Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day

Psalm 27:  1-2

            At my father's funeral, many years ago, one of the preachers said, "When he had his stroke, he was picking peaches from trees he had planted.  I well remember those peach tree plantings...  just stalks."  You would have thought they were old sticks of wood to be thrown away but, these stalks in soil, water and sunlight grew into large peach trees.

            I well remember the day I went to Sears to buy shrubbery plantings for a rental house.  A horticulturalist who was there buying shrubbery for his own house said to me, "Tom, don't forget to prune the shrubbery each year."  I would not have believed by  looking at the straggly-stalks they would ever need pruning but, soil-water-sunlight and they became large shrubs.

            We have just had Groundhog Day, people wanting a rodent to tell us about the future.  Man has always wanted future predictions whether from a palm reader with a tent by the roadside, scriptures from the pulpit, or in this day of technology, models conjured from mathematical progressions.  Standing in the reviewing stand of a long parade, we know what has already gone ahead and what we see in front, but have no idea of what is to come in the parade.  Only God knows the beginning and the ending... our lives, this nation, world history.  The purity of Christianity is the trust that Jesus will always be at the crossroads before we get there.

            The one thing I learned in a long life of clinical care and military service is dead men all look the same.  You can not tell the wealthy, educated, successful from others.  Blind men, like those who cannot read or write, must remember things.  The mystery to this writer in dealing with men, some never think deeply or speak seriously... theirs is a casual lifestyle.  I have known men totally lacking in a museum or art gallery.  In Madrid's Prado or the Louvre of Paris, paint strokes of the masters would not be appreciated (canvases that would sell for millions of dollars).  The only strokes that would impress some men would be those on the golf course.  They clap and yell as millionaire ball players run down a ball field.  YET, in a church house or cathedral, a matter of eternal life-a matter of an abundant life, so quiet and dormant.  In a alcoholic bar setting many men sing with gusto, but in God's house, (AND, they all think they are heaven bound) you barely hear a sound when they sing "My Jesus, I love Thee I know Thou art mine."

            There are pulpiteers (preachers) whose spiritual thoughts go no further than their vestments, politicians responsible for crop controls who do not know a weed from a productive plant, Catholic priests who cannot marry who write books on family life and child care, print and electronic journalists (talking heads) who write and talk about countries they have never seen.  We hear almost daily about Obama appointing ambassadors to nations they have never visited.  (Most ambassadors buy their "ambassadorship" by raising tremendous political funds  i.e. Joseph Kennedy, ambassador to England, and Caroline Kennedy, ambassador to Japan.)

            On one of this writer's around the world trips, a trip of flying from one island to another, while on the Marshall Islands, I met two Americans who were living on a boat.  Both had been high-volume, wealthy financiers in Seattle, Washington.  One of them said to me "We got tired of the rat race, the hypocrisy.  Here, on these beautiful South Pacific islands, we live on a boat, eat fresh food, drink fresh water and enjoy fresh air.  You only go around once.  Why kill yourself in the mad, manmade gauntlet of deceit and persecution brought on by your fellow man?   God has given us life and our health has returned since we have learned to live life."

            I noticed, when visiting with them, they had many friends among the natives.  Each day was like a holiday, plentiful food, basking in healthy sunlight, rest and leisure living.  One said, "We are getting ready for heaven."  Man has the mistaken idea that God needs him.  For God to be God, he does not need anything.  Man needs God.  Living for God, living the Christian life is not complicated, just tough.  The nature of man is wanting to control.  God is able, leave the consequences to him.  "Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."  Romans 14:8

            If a deaf person has never heard music, then music does not exist.  If a blind person has never seen the color red, then red does not exist.  Those who have never known the sweat of farm work think farming is exciting.  Those who have never known the horrors of warfare, think war is romantic.  The grunts on the front lines know the horror of war.  In Afghanistan, this year, hundreds of women and children have been killed just going through the daily activity of life.  Field grade officers, lieutenant colonels to generals, gain promotions during warfare.  The only truly great Americans are those who are the casualties through death or disability during war.  These are those who are forever young.  Their families and friends will never know them as older people.  A one day widow can not be comforted by other widows.  The things that get you through warfare are the same things that get you through other struggles of life.  You become a friend to pain and you trust in the belief that this, too, will pass away.  The soldier does not look too far ahead, just to a good meal and a warm bath.  Now is all you have.

            On the farm, early in the morning, before daybreak, the sound of rain... You knew the activities of the farm did not cease because of rain water.  You walked in the rain to milk the cows and to feed the livestock.  You were their god.  They depended on you.  If these animals had this reality of this perception, then why not God's chief creation?  God does not needs us, but we need him.  And, He has told us over and over, in His book, His instruction manual, "I will never leave thee or forsake thee."   Hebrews 13:5

Love and Lovable

Of Francis Thompson's poetry, his most famous line, “Love is a many splendor ed thing” Thousands of pop songs, hymns, contain the word love.

In a world of lust people still seek love. Many have found it impossible to find a soul-mate without the loss of soul.

So many claim to love God, if every church member were just like me, what kind of church would my church be?

So many claim to love country. If every citizen were just like me, what kind of country would my country be?

