Abandoned

Today is Yom HaShoah, April 21, the day people worldwide remember the six million Jews killed in Hitler’s “great experiment” of eliminating the Jewish populous from Germany, Poland, and the surrounding countries.

On this date in 1965, I was sitting on some rocks by the Dead Sea talking with a remarkable older Jewish couple, both of whom were professors at the University of London, about the history of Israel and particularly the Dead Sea. This was their first trip to Israel and like me, (and I have been to Israel many times) one is never the same after visiting this Holy Land. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on the face of the earth and reputedly the location of Sodom, ancient city destroyed by God because of sin. (Ezekiel 47:8-9, Genesis 18, Zechariah 14:8). As was the case many times, when I visited the holy sites in Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, I wept openly that I had been privileged to visit these places where our blessed Lord had walked. I remember standing on the balcony of a hotel in Tiberius (and the manager had been kind enough to put this old blind man in a room at the top right, over the sea), my heart was thrilled as I thought of our Lord walking on the water there.

These two elderly German Jews, both victims of the Holocaust, were overcome with emotion, but they had so much empathy for me as they described the Dead Sea (1,248 ft deep, 42 miles long and 11 miles wide, 33.7% salinity). They wanted to make sure that I saw Masada, on an ancient cliff, the ruins of Herod’s palace, and so we went up on the cliff to Masada on cable car and they described the ancient artwork on the walls of the palace. ( It is significant to say here, that young Jewish military officers are required to scan the cliff on which Masada is located) It was in 70 AD that the last group of devoted Jews held out against the Roman legions, resulting in the death of all.

This Jewish couple from London was overcome with grief when they remembered their treatment in Auschwitz, where all of their family died in the German experiments conducted there. He said to me, with tears running down his face, “It was the mercy of God that brought the two of us out of Auschwitz and has allowed us to see these marvelous places.” When they learned that I was a disabled veteran, they both threw their arms around me and said, “It was not only the mercy of God, but the goodness of the people of the United States that we are alive.” I wish I could have shared with these two, a blessed Christian promise, when our Lord returns, and His feet touch the Mount of Olives, an opening will be made to the Dead Sea, and the salty water will become sweet.

Again, while traveling in Panama, I met another Jewish couple, Holocaust survivors, who still had their numbers tattooed on their left arms. Who, at the time, were living in Minneapolis. They shared with me details of their torture, which makes me want to throw-up when I hear the crocodile tears of liberal newscasters in this country, at this time, talking about how terrorist are treated with their nice food and nice accommodations at the POW camp in Cuba (GITMO). Those prisoners are treated better then this old 100% disabled veteran and from the reports, made public, eat much better than I do.

I traveled with this couple in South America to Rio de Janeiro, because I would eventually wind up in Buenos Aires. They wanted me to meet one of their friends, who was an artist in Rio, a survivor of Auschwitz, since they had never before met a blind art collector.  I did buy two paintings from him and I have since sold them in California.  But, one of the most remarkable experiences of my life, since I could not see the abuse, this artist pulled of his shirt and wanted me to feel the healed welts and broken bones of his back, dealt him by Nazi guards. I was dealing with Jewish people but I wanted to say to him, another Jew, perhaps the most brilliant man of the Middle East, educated at Tarsus, a remarkable conversion, stoned, beaten, shipwrecked, and at last beheaded, had as his remarkable testimony, “I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Jesus.” (Galatians 6:17)  Paul, who gave us sixteen books of our New Testament, went through, perhaps the first holocaust. When I have toured several Holocaust museums, when I saw a large piece of soap in a synagogue in North Africa made from the very flesh of Jews in the Holocaust, I thought of Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, “The world will not long remember what happened here.”

In this world of isolation due to total blindness, I listen to several radios and I am keenly aware of how little the people of this country prize their democratic republic, the opportunity available to everyone, the individuals, both military and civilian, who have given so much to make it possible and I weep with the knowledge of the unconcern of most citizens, even the members of my own family and the friends who know me best.

For many years, I have been writing of my experiences as a disabled citizen, as a world traveler, as a committed Christian. For many years, pithy letters were published in newspapers, knowledgeable articles were published in disability, religious and political magazines (Command, Help and Food, Christianity Today).  But, with the takeover of politically correct, liberal atheist politicians and media writers, there is no room for anything decent about, anything anymore, nor is their interest in the knowledge of those who have “been there and done that.”

From years of Bible study, historical investigation, to say nothing of my academic scientific scholarship, we now have a nation of illiterate intellect. In my world of business, real estate, securities and other interest in which even a blind man can excel, I asked one of my book keepers, “Why is it that these people who work for me have so little respect for me.”  She said, “They have no respect for anyone, not even their own parents.” 

