Gun Control, Self-Control
By Scott Harrup | June 27, 2008
The Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia ban on handguns yesterday, and people from every stripe of Second Amendment persuasion have something to say about the measure. “Advocates for gun rights praised the ruling and said the decision provides them with a clear opening to issue a variety of legal challenges to existing restrictions on the ownership of firearms,” notes Daniel Politi for Slate.com. “But gun-control advocates also said they were at least heartened by the fact that the court didn’t dismiss all restrictions on firearms as unconstitutional.”
My visceral reaction is enthusiastically positive to any measure giving law-abiding citizens greater personal protection, but some cautionary thoughts come to mind as well.
On the visceral side, I think back to an incident from my childhood. A loved one was home alone when an intruder attacked her with a large knife. She defended herself with a .22 and killed the intruder. Without that gun, she probably would be dead instead of merely walking around with a scar across her shoulder. That case was front and center for me years later when I wrote my first research paper in college and chose gun control as my subject.
But there’s the cautionary side as well. You don’t have to look far to find news reports of everyday citizens without a criminal record who injure or kill someone in a fit of rage using a legally purchased firearm. Or of children who find a parent’s gun and harm themselves or a playmate. Or of young people with easy access to weapons who murder classmates at school.
So, while yesterday’s Supreme Court decision makes perfect sense to me, it also raises related questions. What kind of citizens within a society can really be trusted with lethal force? How do you identify such citizens? How do you raise children to become such citizens?
I’d like to know what you think.
Topics: News | No Comments »
Pay Me Now, Pay Me Later
By Scott Harrup | June 26, 2008
I thought I had a great idea. I had been buying high-end dog food for our pooch, Suki, for the past year or so. The kind that promises abundant nutrition and advertises benefits like “a healthy coat.”
Then, during a grocery run a couple months ago, I spotted a ginormous bag of really cheap dog food. (In the interest of avoiding an aggressive legal response, I’ll decline to name the brand.) It was four or five times as big as the little bags of the super-nutritious brand, and it cost half as much as one of those little bags. Huge savings.
I thought.
Jodie brought Suki home from the vet Tuesday. Verdict? Food allergies.
It all started last week when I was laboriously clipping her (Suki, not Jodie) and discovered several ulcerating sores on her neck. There’s something about a nasty sore that gets me thinking “Ebola virus” or “bubonic plague.” These sores made me want to hold Suki at arm’s length.
So now we’re back to the super-nutritious dog food in an attempt to transition Suki’s diet (and skin) back to normal. Any savings I realized over the past months were wiped out — several times over — by the vet’s exam fee, the skin cream and the two varieties of antibiotics.
Just another reminder to me that there are no shortcuts in life. And that holds true for things much more important that my dog.
Topics: Bizarre, Family Life | No Comments »
Chomp!
By Scott Harrup | June 20, 2008
On this day in 1975, Universal Studios released Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster film Jaws. Summer swimming hasn’t been the same since.
I was only 10, and our family didn’t go to movies, so I didn’t see Jaws until years later on VHS. But even at that later date and with a somewhat jaded perspective on all things Hollywood, the images stuck with me.
In 1996 I spent a week in El Salvador reporting on an outreach to that nation’s children. The mission headquarters was walking distance from a deep lake filling an ancient volcano. I could wade into the water up to my waist in about two steps. Swim out another 10 feet or so, and I was floating over an abyss.
Anything could be down there …
I could almost hear those familiar repeated notes. Dah-dah … dah-dah … dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah …
Peter Benchley wrote the novel Jaws and the film’s screenplay and gained international fame for creating a fabled monster. But Benchley later promoted serious research into shark behavior and became an activist for shark preservation.
The fact is, sharks kill very few people. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, a partner in the International Shark Attack File, there were only “112 alleged incidents of shark-human interaction occurring worldwide in 2007. Upon review, 71 of these incidents represented confirmed cases of unprovoked shark attack on humans.”
