Lipstick Pistols
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
Series IV Cycle C
"We do disagreeable things," wrote novelist John le Carré in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, "so that ordinary people here and elsewhere can sleep safely in their beds at night."
He is referring to the espionage business, glamorized in the public consciousness by novels such as his, and the movies like the James Bond series. Bond, or 007, has traveled around the world in various screen personas, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan. In the line of duty, he has been shot at, bound and gagged, thrown off bridges, trains, and airplanes, beaten to within an inch of his life, and tossed into pits and left for dead.
Remarkably, the villains have left at his disposal some small gadget that, just as remarkably, is precisely what the urbane British agent needs to secure his freedom, vanquish the villain and, by the way, rescue a -- sometimes brainy, often helpless, always beautiful -- woman.
Many of the gee-whiz gadgets that Q invented for Bond's use are the stuff of fiction, and only fiction. Yet some of it has its basis in real life. That's why a visit to the recently opened International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., the spy capitol of the world, is so interesting (see www.spymuseum.org). There the visitor can see on display artifacts from the spy trade actually used in the past, especially during the Cold War. There's the eavesdropping shoe from the '60s, Russian-made with a microphone, battery, and transmitter squirreled away in the heel. There's a German-made wristwatch camera with a round film disc good for six exposures. Check out the poison gas gun, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, that fires glass vials of prussic acid at your assailant. And then there's my favorite, the lipstick pistol, circa 1965, also from Russia, nicknamed the Kiss of Death. It was a 4.5-mm single bullet gun made to look like a tube of lipstick, reportedly a KGB favorite.
The spy era is by no means over. The tools of the trade are perhaps more sophisticated, but they're still being used, and the research continues to provide espionage technology that will put the user one step ahead of the competition. Even as you read this, a dead drop is happening somewhere in Washington, and young men and women are being recruited in the cafés and bars of our nation's capitol. Anything to make us feel safe.
Which begs the question: What does make us feel safe? Paul, writing to Timothy, alludes to this very question, but he doesn't frame it in terms of physical safety, which he knew could never be guaranteed. Paul, the Apostle Paul, armed with a license to preach, was the theological James Bond of his era, traveling the world for the sake of the gospel, getting beaten and left for dead, thrown off ships or into prison. God did not give him, he says, "a spirit of cowardice" (v. 7), and he knows that God will "guard" what he has entrusted to him, that is his very soul.
He is referring to the espionage business, glamorized in the public consciousness by novels such as his, and the movies like the James Bond series. Bond, or 007, has traveled around the world in various screen personas, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan. In the line of duty, he has been shot at, bound and gagged, thrown off bridges, trains, and airplanes, beaten to within an inch of his life, and tossed into pits and left for dead.
Remarkably, the villains have left at his disposal some small gadget that, just as remarkably, is precisely what the urbane British agent needs to secure his freedom, vanquish the villain and, by the way, rescue a -- sometimes brainy, often helpless, always beautiful -- woman.
Many of the gee-whiz gadgets that Q invented for Bond's use are the stuff of fiction, and only fiction. Yet some of it has its basis in real life. That's why a visit to the recently opened International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., the spy capitol of the world, is so interesting (see www.spymuseum.org). There the visitor can see on display artifacts from the spy trade actually used in the past, especially during the Cold War. There's the eavesdropping shoe from the '60s, Russian-made with a microphone, battery, and transmitter squirreled away in the heel. There's a German-made wristwatch camera with a round film disc good for six exposures. Check out the poison gas gun, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, that fires glass vials of prussic acid at your assailant. And then there's my favorite, the lipstick pistol, circa 1965, also from Russia, nicknamed the Kiss of Death. It was a 4.5-mm single bullet gun made to look like a tube of lipstick, reportedly a KGB favorite.
The spy era is by no means over. The tools of the trade are perhaps more sophisticated, but they're still being used, and the research continues to provide espionage technology that will put the user one step ahead of the competition. Even as you read this, a dead drop is happening somewhere in Washington, and young men and women are being recruited in the cafés and bars of our nation's capitol. Anything to make us feel safe.
Which begs the question: What does make us feel safe? Paul, writing to Timothy, alludes to this very question, but he doesn't frame it in terms of physical safety, which he knew could never be guaranteed. Paul, the Apostle Paul, armed with a license to preach, was the theological James Bond of his era, traveling the world for the sake of the gospel, getting beaten and left for dead, thrown off ships or into prison. God did not give him, he says, "a spirit of cowardice" (v. 7), and he knows that God will "guard" what he has entrusted to him, that is his very soul.
