Floating On Velvet

#1770

A special privilege and comfort of old-age

(Richard Steele, "A Discourse Concerning Old-age, Tending to the Instruction, Caution and Comfort of Aged People" 1688)

"The silver-haired head is a crown of glory--IF it is found in the way of righteousness." Proverbs 16:31 

Now the older a man grows--the wiser should he grow. And the wiser he grows--the less likely he is to chose evil. The more divine strokes and judgments he has seen upon evil-doers--the more he should be afraid of tampering with it. 

A special privilege and comfort of old-age is that it is richer in experience than any other age. The aged believer can tell experimentally . . .
  of the wisdom and justice of God's providence, 
  of the truth of His promises and threatenings, 
  of the devices of Satan, 
  of the deceitfulness of riches, 
  of the wisdom of integrity, 
  of the vanity of all carnal delights, 
  of the wickedness of his own heart. 
Old-age is rich in the experience of these things, whereby they are able to govern themselves, and to advise others. Their . . .
  judgments are more refined, 
  passions are more sedate, 
  graces are more strong, 
  actions are more consistent, 
  and their spiritual stature is taller. 

Trace some godly aged men from morning to night, you shall still find them . . .
  so discreet in their charity,
  so grave in their counsels,
  so savory in their discourse,
  so constant in their piety,
  so considerate in their resolutions,
  so faithful in their reproofs, 
  so poised in their temper,
  so charitable in their censures, and
  so uniform and useful in their lives--
that their practice may be a perpetual sermon--and an example to teach others their duty to God and man. 

By long experience, aged believers are taught to avoid many dangers, which others fall into. Their manifold experience of the deceitfulness of the flesh, of the world, and of the devil--has enabled them to counter and somewhat conquer them. And their experience renders them able to give the most prudent counsels, and to forewarn others of those consequences which they easily foresee--IF they have treasured up wisdom according to their years.

"The silver-haired head is a crown of glory--IF it is found in the way of righteousness." Proverbs 16:31 

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          In a few days, this writer will reach the age of eighty-five. Old age is not for sissy's, If I had known I would have lived for so long I would've taken better care of myself. I still remember an old professional man who said to me, "I don't have any enemies. I have outlived them all."

          In my old age, I think more kindly about those I knew who were old... their peculiarities. Their attempt to still fit in. Not being able to see or hear well. I know their feeling in not wanting to get far from home, incase they might need to use the bathroom. As a disabled-blind man, I realized the penetrating looks as young people watch me eat. They don't think anything bad will happen to them, that they will stay young forever.

          With old age, you learn to forgive and forget. Those who put their hands in your pockets... bankers, stock brokers, repair men, employees, you allow God to put them on his hook. You would not believe how many young-healthy people have robbed this old blind veteran. You would not believe how few words of encouragement I get, even from blood kin.

          BUT, as I heard one of the great spine surgeons of our nation say, "If you want to heal back pain... learn to forgive." Younger, you thought you had time to see those who have wronged you get "whacked" themselves. With age, even though that the one who has forgiven you for so much, expects you to forgive. We come into this world with empty hands, we leave the same way. The cares of this world, deceitfulness of riches, lust for so many things, are Satan's traps. Jesus came to give us liberty, freedom from the traps that Satan has set for us.

          I worked my way through eight years of university education selling Bible's door to door, during the summer months. I will never forgot when one old black women, scarred by years of bigotry and handwork-frugal living, she said, "Son, if I miss out on Heaven... I have really missed out."

Hollywood Can Wait

#1769

Now am I one day nearer Heaven than I ever was!

(Richard Steele, "A Discourse Concerning Old-age, Tending to the Instruction, Caution and Comfort of Aged People" 1688)

Though it is possible for the young to die soon--yet it is impossible for the aged to live long. Their manifest decays are a certain forecast of their approaching dissolution. No medicine has yet been found to cure old-age. The graves are ready for them, and the worms wait for their meal upon them! The moth of mortality, which is bred in our nature, will still be fretting the garment of our bodies, until they are consumed. Death is already got into the aged person'seye and ear--and in a short time will bring him unto the dust. 

Now though death is an unwelcome messenger to those who live for this poor world--yet to a holy old man and woman, it is a blessed privilege. For as looking backward they see a tempting troublesome world--so looking forward they see a state of perfect holiness and happiness prepared for them. The end of their fight--is the beginning of their victory. As they part from their earthly labors--they take possession of their heavenly honors.