Think of it. Millions of swimmers hitting the beaches around the world, and in an entire year there are just a few dozen shark attacks. There was only one fatality among them.
When you turn the equation around, sharks are overharvested at an alarming rate. Many are caught just for their fins—which are used in the well-known delicacy of shark-fin soup—and dumped back into the ocean to die. Like any other dangerous animal in nature, it may seem that sharks’ absence would be a good thing, but they play a vital role in ocean life.
And yet, you could probably scream “Shark!” at a swimming pool and hear more than a few gasps of terror.
In some ways, I believe, our media-influenced fear of sharks illustrates our unfounded fears of some people. That’s not to suggest a deep-sea swim within chomping distance of a great white is a good idea or that convicted child molesters should be allowed to babysit your children. But we need to look past race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, economic status — anything that would create a false wall of prejudice or self-righteousness — and see the infinite value God places on every human being.
When it comes to people, I believe we need to go one step further. We need to serve others in the love of Christ even when there’s every chance we’ll be “bitten.”
Topics: Books and Films | No Comments »
Keeping Track of the Edges
By Scott Harrup | June 17, 2008
With record rainfall lately, it’s been a challenge to keep my yard mowed. Even a weekly journey across the green is stretching the limits of acceptability. Every 1.7 days would be better, but who has that kind of time? So this was not a good year for my weed trimmer to go on the fritz.
It had served me faithfully for 20 years. But the last time I took it into a local shop, the technician told me it wouldn’t be worth another attempt at repairs the next time it died.
“Just run it into the ground,” he advised.
Over the past several mowing seasons, I did just that. This spring it refused to start.
You know how one “to do” on your list can just hang there? Everything else is stacking up, you barely have time to do the necessities, and that nagging item remains in limbo? That was the case with my weed whacker. I figured I’d replace the spark plug, in case the repair was that simple. But the next weekly mowing session would roll around and I still had not gone out and bought that plug.
Ever tried to “edge” a yard with garden sheers? There are probably Tibetan monks who would find some sort of meditative benefit in such a project. I just got a sore back. And the yard began to look really scraggly around the perimeter.
All the while, the old trimmer lay on the garage floor, the blackened plug sitting in a wad of paper towel next to it. Finally, last Saturday, with another mowing session ahead of me, I went to the local auto parts store and bought a replacement plug. The result? Not even a sputter.
I did what millions of hardy, self-reliant homeowners do when a vital piece of equipment needs skilled mechanical attention. I went to Wal-Mart and looked for the most reasonable replacement I could find.
Bliss.
Until I got that trimmer, it didn’t matter if I had cut my grass every day. The shoddy edges ruined the rest of the yard.
And that has me thinking about anything on the “edges” of my life that might be ruining a lot of hard work in other areas.
Topics: Family Life | No Comments »
Blind as a Gifted Photographer
By Scott Harrup | June 13, 2008
I heard pianist Henry Butler interviewed last week on NPR’s All Things Considered and read an article about him at npr.org. Butler “started playing music as a child in the New Orleans housing projects. Blind since birth, he went on to study at the Louisiana State School for the Blind, learning classical piano scores in Braille. At Southern University, he majored in voice and minored in piano. Classical, jazz and blues music all filter into his playing.”
Listening to Butler share his talent on the radio, I was awed by his musical gift. But something else about Butler intrigued me more than his piano playing — his love for photography. The NPR Web site offers examples of his art, a blind man’s finely crafted creations in a visual medium. In an audio file, Butler explains how his assistants help him set up shots and develop the film. As he listens to them describe a scene, Butler decides how to frame a picture and use his camera’s settings to best effect.
Butler’s photography got me to pondering my own life journey. My wisdom is so limited. In many respects, I might as well be blind. I need help if I’m going to make good choices. I’m thankful God offers me His help. He has no limitations. He knows “the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isaiah 46:10, NIV).
God invites us to trust Him with our life decisions, even our lives. When we do, He promises to provide for us and guide us. Jesus spoke of God this way: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8).