On that day, when the Vietnam war was in full protest and I was still in the hospital, a Korean conflict veteran, mostly students and others from Chapel Hill (where I had graduated) and at Duke University, were in the streets. I was on the second floor of the Duke Eye Center (still undergoing eye surgery which was finally finished at Massachusetts Eye Infirmary) directly across the street from the veterans hospital, when a black nurse in terrible terms, told this patient in the bed, how much she hated the military and then proceeded to spit on me.  Shortly after, my mother and sister, after a long trip, had arrived, cleaned me up and then made arrangements to get me out of Duke hospital, when Dr. Banks Anderson Jr assured us that nothing like that would happen again. I knew then, just I am more certain now, than ever that the Holocaust, not just against Jews, but in this country, against everything that is decent is already going on without furnaces. On this Memorial day to the six million Jews who were slaughtered in the death chambers of Hitler, we should remember the holocaust of the most innocent of life, small babies, killed at the rate of 3,500 each day in the abortion industry of this nation, largely financed through planned parenthood and by your tax dollars. 

I am one of the fortunate ones, lived a long life, known the success of business and, though blind, have sensed the smells and sounds of an exciting world which our Creator made for us. I have stood in the great cemetery in the Philippians where over 17,000 are buried, I have stood in the great cemetery of Normandy where over 9,000 are buried. We gave what we did for your right of free speech and all the other rights of the American citizens.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Growing and Dying

The difference in a tree and a post is the fact that the tree is growing. In most cases, the post is dead and dying. In some places in Central America, where the topsoil is still full of nutrients I saw posts that had been put in the ground sprouting limbs, living again.

My Great Grandfather, for whom I was named, on his plantation, had grafted so many fruit trees which produced unusual and wonderful products. Grafting is a system whereby you fuse the plant tissues of two trees, used by horticultural to produce new lines of product. For instance, on the farm, we had a pear apple which was delicious beyond words to describe simply because this man had the intelligence and enlightenment to experiment with such plants and trees. From Romans 1 to Philemon, we find everything we need to know about living the Christian life. In Romans 11:13-26 the Apostle Paul used as an analogy how Gentiles can become one with spiritual Israel. Paul also explains why many of physical Israel cannot see, because "that blindness in part has happened to Israel." It's why many cannot understand, yet (those of Israel who could, but rejected the Truth, are another matter).

As recent as todays newspaper the difference in Zionism and Judaism, most church goers know nothing about this. There are about 60,000,000 Jews in the world. A very large number are Atheist, they do not believe in God at all. In America, many group together just as a cultural not a religious experience. In the America Judeo Christian traditions (the foundation of Christianity is Judaism) evangelicals have become the nation of Israels greatest support. From 1948 when the British and the Palestinians were driven out of the ancient Holy lands Israel and America have become united in the preservation in the nation Israel...a Zion state... to the extent that America sends 10,000,000 dollars a day to Israel...at the very time that Native Americans (Indians) suffer from lack of electricity and military veterans...many of whom are disabled...get the same disability pension as a college ROTC student grant.

The Christian church, Gentiles, know little of the growth of Christianity from Christ until the present. I often wondered, as “the world” walked by or drove by a Christian church would the unsaved think, “I wonder what goes on there”? Even today, as when I was a child, you see grown men standing outside the Christian church smoking cigarettes talking about yesterdays' ball game telling jokes about women young or old entering the edifice and I thought, what possible relationship do these 45 minute church goers have to do with the center of worship on the inside of the building? (Many so called worshipers enter the service ten minutes late and then get up and leave five minutes before the service is over. The service only lasts one hour. All church activities for the week center on this one hour and yet these playing church cannot last one hour a week) Inside the building, it was more or less a matter of routine or habit. People singing about a savior to whom they had no relationship at all...actually putting money into a collection plate for which they could care less about why the money was given or where the money is going. Just being dragged in by habit “it is the politically correct and expected thing for decent people to do on a Sunday morning” never having been touched by thoughts of sins ruin and Christs' redemption, never having experienced the death barrel and resurrection of Christ in the greatest experience of Christian faith, Baptism by immersion.

Often, this totally blind Christian laying in bed at night listening to the blessed hymns of the faith on radio and then outside on the street, hearing the rap music from an over modulated radio which would fit in better at an insane asylum, I know the difference in “growing and dying”.

In the Broadway play Noises Off, a play within a play, we learn the values of noise. Sounds should have meaning. There is nothing as beautiful as quietness. My grandmother, living five miles from the nearest town where a train went through could predict the weather very accurately from the sound of the train.

In the military, when homesick, I could relay my mind back to the country home where we slept at night with the windows open and I could hear the symphony of the frogs in the creek of the cow pasture near the house. I could even hear the cows munching on the green grass.