The aged Christian sees a woeful wilderness behind him--and the blessed land of promisebefore him. It is therefore no wonder that, with Moses, he longs to be in it! For where should the spouse desire to be, but with her husband? And upon this account, that holy Lady Falkland would usually say when she was going to bed, "Now am I one day nearer Heaven than I ever was!"

"I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!" Philippians 1:23 

There are many movies that Hollywood does not wish to make. I will never forget the "testimony" of an associate after I had asked him about the welfare of his soul. He said, "I cannot fathom the concept of God. It maybe so but I just cannot believe it. In order for me to believe in God I must give up all my pleasures, my lifestyle, the sinful things I enjoy doing. My unbelieving friends are much more fun than you Christian people. They know how to enjoy life. But, in order for me to keep the business of church people, and because in the future I want run for public office, I want to represent this area in the Legislature, I will keep "pretending" willing give one hour of the week to church on Sunday. After-all, I am not such a bad person. My lifestyle/actions are as good as most church members I know. I don't think I am hurting anybody with my social drinking ("I never get drunk") my flirtations with other women, even my walking the middle of the road in business. After-all, every businessman is in business to make money...that means sometimes cutting corners.  During the week, it is hard for me to get on the golf course because so many preachers are playing golf. At my country club your church members are drinking alcohol as much as me. When the christian, catholic gives as much commitment/concern/convincing to your religion as the Muslin does his, I may change."  This is where todays evangeical church finds itself. there are far more on church pews that have this attitude of my friend than those that have redemtption through the shed blood of Jesus Christ...new creation in him. Most church members I know, including members fof my own family have no fear of death. As one said to me recently, "Death is just a part of living."

In the sunset years of my life, I look forward to the purity of Death when these sightless eyes will regain their sight. When I can know that parents, grandparents, those who went on before me, who kept the faith, knew the eternal joy of salvation. C.S. Lewis said, "joy is a serious business." only those soaked in the blessedness of God's forgiving love can know real joy.

Basic Facts

#1768

The master deception of Satan! 

(Arthur Pink, "The Doctrine of Sanctification" 1937)

"I am the LORD your God. You must consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy." Leviticus 11:44 

We do greatly deceive ourselves, if we imagine that we are drawing nearer to Heaven--while only following those courses which lead to Hell. 

We are woefully deluded, if we suppose that we are journeying towards glory--and yet are living in sin. 

Christ died to procure holiness--not to secure an indulgence for sin. 

To live in known and allowed sin, and yet expect to be saved by Christ--is the master deception of Satan! 

My reader, a faith which does not transform character and reform conduct, is worthless. 

Saving faith is only proved to be genuine by bearing the blossoms of experimental godliness and the fruits of personal piety.

Great multitudes of ignorant people who live under the Gospel, harden their hearts in sin and ruin their souls forever, by trusting on Christ for such an 'imaginary salvation' as consists not at all in holiness--but only in forgiveness of sin and deliverance from everlasting torments. They would be free from the punishments due to sin--but they love their lusts so well that they hate holiness and do not desire to be saved from the service of sin. If they do not desire to be made holy and righteous in their hearts and lives--then they do not heartily desire true salvation.

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          The shepherd smells like his sheep. He carries them on his shoulder. Drinks from the same spring from which they drink. There is a companionship between shepherd and sheep, they trust one another.

          One of the unanswered questions of my life, WHY those who claim to love god, put their redemption in the shed blood of his son, envy often imitate, those who despise God. I have associates, family members, neighbors, who say they are Christian, "Christ-like," and yet, in language, dress, habits, personal interests... can not be distinguished from those who are basically unbelievers-atheists. When you are in their company, they talk about the world, flesh, devil. THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE DIFFERENT. Those of us who love Gods word, love the Gospel, love Gospel music, have an aching hunger to associate-talk-visit with those who have a small knowledge of the holiness of God. We know that God has forgiven our sins, past, present and future. That we are in daily warfare against our flaws, but even the child recognizes hypocrisy.

          I shutter, even panic, when I think of the many times that I have failed my blessed Lord. This I know, from everything I have read in his word, from everything I have experienced in life... He has mercy to spare and although I have failed him, He will never fail me.  

Nakedness

#1767

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20)

                                           

            The older I get the less I understand WHY, with only one life to live the way sane people will let their body go, knowing full well that what they put in their throat, their nutrition, determines their health... even their ability to fight disease. Incrementally, in my lifetime everything just gets worst. When I was a student, 70 years ago, cancer and diabetes were rare diseases. Today one half of the population have cancer and almost the same percentage have diabetes.