If you’re struggling with a decision today, catch a vision of God. He’s always out in front. He’s got an eternal perspective. Let His Spirit whisper to you the real lay of the land, then move ahead in faith expecting the best possible picture of your life to emerge.
Topics: Bible, News | 1 Comment »
Astronaut Charlie Duke: Memories of Apollo 16
By Scott Harrup | June 6, 2008
The following remarks are edited from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke’s January 21 interview with Today’s Pentecostal Evangel. Duke and Apollo 16 mission commander John Young spent three days on the moon in April 1972. The story of that mission, and of Charlie and Dotty Duke’s spiritual journey, is featured in the Evangel’s June 15 Father’s Day Edition.
At the landing site …
The geography is really the beauty of it. We landed facing the west. The sun was behind us in the eastern sky equivalent to early morning, Earth day. To the left of us about three or four miles away, there was a series of mountains. One we were going to explore we called Stone Mountain. It had a slope to the west that came up and flattened out and disappeared off to the east. That was really spectacular.
To the northwest, South Ray Crater was real bright reflectively. To the west of us there was just rolling terrain. You could see the sharpness of the lunar horizon and the blackness of space. Then to the right of us, to the north, among a group of mountains we called the Smoky Mountains, was a big crater we were to visit called North Ray Crater.
The character of the surface was a very fine-grained powder, like talc. But it has good bearing strength, so when you step on it, it doesn’t sink in but just an inch or two. And it’s unspoiled. You sense the… not the loneliness of the moon, because it’s not lonely because you’re in communication with your fellow astronaut and with Mission Control, so it’s not like you’re in a remote part of the universe. It was a sense of belonging; it wasn’t like isolation. It hits you that nobody has ever been here before.
We’ve got an experiments package we’ve got to deploy. We’ve got a car we can drive and ride in and go explore, the Lunar Rover. It was a lot of fun. I was not the driver. I was the navigator. So I sat on the passenger side. The control for the car was between the seats, so either of us could drive it. But we had trained so that John would drive and I would navigate. We had a set of maps that showed the planned view of our landing area where we wanted to go to do our experiments. I would navigate us from Point A to Point B, the traverse, we called it.
The brilliant reflective surface of the moon is mostly gray in color. And then just the blackness of space, which had no reflectivity at all. It just was empty. Since it was so bright from the lunar surface, you look up and you don’t see the stars. The stars are not visible. And the blackness is there because there’s no atmosphere on the moon. It’s a vacuum. Without any atmosphere you don’t get any color to the sky. It’s just black.
You could see the Earth. From the central highlands of the moon, the Earth was directly overhead and it was, to my recollection, mostly white while we were there because it had a lot of cloud cover. You could see the polar ice caps, and then some blue, a lot of white. Hardly ever could you make out a piece of land, at least not from the lunar distance. So that was really spectacular.
But if you look up, you’re looking into the top of your helmet. So, it’s like being in a big fishbowl that’s opaque on the top. So we didn’t get to see the Earth much, except by leaning backwards and holding onto something, bending your suit backwards to see the Earth. But it was really spectacular. It was just hung up there in the blackness of space.
An encounter with orange juice …
Well, it wasn’t a close encounter, but it was a messy encounter. Our moon walks were from seven to eight hours in duration. During Apollo 15, the first mission to do these long moon walks, they got dehydrated. So it was wise to have some liquid. So we had something like a hot water bottle that would Velcro to the inside of your suit. A valve on the left side came up inside your helmet and was basically set right next to your cheek at the left side of your mouth. So to drink this liquid out of the bottle on the surface, you’d just reach over and grab the tip of the valve. Pulling it to the right opened the valve and then you could suck out the liquid.
