I sleep with my window open at night. Until someone can prove otherwise, I believe that the secret to good health is fresh air in the lungs and nutritious calories in the body. Near me, a homosexual hodge-podge of gays and lesbians have a cookout at their house on Friday nights. As I lay starving, the aroma of grilled steaks drift into my room. Accompanying this aroma: bellicose laughter, flamboyant cursing, using our precious Lord's name in vain. I have never understood why these lost people always preface every Satanic sentence with “Oh God!”
I have attended several country clubs in my time (private clubs, fraternal groups, etc.). One of my friends who often was invited to local country club said, “one of the more prominent 'Perle Mesta'-types would walk around the elitist groups saying, 'I wonder what the poor folks are doing?'”
Why is it is none of my business how other people spend their money? As a Methodist bishop told me one time, “it is none of my business how Methodists spend their money.” Most will never understand the importance of self-denial, because they do not believe in denying self regarding anything. Those of us with the money to pamper ourselves take much more pleasure in denying self for the benefit of others. Our blessed Lord said, “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
It was a shocking revelation to this country boy when I learned about the real difference between classes of people...the fraternity house, “rush week”, “big I little u” mentality. It was at the university that I realized the powerbrokers of the world take care of their own. The university furnished an academic “concierge” to make sure that the sons and daughters of the state's elite are coiffured with good grades, professorial interest, and everything that money and political power can arrange.
Today is the beginning of the Bohemian Grove July encampment in California. There is a 2,700 “pied-a-terre” near San Francisco where, annually, the elitists of the world (former US Presidents and other world leaders, industrialists, bankers, academicians) gather from their summer snoozing, boozing and cruising. At this two week retreat, families are not allowed, only men, all trying to impress one another. This retreat is where the Manhattan Project was started, leading to the atomic bomb. President Richard Nixon who attended several of these Bohemian Grove events said that it was the “most faggy thing you could ever imagine” and that he wouldn't shake hands with any one from San Francisco.
Despite the connotations and denotations of the groups and the groupies, like the local country club, the college fraternity, the fraternal order, many small minds still consider it a big thing to be included with those who discriminate. It gives some people a superior feeling to “step up” with those who “cut down” others
The Yellowstone Country Club is the world's most expensive, elitist country club. The initiation fee for Yellowstone is $250,000, the annual membership - $20,000, the average home near the club about $4 million. Members such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Ted Turner enjoy the many acres, ski lifts, etc. News sources have uncovered that the founder borrowed $375 million against the interests of the club and took $209 million for his trouble. There was a time that the foibles of the rich and famous could be hid for a while but Wikileaks, Anonymous, and hacking in general have exposed international crime and rich criminals to cleansing sunlight.
Most of the grasping for high political office, grabbing by wall street profiteers involved the incessant hunger to be included in this type world-class, superiority-complex hiatus. Can one even imagine that there are those who feel their life is only complete by spending and spreeing?...hundreds of dollars for a meal, hundreds for drinks, impressive iconic vehicles, homes, biography. I have known so many who think that it makes them look superior to hang around people and places that they think are superior. Get real, the thrill of living, livelihood, comes from transforming, not conforming (Romans 12:2).
I go to a thrift store hoping that God has led one of these wealthy people to leave his little-worn, labeled “duds” for me to a buy at a fretful price. The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. (Proverbs 13:22) I do not own one article of clothing that was not bought in a thrift store. Every time I leave the house I always have on a dress shirt and a nice silk tie, but I do not own one dress shirt or tie for which I have paid more than 25 cents.
At my own father's funeral my wealthy sister said to me, “that is a beautiful suit you have on.” I pull back the coat, showing her the Saks Fifth Avenue label and said, “yes, I paid $5 for this suit.” She said, “I cannot believe you would wear a $5 suit to your father's funeral, as hard as that man worked for you to have the very best clothing!” It is true that my parents clothed us real well, but she had already told me what a beautiful suit I had on, and my father was very proud of the fact that his son knew how to hold onto a dollar, invest wisely and give more to God's Work than all of us together had ever made.
Some of us know the thrill of the chase: finding bargains, getting a good buy from a radio classified program, a good buy from the sales papers at the grocery store or otherwise, buying anything (building, vehicle, fixer-upper). I do not have any piece of furniture in my house that was not bought second-hand, restored, or refurbished...beautiful wood, classical china, silver.
Recently, the local country club decided to assess it members many thousands of dollars in order to redecorate the country club. My banker tells me that some members were desperate to borrow funds, they would not dare let their well-heeled fellow members think that they could not pay the assessment.
The vicissitudes, quells and qualms of life, involve what is important to you. If you spend your life as an impostor, pretending, whether in spiritual or physical matters, you are headed for a life of misery. My friend in the retail clothing business told me about how many women in town would buy a dress on Friday, wear it to a party on the weekend and bring the dress back on Monday, “they had decided it did not fit them well and the color was not right for her. At least she remembered where to put the price tags.”
The love of God never flows in the life of the unbeliever. Idolaters, self-centered, weak people more concerned with what others think of them, than what God knows about them. I said to a fancy matron, floating around the church, “why is this church important to you?” She said, “because the right people come here, it is not because of a Jew born in a stable.”
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