            This world traveler can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that there is only one nation in the world with so many obese-overweight people. Americans have a love affair with food, one in ten Americans say they spend 300$ a week on food.

            In one of my office buildings, one group of psychologists, fourteen rooms, a group specializing in eating disorders. When I was in practice, a patient talking to me about going on a diet, I would say, "There is only one effective diet. You must start eating each meal each day, for one week, with four other fat people. All of you eating your meal naked." There is nothing as ugly as a naked-flabby-fat individual. This is the reason clothing is so important, but I want to speak about nakedness.

            The earliest report of nakedness is found in scripture, when Moses and the three million children of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai. Moses went up the mountain to converse with God, to receive the commandments. When he came down the mountain, those he had rescued from Egyptian bondage, were dancing around a gold calf naked.

            Nakedness has always been associated with sin, in every dark "strip joint," you will find nudity, even some beaches on haven islands. When this writer arrived on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, I put on my swimming trunks and went down to the hotel swimming pool. Everyone around the pool, except me, was naked. It is when you see nude ugly people, you'll appreciate clothing.

            I was sitting on the front porch of my beach house, on the ocean, with friends... one lady said to me, "Tom, I'm glad you cant see. There is a young girl in a bikini coming down the street and she seems to be eight months pregnant." Just the thought of such a sight, the thought of the disrespect to others at the beach, young children, her baby, I went into my house and vomited into my kitchen sink.

            And yet, our not thinking-concerned-committed church goers, even Christians, even in America... not showing the nakedness of themselves in their unconcern for what is happening to our nation... to the world.

            Think of the unequivocal evil, the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot in a cage, in Syria. Closer to home, think of the evil involved in planned parent hood, "chopped up" innocent babies... selling tissue and body parts.

            My seminary professors son told me that recently he was asked to speak at a large Texas church, located in a county seat. He said the church, which would seat hundreds, only had a small plump of about 20 people there just on one side of the building. Their church had died and these remaining old members did not seem to realize it, unconcerned that there was no young people in the church. Unconcerned about the great commission. In Shakespeare's "Hamlet"... "to thine own self be true." (Act 1) Generally speaking, everyday of my life, we lose ground. Only about ten percent of the population are interested in changing things: most of us hiding behind a shell of deceit, not even realizing the controls media, government, political correction, envy for popularity and acceptance, has on our life.

            We know about corruption, we just want to blame the wrong corrupter. "Ye that love the LORD, hate evil." (Psalm 97:10)

        

Squirrel Cage

#1766

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

            The most important fact in this life, a sin in which I have been caught many times... knowing the gospel, knowing the forgiveness of God, I still get enslaved by the troubles and trials, problems encountered on each new day. Were slaves to sin, often try to keep Gods laws even though we have been given liberty from law. Abandoned freedom, returning to the law, abandon our freedom, lust of the flesh. We want relationships of law, rather than relationships of love.

            Christians of maturity, Christians of age, become dismayed  from the electronic media and even from the pul pit, by those who have exchanged their liberty through Christ, their freedom through redemption with entanglement by those who mix and confuse law and grace.

            I so remember my confusion-consignation as a young person studying the gospel. There were poorly educated preachers at the country church who had never been able to separate law and grace. There were older women in the church who would not build a fire in their cook stove on Sunday, very few would cook on the Lord's day. It was much as I experienced on my travels through Israel, the holy land, which according to Jewish law, observed at hotels, you ate cold food on the Sabbath... no maid service, orthodox Jews in their costumes walking everywhere.

            And then I was in Muslim countries (there are 42 Muslim countries in Africa) on a bus, the driver would get out of the bus and kneel in prayer on his prayer rug. Called to prayer from the mosque, men rushing to their place of worship... hand washing spigot outside the mosques.

            As this writers approaches the problems, aggravations, pains, trials, which are certain on every day of my life, I just pray that God will have an excess of mercy to see me through "it all." 

            "Through it all, through it all,
            I've learned to trust in Jesus,
            I've learned to trust in God;
            Through it all, through it all,
            I've learned to depend upon His Word."

            I have stated it from the pul pit, before many groups of veterans and I might as well state it here... "Sightless, wrought by pain, the victim of every aggravations and crime that employees can exact against me, knowing full well that most healthcare individuals and agencies are just going through the motions. IF NOT FOR MY FAITH WHO WOULD CONTINUE IN THIS LIFE? Do you actually blame any unbeliever for ending it all and knowing that God knows all, would he really hold suicide against the salvation of a believer?"