We decided we’d have orange juice, because it not only rehydrates you but it also gives you some energy. Our plan was, after landing, to power down and go outside and explore right away. So, [during orbit as we were preparing to land] we were all suited up with a hot water bottle full of orange juice inside. As we were getting ready to land we had a problem in the other spacecraft that required a six-hour delay. My bag had a leaky valve. It seemed like every time I’d breathe I would compress the liquid in the bag. In weightlessness the liquid just floats all around the bag, so when you breathe, the liquid at the top next to the valve came out. Just a little drop or two at a time. It would come out and break loose from the valve and float around inside the helmet, which was very frustrating. It hit on the visor and would get it all messy. It would hit on your nose and creep up your nose. And you try to suck it all in, and it wouldn’t work.
After about four or five hours I had a mess inside my helmet. We got concerned it might plug up my communication microphone or get sucked into the environmental control system. I took off my helmet and was able to clean up the stuff off my face and clean out the helmet. It was real sticky. Orange juice gets real sticky when it starts to evaporate. It was a big mess. I had to plug the valve.
Physical challenges of working in a space suit …
The suit is a hard workout. You don’t have to be Superman, but you feel the workout in the suit. It’s very difficult to bend. In fact, it was almost impossible to bend at the waist in one-sixth gravity. When you pressurize the suit, it takes on a set shape. You can stick your hands in the gloves, but to squeeze the gloves when you pick up a hammer or pick up an experiment you’ve got to apply pressure to the glove to squeeze it and hold that pressure. It’s like squeezing a rubber ball for five or six hours. You began to feel some fatigue and cramping, and you’re wrestling with the shoulders and trying to move the suit to help you.
A lot of that was practice, and you ended up doing it in pretty good shape. But fighting the pressure in the suit was a workout. It’s like a low-level workout at the gym for six or seven hours. The only real rest we had was when we were driving the rover and could sit down. You didn’t have much grasping to do.
Once you got back inside after the EVA [Extravehicular Activity], you had some blood bruises in your fingers, the tips of your fingers. You were really tired in your forearm from just gripping. And so you were exhausted. After our first EVA we had a rest period, and boy we slept like babies. We took our suits off and put up some hammocks.
Inside the Lunar Module …
The Lunar Module’s not very big. Some eight feet across, I think. Maybe not that much. I strung my hammock from right to left to the sides of the spacecraft. I was almost 6 feet tall and I could just fit in. John had his strung fore and aft. Behind us there was an opening where the ascent engine cover was, and above that there was a little volume. So he could hook onto the back wall with his hammock and then he hooked onto the sides of the instrument panel at the front. So we were sort of like a cross, separated by two or three feet.
In one-sixth gravity, even though you didn’t have any seats, you never got tired of standing. You could lean back against a piece of equipment. We were good housekeepers. When we took off our suits we stowed them in the back over the ascent engine cover. That left John room above for his hammock. So we felt like we had plenty of room.
Current ministry …
God has seasons, I think, for us. He led [wife] Dotty and me into seasons of ministry and to understanding the power of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. He used people and His Word to teach us. It has been an amazing walk with the Lord. Our ministry is more of what I’d call evangelistic now — to go tell a story about what God has done in our lives. Occasionally, we get a chance to pray for healings, but mostly it’s to groups that need to understand the gospel and what God can do for you in your life. That seems to be where God has us focused now. For how long, I don’t know. But we told Him, “Lord, we’re not going to send out newsletters or ask for speaking engagements. If You want us to continue speaking, You’ve got to send in the invitations.”
Topics: History | 1 Comment »
The Better Half
By Scott Harrup | May 30, 2008
I’m no calendar savant. Ask me what day of the week Feb. 17, 2076, will fall on, and I have a 1 in 7 chance of getting it right. Ask me how many days I have lived since Aug. 10, 1964, and I can only offer a lump sum of “about 20,000.” (Checking my calculator just now, I find it’s barely over 16,000. So much for lump sums.)
But, as best as I can tell, this weekend I will have been married half my life. Jodie and I married on July 5, 1986, a month and five days before my 22nd birthday. Two months and 10 days before my 44th birthday creates the milestone, although I’m fuzzy on how leap years impact my calculations.
