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The Lord counsels us throughout scripture to stay
on course, to keep focused, walk the "straight and narrow" less we wander
aimlessly through life.
In the Old west a "straight shooter" was an honest
person you could rely on. Shooting straight meant that the person was like a
bullet's path; true, not crooked. So if a cowboy knew what it meant to
walk a straight course, what kept his bullets on one?
The bullets fired out of the first muskets were
literally scattershot. The unevenly shaped lead balls bounced against the inside
of the barrel of the gun as they were launched and could easily veer off missing
their target. Gunmakers solved the problem by improving the fit between bullet
and barrel and by placing spiral grooves inside the barrel to spin the bullet as
it emerged. Spinning like a gyroscope actually corrects irregularities in an
object's flight path, not unlike the "spin" a baseball pitcher might use on his
throw to the batter.
Finally in the mid-19th century, bullets were
aerodynamically redesigned. They were made longer, ending in the familiar
conical tip which puts the bullet on the straight and narrow. Like the bullet,
we too must have a different spin on life, to aim high, fire straight and hit
the target.
Cdr Jen
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