            And yet the two thieves on the cross of Calvary, who died with him, one on either side, never having experienced anything as far as grace... evidently, both were believers. One wanted belief on his own terms, like most modernists in the religiosity of today's world. "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us." (Luke 23:39) The other thief, humble, promised heaven that day, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." (Luke 23:42)

            As today's churches wither, most members depending on Christ to save his church and them, little humility by most of us to simply depend on grace. We get into the squirrel cage and just keep running, attempting to solve everything ourselves. It is too great an undertaking, it is truly remarkable that Jesus lived during the slavery and tyranny of Roman rule, perhaps the worst tyranny known to man. IF the saints who have gone on before us, IF my ancestors could survive through the horror story of their existence in the early years of this nation... SURELY I can bare up in this rat race, squirrel chase, anti-Christian, politically correct, broken culture in which God has chosen me to live.

            Our senses are besieged by sin that surrounds us. Our senses are bombarded by our fellow human beings. Lies are always used in direct proportion to their use. Almost, without exception, you evaluate the person-hood of EVERYONE with whom you come in contact. "How honest is this person, how far can I trust this person, what is this person attempting to get out of me?" This is not just the quandary of skepticism. Someone has said that a man is truly fortunate if he has enough friends to number on one hand. If he has two friends to whom he can go and borrow money without them asking any questions. As you age, you find that you have fewer and fewer friends... either outlived them or become so disappointed with them. Most do not want to indulge you, show any interest to your squirrel cage. Even our family members, our "so called" friends, neighbors, even those we pay to work for us, want nothing but a smooth road. Most of our friends are not concerned with the horror story of Planned Parenthood, GMO's in food, a nation mired in debt which it can never repay.

            Up until recent years, there was decency in all of us. We had rather work than take a hand out. My parents, ancestors, never thought about vacations/retirements. My grandfather was the last farmer to sign up for federal crop controls. My parents resented their parity check. "The doctrine of parity was used to justify agricultural price controls in the United States beginning in the 1920s-1930s." This writer was honored to work his way through eight years of university education. Now, every college student, regardless of the home from which they come, think that they must have a grant or surely a government subsidized loan AND from the bottomless ocean of knowledge and technology, has come several generations of Americans and even many in foreign countries who are tap dancing-running as hard as possible to keep up. Most are glancing at flowers they did not plant, certainly no time to smell a rose.

            I wish I had the ability to "re-gift" to my young grandsons and friends, the overwhelming desire of my youth for knowledge and success. We know that no man can come to Christ unless god "draws him." You could walk the isle of every Church, sign cards, but only the holy spirit of Christ re-birthing you will change you.

            In India, I saw water buffalo walking round and round, pumping water. The buffalo did not go anywhere except in a large circle. Only accomplished what the pole connected to him and mechanized pump desired. Water flowed because of the buffalo's work. In our lives, with all our activity, work, grief, we just may accomplish something, but life is for living. Jesus came to give us liberty, to set the captives free. This writer is in a cocoon of blackness, sightlessness, and I get exasperated with myself for letting the world, flesh, devil, re-enslave me. One who has spiritual freedom-liberty in Christ. 

Lutoria Waddell

#1765

"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." (Song of Solomon 2:15)

           

            The greatest value in the pilgrimage of life is your contact with those with whom you can peer into their soul. God deliver me from politicians, pastors, physicians, even poets who have never peered into the souls of others.

            Recently, like most by-standers, I have paid limited attention to these political phonies who claimed they want to represent the common man as president of our nation. I'm talking about the republican contingent. Like Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, they have not one iota of imagination as to what the average hardworking, God fearing, tax paying American faces in his daily struggle for survival. Where would Mr. Trump be if not for the magnanimity of his inheritance, the Bush's and their inheritance from grandfather bush who hobnobbed with Hitler. I just want to vomit when I hear these frauds talk about their concern for my country, the country to which I have given all and they have given nothing. The anxiety of these 17 pretenders in restoring some essence of sanity to the nation. Like Bill and Hill who should be in jail, these people have no understanding or concern about the souls of man (perhaps that former preacher-governor of Arkansas, who said he attended a seminary, might know something about a soul.)