There’s no question this has been the better half of my life. Not because my childhood was traumatic. And not because my married years have been ideal. But because marriage has allowed me to share life with someone I love deeply, someone who has made it possible for me to father three children I treasure, someone who not only tolerates my idiosyncrasies and failures but continues to love and affirm me in spite of them.
Whether you’re married or single, people are God’s greatest gifts to you. Think of the people who have made your life better. (Maybe you can think of some “gifts” you’d like to return, but even painful relationships have the capacity to shape your spirit in positive ways.) Is there someone you could contact today, just to let them know how much you value that relationship? Is there something you could do to make someone glad they know you?
Topics: Family Life | No Comments »
The Candy Bomber
By Scott Harrup | May 23, 2008
On May 17, U.S. and German officials at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., commemorated the Berlin Airlift. Sixty years ago this June, the U.S. and British air forces began supplying West Berlin with vital food and supplies in response to a Soviet blockade. The airlift, also known as “Operation Vittles,” became the largest humanitarian mission in Air Force history.
According to the American Forces Press Service, “during the 10-month mission, more than 500 American and British airlifters conducted 277,569 flights, eventually averaging one flight per every 90 seconds. They delivered 2,325,509.6 tons of food, coal, and other commodities to Berlin.”
In a related May 15 article, the AFPS noted the contribution of Lt. Gail S. Halvorsen, the “Candy Bomber.” Halvorson, now 87 and a retired Air Force colonel, had a heart for the children of Berlin. When he spoke to some children about the deprivations they were enduring, he discovered one of the things they had missed for months was candy.
“Halvorsen gave the two pieces of gum in his possession to the kids, half expecting them to fight over the rare treat. Instead, he recalled, the children split the sticks into miniature morsels, and those who didn’t get any gum were given small strips torn from the foil wrappers so they could smell the confection’s sweet residue.”
Halvorsen promised to drop the children candy as he made future approaches to the airstrip. They learned to look for the plane that dipped its wings before releasing a load of candy in the air. Halvorsen earned the nickname “Uncle Wiggly Wings” in the local newspapers. His fame spread, candy donations flooded in, and other pilots began to help. Altogether, more than 23 tons of candy rained down on the children of West Berlin during the airlift.
I met another “Candy Bomber” in 2002. Missionary aviator Mike Hines made countless evangelistic flights across Latin America in his specially adapted Helio Super Courier aircraft. The plane had been designed during the Vietnam War to broadcast American public relations messages to villages and towns. Mike used the thousands of watts of power in his aircraft’s speakers to broadcast Christian music and simple salvation sermons to rural communities in Central and South America.
And he loved to drop candy to joyful crowds of children when he came in for a landing at an outreach site. Photographer Aubra George, writing for Today’s Pentecostal Evangel, described one such scene.
“As we approach the village of Saklin [along Nicaragua’s eastern Miskito Coast], children stand along the steep banks, waving and calling out ‘Nakisma,’ their Miskito greeting. As if on cue, we hear the droning engine and the familiar music of Mike’s plane sifting down as we pull up to the bank. Grabbing our cameras, Christina and I bolt ashore. Chaos erupts as children run to and fro, laughing and screaming as they try to follow the plane. They merge into one mass and tramp down a path through the center of the village. Mike must have just told them he was going to drop candy.
“At a soccer field at the edge of the village Mike does a few low passes and then lets the candy drop. … Kids of all ages dive for it, madly grabbing all they can hold. They look to the sky expectantly, their shirts now makeshift bags bulging with candy. Mike drops more candy before speaking to them through a Miskito translator. He makes wide circles around the soccer field where a team is already setting up for ministry.”
I visited Mike in Nicaragua in 2002 and flew with him on an outreach over Managua. I had the privilege of writing about his ministry in the December 1, 2002, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.
“Through prayer you break the spiritual yoke over those towns and cities,” Mike told me. “When you fly over those areas, it’s spectacular the way people react.”
