actual events. Had Littell served with the CIA, “the Company,” he would not be at liberty to discuss the details of his assignments with the public.
In a sense, The Company and other best-sellers dealing with modern espionage act as parables. The struggle to preserve a free society against totalitarian governments, the challenge of protecting a nation you love while hiding so much of yourself from loved ones, the very real and extended drudgery that far outweighs any brief flashes of glory — these are general principles true to life portrayed in fictional plots.
This is a key function of good writing true of most genres. Even science fiction and horror are able to shed light on life in ways that sometimes surpass a strictly factual account.
My fiction reading and my own life as a writer color how I perceive another set of parables — the ones with a capital P spoken by the greatest Storyteller of all. He could boil down concepts like faith and righteousness and the kingdom of God to things like mustard seeds, wedding garments and hidden treasure.
Trying to understand and live by the truths found within that body of work will consume my lifetime, and enrich my life immeasurably.
Perhaps you’ve discovered that for yourself.
Topics: Books and Films, History | 2 Comments »
Anonymous
By Scott Harrup | February 15, 2008
Presidents Day celebrates some great leaders in U.S. history. Think of George Washington guiding America into independence, or Abraham Lincoln restoring a divided nation to unity. But what about the countless men and women who assisted those presidents? Perhaps you’ve seen Emanuel Leutze’s famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River. What were the names of those guys rowing the boat?
Along with well-known personages such as David, Esther, Jeremiah, Mary, and John the Revelator, plenty of off-the-beaten-path Bible characters appear for a few verses, do something minor or even strange, then disappear. Some aren’t even named.
Here’s one example.
“When the Israelites cried to the Lord because of Midian, he sent them a prophet, who said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.” But you have not listened to me’” (Judges 6:7-10, NIV).
In the absence of mass media, this unnamed prophet probably traveled throughout the nation repeatedly yelling out his proclamation in order to get the message across. Hard work. Most likely, lots of hiking in tough terrain. Perhaps the occasional hostile reception from a town or village where the “gods of the Amorites” were the religion du jour, thank you very much.
Move further into Judges 6 and you begin reading about Gideon, the hero in Israel who, with only 300 men, obeyed God and attacked and defeated a massive army from Midian. The prophet who isn’t even named delivered his message from heaven then stepped off the scene right before Gideon grabbed national attention.
Prophets like Elijah or Isaiah or Ezekiel cover massive tracts of Scripture real estate. Prophet John Doe? Almost nothing. But the placement of his tiny anecdote makes it clear everything in the chapters to follow is connected to what he said.
Our anonymous friend is in good company. Most of us will not generate in-depth coverage by future historians. What did Andy Warhol say about our “15 minutes of fame”? But every one of us can do and say things of significance if we make ourselves available to God. If our life story creates mere sentences in the public record, our obedience to our Heavenly Father lets us partner with Him to bring about divine purpose and ultimate blessing in countless lives.
When that happens, who cares if we’re anonymous?
Topics: History | No Comments »
Grin of the Living Dead
By Scott Harrup | February 8, 2008
I admit it. I’m one of those people who stare closely into a casket when attending a funeral. I’m always looking for that hint of a breath. When I stare hard enough I can just about convince myself I see the tiniest movement, the ghost of a rise and fall in the chest. Doesn’t matter if I know the deceased has been embalmed and there’s not the remotest chance of a coma being mistaken for death. I still look.
With a Barnes and Noble Christmas gift card, I recently picked up a copy of Frozen in Time by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. Anthropologist Beattie’s team exhumed the bodies of three sailors from the ill-fated 1845 Franklin expedition to the Arctic. The expedition’s ships, Terror and Erebus, vanished. But the three crewmen had been buried on a remote rocky island early in the voyage. Examining the bodies, Beattie’s team uncovered clues to the fate of the rest of the crew. Modern analysis points to malnutrition and lead poisoning as the causes of death. Deserted, the ships would have been crushed by shifting ice.
But those three recovered bodies—they have a life of their own in an eerie sort of way. The frigid arctic conditions basically freeze-dried the corpses. The eyes of one John Torrington, only 20 years old at his death, are open in published photographs. His lips pull back in an almost-grin.
“Every time we find the well-preserved body of someone who died long ago—an Egyptian mummy, a freeze-dried Incan sacrifice, a leathery Scandinavian bog-person, the famous iceman of the European Alps,” writes best-selling author Margaret Atwood in the introduction to Frozen in Time, “there’s a similar fascination. Here is someone who has defied the general ashes-to-ashes, dust-to-dust rule, and who has remained recognizable as an individual human being long after most have turned to bone and earth. In the Middle Ages, unnatural results argued unnatural causes, and such a body would either have been revered as saintly or staked through the heart. In our age, try for rationality as we may, something of the horror classic lingers: the mummy walks, the vampire awakes. It’s so difficult to believe that one who appears to be so nearly alive is not conscious of us.”