            My folks own most of the land on the dirt road, where I was born... no power, phone or water lines (this road has now been paved, is named for my father, the Joe Morris Rd.) Across one area of the farm was an old house in which lived Ms. Lutoria Waddell. I had never talked with the woman, had only seen her sitting on her front porch. My mother would stop and leave some food for her. I remember that my father had taken an old mattress to her house when some women at the church had told him about the mattress on which Ms. Lutoria was resting when they visited her when sick (at that time in my early life, before my travels around the world, before I saw hospitals in Africa, places where people slept on mats.) Back then, 70 years ago, we plowed with mules. I must've been around 13 or 14 plowing with mules across the road from Ms. Lutorias house. When I stopped for the mules to rest for awhile, I would go and sit on the steps porch and talk with her. I found in her, a tender soul. She was the first one to get me interested in silica... the most abundant element on earth, the element of sand and stone. She was the one who adjusted my interest in "grounding," the value of grounded magnetism to our bodies functions. To this day, I am convinced that our early ancestors had few sicknesses because they did not wash their bodies as much as we do now. The dirt (silica) on their bodies in contact with the largest organ of the body, the skin, removed the toxins of disease. Some smart scientist have now decided that the feet, coming in contact with dirt, is the best physical-physiological treatment the body can know in its conflict with pathology. Ms. Lutoria told me that I was wise to plow barefoot, my feet in the God given earth, provider of all mans needs, "grounded" with the magnetism of the earth.

            This tender soul was in her early 80's, the product of a tough life. Back then, when her husband died, a widow got a child's share of his estate as well as a life tendency in the home. So, from her share of the farm, rented out, she tried to live. There was no social security, welfare, etc, at that time in our countries life. One man from the church would prepare her garden and she did have a few laying hens. Her only son had been killed early in World War II. The 10,000$ insurance policy had been used to pay off the farm, repair her house and wire her house after the power lines had come in and she had electric lights. She had never owned a store bought dress... made a few dollars sewing and mending for people. She had three daughters, they had all left home to work in Baltimore... seldom returned home because they could not bring a husband or friends home to a house without plumbing.

            Ms. Lutoria loved to read. One of her neighbors would bring past issues of "The Grit Magazine." She had memorized most of the bible, had not been to town in many years, nor seen a doctor in many years. I stopped by to see her one time, she was eating her meal, nothing on her plate but butter beans, but I never heard her complain about her plight in life, that her old house leaked, that she was rough with arthritic pain. She was always so happy to see me, I truly believe she had peered into my soul.

            The only thing that people in that community would remember about her today, is that when her old house finally caught fire and burned down, she had come charging out the front door carrying her most precious possession... her sewing machine. My mother had told me that she had been placed into the poor house (county home) where she did not live very long. The county buried her in a cheap cardboard coffin, but did bring her back to lay her besides her husband in the family graveyard. I understand her daughters and grandchildren did come down to the graveside service, stayed in town in a motel, where they had running water. My mother said that Ms. Lutoria had grandchildren who had never seen her, so they opened her coffin at the graveyard. I can only imagine and imagination is one of mans greatest assets, the joy that would have entwined Ms. Lutoria's soul if she could have seen her own grandchildren. The mystery of life, why the pilgrimage of some human beings should be so tragic. Perhaps this is what writers such as Shakespeare was attempting to bring out when he wrote his tragedies... what Jesus was attempting to teach when he talked about the tragedies of many lives.

            How long will Americans be embarrassed-insulted with news about the mayhem involved in the abortions of planned parenthood. The selling of body parts for transplant from those who just happened to die conveniently in a hospital. Most hospitals can hardly wait to open the body of a deceased family member IF they have permission ahead of time to transplant body parts. I understand many persons, almost dead, are opened before death... of course without benefit of anesthesia. Body parts have become a money making business. We have become a profane civilization. There was a time when missionaries would have been sent to convert such heathens. The soul of man does not have mass, identity. Before my warn out body is cremated, it is worth nothing except maybe 80 cents for the chemicals that could be retrieved. The most valuable part of my existence, that which makes me what I am, my personality... that for which Jesus died, will take flight at my death accompanied by my guardian angel. My soul will never die.

            I was 7 years old when my paternal grandmother, Martha Lucas Morris, died. I still remember what one of the presiding preachers said at her funeral. Ms. Martha lies here in front of us, in this great church, but her soul is in heaven. I have that personal insurance with many, in whom I peered at their soul, including Ms. Lutoria Waddell. Now we understand the graciousness of death. 

Tattoos, Piercings and Graffiti

#1764

"Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges."