I was saddened to learn Mike died when his plane went down in the Andes Mountains on July 31, 2004. Reading about the Berlin “Candy Bomber” got me to thinking about Mike again, and the countless lives he touched from the sky as he delivered so much more than candy.
Topics: History | No Comments »
Eloquence
By Scott Harrup | May 16, 2008
I admire people who arrange complex ideas clearly and communicate them eloquently. You probably remember a favorite teacher or college professor with that gift. Maybe a minister or two.
The gift can also be misused. Most of us encounter professional spin artists urging us to invest our money or vote or commit our time in a manner we may realize too late is unwise.
Times of prayer would certainly be key moments to say something to greatest effect. You’re talking to God, the Creator.
Some prayers, when we hear them, are self-evidently powerful. Clearly, the person is in intimate conversation with heaven. There’s no pretension, posturing or selfish wish list. Just unhindered give and take with the Heavenly Father.
In my life, someone consistently comes to mind in that department. He might surprise you.
Our son Connor is 11 and, outwardly, severely constrained by cerebral palsy. But, wow, can he pray. It goes something like this …
Ohhhh …
It’s repeated a few times at varying lengths. Connor usually kicks in when he hears someone in our family offering a prayer. Sometimes, while we’re praying, we’ll hear him echoing with a gentle Yesss …
He’s got a two-word vocabulary in his prayer lexicon. I suspect he gets a lot more across than I do with thousands of words to choose from. When I listen to Connor pray, I’m reminded that the God who created every nuance of language is able to see right to the heart of what I need even when I don’t quite know how to express that myself.
For me, Connor is a living reminder of Jesus’ promise: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8, NIV).
Jesus wasn’t discouraging prayer. He followed that instruction with the simple yet profound lines of the Lord’s Prayer. But He invited us to remember that in the family of God, our Heavenly Father’s heart is intimately grafted with ours.
Sometimes, when everything seems to be piling up to bury us, we can move mountains with a simple Ohhhh, Yesss! uttered in faith.
Topics: Family Life, Bible | 1 Comment »
Report Card
By Scott Harrup | May 9, 2008
“Dad, if I miss some homework the last week of school, will I make it into second grade?”
School will be out in a couple more weeks. I wondered where Austin was going with this line of inquiry.
“I think your teacher will let you know if you’re missing any homework. You’re not leaving any in your desk anymore, are you?” (There had been a recent minor crisis in that department.)
“No. I’m getting it all done… But what if I get a bad grade the last week of school?”
Obviously, something was up, and full disclosure wasn’t an option until I could magically connect the dots of his unspoken angst.
“Well, buddy, you’ve done enough good work throughout the year that even if you mess up on some final piece of homework, you’ll still make it into second grade.”
A look of relief. The hint of a smile.
“OK… Because I missed my last memory verse.”
I was glad to set his mind at ease, but his question got me to thinking. Don’t we ask God similar questions? Or, more accurately, don’t we ask ourselves similar questions because we’re too embarrassed to bring them up with God?
I’ve really messed up this time. Does God still love me? Can He really forgive me? When the “first grade” of life is over, can I make it to heaven’s “second grade”?
Too often, we’re tempted to answer such questions on the strength of the good things we remember doing. Kind of like our lives are on some cosmic grading card. Faithfully loving our spouse or sending our sick neighbor flowers gets us an “A.” Really awful sins like murder or mass credit card fraud get us an “F.” Everything has to balance out to some sort of average we think God will find acceptable.
I can assure you, the answer to each of the above questions is a resounding yes. But the yes has nothing to do with any of your “A’s” or “B’s.” Austin’s grades average out, and he’s guaranteed a spot in second grade. You and I get promoted on the strength of God’s grace, through the amazing atonement of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
There’s no averaging, or curving, or even grading involved. The central question, the only question, is whether we accept the gift of salvation God offers.
I don’t know about you, but that’s an enormous relief to me.
Topics: Family Life, Bible | No Comments »