A melding of death and life touches each of us at the core of our spiritual journey. Read the Book of Romans and you’ll find the apostle Paul reflecting on his “dead” identity as a sinner separated from God, and the new life Christ brought him at salvation. Because Paul still inhabited his earthly body when he wrote Romans, he still struggled with personal tendencies from his sinful past.
The happy ending to Paul’s somewhat macabre narrative comes in Romans 7:24-25 and Romans 8:1-2.
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (NIV).
All followers of Christ struggle with some of the habits and desires from our “dead” past. But all of us can count on a day when we will forever bid farewell to death and embrace eternal life in God’s presence.
Topics: Bizarre, Books and Films, History | 1 Comment »
Background Noise
By Scott Harrup | February 1, 2008
I’m sitting in the lobby of the sports medicine center where my son Connor has physical therapy two days a week. His sessions run the gamut of speech, occupational and physical therapy, all with the goal of battling the effects of cerebral palsy.
The lobby is a good spot to catch up on miscellaneous tasks. Like this blog. But there’s a catch. The TV bolted against one of the pillars is almost always on. Talk shows, court simulation shows, the occasional situation comedy with metronomic bursts of canned laughter—all intrude on the silence I prefer when writing.
When I glance around at the other people waiting, most are trying to read a book or magazine. The TV is the 800-pound gorilla in the room no one talks about. I know they all hear it. Every now and then, someone glances up at it in glazed semi-interest.
I’m tempted to stand and ask if I can turn off the TV. Would anyone miss it? But I don’t. I keep sitting here pecking away at my notebook’s keyboard, trying to grasp the wisps of an idea threading through my brain while a portion of my mind is hijacked.
So here’s my question: What other “background noise” might compromise the quality of what I want to accomplish in life? How can I fine-tune my day and be more effective?
And what about the things I do and say? Am I creating unnecessary and even destructive background noise for others? What needs to happen in me so I’m contributing to others’ lives rather than slowing them down or tripping them up?
I think that’s where the apostle Paul was focusing his thoughts when he wrote, “Looking at it one way, you could say, ‘Anything goes. Because of God’s immense generosity and grace, we don’t have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster.’ But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well” (1 Corinthians 10:23,24, The Message).
I’ll add my amen to that … but quietly.
Topics: Family Life | 1 Comment »
Buddy Time
By Scott Harrup | January 30, 2008
I have an early morning tradition with our youngest son, Austin. He’s 7, and since he was 4 we’ve spent a lot of mornings getting up before the rest of the family for “buddy time.”
I brew some coffee and pour myself a mug. I heat up some milk for Austin and add enough of my brew on top to brown it a little and make him feel like he’s sharing the coffee with me. Lately he’s decided he prefers hot chocolate, so the menu’s changed.
There’s no big ritual. We sip our drinks and talk about random subjects. We usually have about 10 or 15 minutes tops before I need to get the rest of the family moving. We wrap it up with a simple prayer for Austin’s upcoming day at school.
I’m amazed, particularly on dark winter mornings, how Austin will groggily insist he’s ready to get out of bed for our minutes together. Only on a few occasions has he asked if he could sleep in a little longer.
And he only grasps the surface of how much those morning minutes mean to me.
Which reminds me how much God enjoys it when I spend time with Him. And that’s pretty mind-boggling.
Topics: Family Life | 2 Comments »
Rock of the Aged
By Scott Harrup | January 21, 2008
Thursday, December 27, during our family’s Christmas visit to Fort Wayne, Ind., had not yet dawned. But my sleep evaporated around 3 with a pain familiar to a select population of patients who ignore their bodies’ need for adequate hydration.
My right kidney announced its gift of a stone. I began the ordeal of pacing the bathroom and trying to keep my moans from awakening my family.
No dice. Jodie came to the door to see why I wasn’t coming back to bed. I told her the news. She went down the hall to see if her sister had any pain meds. Stacy’s bout with kidney stones had been pretty severe.
I took Stacy’s last two pills, but couldn’t keep them down. The spasms were that bad.
By 4, brother-in-law Bill was driving me to the hospital as fast as the snow flurries would allow.
Things didn’t get better for a while. After gritting my teeth in agony during the inevitable questionnaire in the Emergency ward about health insurance, Social Security number, home address, etc., I staggered to a curtained partition and crawled onto the bed. First one nurse and then a second began harpooning my arms in a futile search for a vein. The promise of IV’d pain relief was proving empty.
By around 6, they’d found a vein, injected some comfort, and taken a CAT scan of a 3- to 4-millimeter stone. I went home with a prescription for more pain meds and a sheet of instructions for coaxing the offending mineral deposit out of my body.
I’m pain-free and drinking water by the quart these days. I had become neglectful during the six or seven years since my previous bout with kidney stones.
My latest unwanted personal pebble reminded me some areas of responsibility are non-negotiable. In the midst of a kidney stone attack it’s too late to kick yourself for sipping lattes and going all day on 8 ounces of water. The laws of nature don’t reverse themselves to make way for negligence. Given my neglect, my little guest was as inevitable as gravity.
Maybe I need to re-examine some other areas of discipline as well.
Topics: Bizarre, Family Life | 1 Comment »