-Herman Melville

            The worst way to start your day is like the rest of the world with a mind set, "And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful." (Mark 4:19) Over the trenches of political correctness Satanic developments there are still normal people. Satan always betrays his partners in crime. In a post modernist world of broken cultures those of us with more or less conventional attitudes find it extremely difficult to understand why some of our fellow human beings delight in violating-challenging the beauty of Jehovah god, creator of the universe. The word spoke and nothingness became something-ness.  The word spoke and everything in the world filled with beauty which the mind of man can only comprehend, never counterfeit the 110 elements of the earth, the 12 music tones of the earth, laws of nature, colors, everything in absolute symmetry and proportion. The mind of man is unable to comprehend the holiness of God. His ability to capture beauty.

            This world traveler has experienced/sensed (those sightless) the beauty of nature, as God developed it on every continent of the world.  We understand why god observed and saw that it was good (Genesis:1:24.) Nothing is uglier than finding God's handiwork defaced. Nothing is uglier than finding graffiti on a work of art, ugly symbols on a magical, balanced, work of symmetry. I remember so well the first time I was in the great opening in Petra, that great city of stone with its magnificent columns. Some jerk had actually defaced one column with graffiti. 

            Of course there are accidents of nature, the weirdos, circus people who display their deformities. There have always been those that have slowed down to watch a car crash. Who get a thrill from human beings battering one another in the boxing ring or the ancient gladiator arenas. I will admit that I have been to a bull fight both in Spain and South America. Ancient sports, people got a thrill from seeing lions tear apart Christians. Today sports people enjoy seeing millionaires abuse one another as they fight over a ball.  As the cruelest inhuman activity, warfare, has "progressed" from the closeness of the sword and bayonet into the inhuman activity of planes and drones dropping bombs from a huge distance, "the caretaker" of the planets must have revulsion with the decadence of his chief creation, Mankind.

            There has always been a fascination with the abnormal. I remember, so well, as a child, a farmer in the community had a cow who gave birth to a three legged calf. People wanted to go by and see this abnormal calf. The farmer started to charge to look at the calf. Warts, deformities, were never "beauty spots."  A polite society learned to ignore them. People invested in beauty appreciating great works of art wanted the comfort of manicured lawns, sculptures in parks, colors on buildings, the beauty of flowers which no horticulturist has ever been able to reproduce. Just in America billions of dollars are spent each year on supplements which we believe compliment our diets, give us better health. Our greatest national expense is healthcare. We do everything possible to live better and longer.  Every parent wants his child to be perfect.  Billions of dollars are spent on designer clothing.  Special education, America is besieged by universities that would make the ancient philosophers blush.  Why then, please tell me, where the thrill came from which has caused so many young intelligent people to deface/abuse themselves with tattoos, piercings. Those of us who are old wish we had the skin and musculature of the young. Why would any parent allow a child on whom they have spent a life preparing for the future to subject that body to the criminal stupidity of introduction of pathological disease through tattoos, skin scars, or piercings in other areas of the body. There is nothing more dangerous to the human body than making disease entrance easier. We know the problems just from artificial knee or hip replacements. We know the problems of the pacemaker/stints or other artificial means of prolonging life. Why then would anyone take the risk of decorating/desecrating the body with nonsense and in the case of a girl, a "tramp stamp?"

            This old blind veteran, sightless for many years is mostly home bound. But, I am told many people in church are tattooed/pierced. Who do they think they are fooling?  Satan has always been able to mark his followers...language, clothing and habits. Just as the western rancher branded his livestock with a tattoo/brand. So Satan clearly has his crowd "branded" with tattoos. Every human being, the world over, has an empty place in his heart for some thing or some one in which the person them self cannot fill.  There are religions/cults/traditions around the world seeking to fill that emptiness. The road to hell is paved with religion. It should not be strange that many "seekers" will find their way to the church pew.  But, as the Apostle Peter found, there is a difference in religion and relationship. Peter walked and talked with God as Jesus' feet caressed the land around the Sea of Galoli. Peter, the man who denied his precious lord, who actually walked on water. Who when he was crucified insisted on being crucified upside down, learned forgiveness. There are too many unrepentant-unrestricted church members who do not have an intimate relationship with God.  Christianity is not complicated, just tough. We must be tough, stand, never turn your back to Satan. With all the sincerity and humbleness of my heart, never yield to Satan's temptation of marking our body for him. He knows who "owns" us.  When Christ redeems us, we are a new creation in Him, ready to be seen and read of men (1 Corinthians 3:1-3.) I like to wear a cross on my jacket. I like for my fellow man to know whose side I am on.

"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31