Once, at the Baptist Tabernacle in Atlanta, I had gone there for a worship service from a nearby military post, there was so much noise in the sanctuary that all reality of worship escaped. I later wrote the pastor and asked the question, “do the people of your church know anything at all about the sacredness of quietness in a sanctuary of worship?” I have certainly been in secular clubs much quieter. The average church congregation, the average pastor, never realizes that the average church member knows nothing at all about the history of Christianity or behavior in the church...the magnificence of worship, the growth of discipleship. I was in a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka where Buddhas' tooth is displayed, there was much noise, bands playing, a side show. With all of the problems of Catholicism, they have some things right, the attitude of worship, the crucifix which reminds us of our reason for worship, the catechism...in which Catholics learn something of their belief...and above all the sanctity of life through their anti-abortion stance. I could get excited about the new Senator from Massachusetts if he were PRO-LIFE not pro-abortion. Bad enough to have fat, ugly Teddy Kennedy as a pro-abortion Catholic for 47 years. Bad enough, to have 54% of Catholics vote for the most pro-abortion president in history. Bad enough, to have solid Democrat North Carolina support a state and national political party promoting murder. “God will not be mocked” (Galatians 6:7). I want you Democrat Baptists and Catholics to know that you are not growing but are dying because God, and God alone, still determines everything. Faith, is a two sided coin. A coin is worth nothing unless it has both sides. Faith, is action, based on belief sustained by confidence. One side of the coin is action,the other side is belief.

The most beautiful sound in the world is the sound of ocean waves. I can hear the ocean waves from my beach house, from the beginning of time, until the end of time, never growing, never dying, always the same...the sound of eternity...the sound of forever.

Automaton

An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of a duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739. The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolize and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this - the food was collected in one inner container, and the feces being 'produced' from a second, so that no actual digestion took place - Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed. To date, no such robot has been invented. Voltaire wrote that "without [...] the duck of Vaucanson, you have nothing to remind you of the glory of France."

Since we're talking about Voltaire, the object of affection and of many quotes from one of my French professors, more has been written about his religious beliefs than anything else in his biography. Perhaps it can all be summed up as follows, “Voltaire, though often mistaken for an atheist, did in fact take part in religious activities and even erected a chapel on his estate at Ferney. The chief source for the misconception is a line from one of his poems (called "Epistle to the author of the book, The Three Impostors") that translates to: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." The full body of the work, however, reveals his criticism was more focused towards the actions of organized religion, rather than on the concept of religion itself. “

God did not design us to be automatons. The greatest blessing of living is 'free will'. The cow has no feelings for the bull, the sow has no feelings for the boar, but the maternal instinct of any animal is very obvious. Only in genus homo do we find a female member of a species who will kill her child. Unlike the lower animals, man has the ability to think and reason, chosen of God, made in his image, with 'free will' for faith, hope and love.

The desire for knowledge is the beginning of knowledge. It is only in a police state, communist system of government, where you do not find church steeples, that man has been degraded, to acting and reacting like bridled lower animals. We find, and true blindness isn't necessary (as this writer is), that we can even walk and become servants of God by faith alone. (Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1) Paul wrote this letter to a group of Hebrews who were still trying to keep the law, though Christian, the 613 laws in the Old Testament were observed religiously, automatons, God's chosen race, seeking to please him now and for eternity. How they could skip over marvelous assurance in Proverbs is incomprehensible. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6) OR “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

Thanks be to God, Christ came to deliver us and redeem us from law keeping. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17) After 400 years of slavery in Egypt, 40 years of 'basic training' wandering around in a desert was necessary in order to prove to these rebellious people that God loved them. It is wonderful to know, in our present day rebellion, when it would be convenient to act as automatons that God loves us more than we love him.

I said to a great theologian one time, “I simply cannot understand all the killing in the Old Testament.” He said, “and every time God told them to kill, and they did not, they lived to regret it. Most people do not understand that most of the Bible, is a history of one people, Jews. From Abraham, the first Jew, called from his people in Ur, near present day Baghdad, to travel six hundred miles north to Canaan, land promised him by God. His father Terah, worshiper of idols, who died on the way just outside of Damascus, his nephew Lot, his wife Sarah, the long story of God giving the land to Abraham and his descendents, telling him that everywhere he walked was his. (Just imagine one man walking, saying “mine, mine, mine”) Abraham and his two sons Isaac and Ishmael, from then until now, racial forces determining the history of the world. And then there were the twin sons of Isaac, and of course, the twelve sons of Jacob (twelve tribes of Israel). A type of Christ, Joesph, the slavery in Egypt, the redemption, Moses, Jesse, David, right on to God giving the world, in a tent of flesh, His only Son, Jesus Christ, to live among us, show the example of Godly living, the atonement, death burial and resurrection of Jesus, His words, His sacrifice, then the apostle Paul and the church, the letter to the Hebrews by Paul showing the transition from Law to grace. I do not understand and have found few who do understand God's relationship with man before the flood, even after the flood to the cross. I do understand on this side of the cross, but the inhabitants of Canaan, before the children of Israel moved in, Balak-Balaam and others, gentiles and their relationship with God. Jesus, his disciples, the prophets, the early church, all Jews. Gentiles, the rest of us, enter the divine plan only in relationship to the Jews. The Old Testament, the Gospels all preliminary to the church, it is the greatest story every told (Fulton Oursler), we do not need anything else except God's Word as we seek his sovereignty, known the truth of sin's ruin and Christ's redemption. He gave us the plan, and even though complex at times, we do not need Mary Baker Eddy, Joesph Smith, or any other books of archeology, psychiatry, etc. to get us to our final destination