What if all disabled people just gave up? One day, I did not have a driver. Over the years, I have tried to learn many taxi drivers. I called one and as he was asking about many activities and aggravations, I said, “I should just give up” He said, “Doc, if you were going to give up you would have given up long ago.”

What if George Washington and the other founders of our republic had given up in the ice of valley forge, would we have a country?

What if Thomas Edison had given up after his first failure, the man who gave 1000 inventions to the world? What would our lives be like today?

What if Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Jonas Salk had given up?

What if Susanna Wesley had given up after the birth of many children but before the birth of John and Charles Wesley?

What it General Naman had given up after dipping in the Jordan River five times and did not follow instructions to cure his leprosy, by dipping seven times?

What if Moses had given up in the desert when the children of Israel; former slaves, began to complain?

What if the 126,000 American soldiers buried on foreign soil had given up on their country?

Reportedly, a vaccine is now give American servicemen to make them more aggressive. One mother said she could hardly recognize her own son. Two of the three last servicemen I have employed, under any stress, just walked off the job, one Army, one Navy, one Marine. Marine and Navy, under stress, just walked off the job.

What if all Americans spent money the way the President spent $2.5 million for two buses built in Canada, $50,000 per week for a vacation home on Martha's Vineyard and the millions involved for his wife's 42 days of vacation this past year.

What if Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank is right and there is a tremendous shortage of food?. 1.25 billion people pushed into poverty, weather conditions in Russia and China, crops parched in 15 American states, a threat of famine in most of the world.

What if ,if in expanded warfare. Already, one third of all children are killed in Pakistan by drones.

Change always begins in the mind. Like standing on the edge of the grand canyon, it is never to late to stop walking. The sin and shame of abortion, homosexual trysts, sinking the world into poverty must be faced. The best example, the most beautiful story ever told, The Prodigal Son. When he found he did not have a taste for hog slop, he was ready for change. When Americans determine what if they do not change, what if their government does not change, what if their church does not change. We will know the absolutes of love and lovable. In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalms (16:11)

Solidarity

To the globalists, the leaders of the new world order, God's chief creation, made in His very image, the human being, has become very insignificant. Like the cheap comic book portrayals of future accomplishments by part-human, part-robot beings, a merger of man and machine controlled by a computer.

The word “solidarity” was little known outside of the physics laboratory until the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Lech Walensa and the word was used describing this Polish worker's following (by one-fourth of the Polish population). When Walensa and others finally decided to establish Polish worker's rights.

A very little amount of sand is left in the hourglass, the year 2010 is almost gone. Through a movement called “Tea Party”, some sleeping RINO members of the Republican party were finally awakened. The enslavement of America is finally brought full face before those who care. The liberals, blacks, gays, academics, media personalities (print and sound), do not care. Someone once asked me, since I traveled through many communist countries and had seen the what the profanity and abomination of communism does to the human being, “why do some Americans promote such a philosophy?” I told him, “they think it will not affect them because they will be in charge.”

In every communist society, every totalitarian group, there is always that very small percentage of the elitists, politburo, who feel they are destined to rule the proletariat. Liberal democrats think things are bad with democracy's fat cats, Wall Street, Madison avenue, K street exploiters, the racketeers; but the MAFIA in the communist system is a nightmare that makes the Jewish MAFIA in Las Vegas seem like Sunday school. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help. (Psalm 22:10-11)

There is a cohesion-connectedness between people who are fellow sufferers. There will always be a cohesion-connectedness between those 33 Chilean miners who awaited rescue from the bowels of the earth. I have observed a connectedness surrounding Christians observing Communion at the Lord's table. I have observed a connectedness with family members and even neighbors around the casket of a deceased loved one.

The solidarity, connectedness of a college fraternity, Masonic order, Rotarian or Elk's civic club is far different from the connectedness or solidarity affecting a group of cancer survivors, a military unit at the battlefront, survivors recovering in a military hospital, or even former orphans in a childrens home.

Many of us have had the experience of the closeness involved in a group traveling together...staying in the same hotel, eating together, sightseeing together. After your final departure, you head to your own destination, and in spite of the closeness you experienced, you seldom ever hear from these friends again. It is even rare to have a close relationship with college roommates, sports team members. You felt that at the time there was a solidarity that would preserve a relationship forever; only through the common cause of neurological fellowship, does such friendship persist. In order for the Christian to know Christ, you must daily experience the power of His Resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering. (Philippians 3:10)

The largest minority in America, the disabled, should have an attitude of solidarity, because each has experienced the isolation of their own distinction, whether wheelchair, white cane, disfigurement, or some other blessing which separates them from the normal. Family members should have close solidarity, having sat around the same table, known first hand the hardships of parenthood, the festoon of genes; too often, jealousy, in-law blight, or dwelling on past problems prevent such.

One of the most honest, up-front, outspoken groups who protect and perfect solidarity is that of those with alcoholism. 75% of all crime, 50% of all divorces, 60% of all broken bones are attributed to alcohol consumption. 80% of all young people are experimenting with alcohol, and one 1 out of each 16 will become a drug addict. It all starts with the first drink.

The great problem, political correctness. Psychologists want children to like their parents, more important is how well the children like their parents after the child is 25 years old. In AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), only one's first name is used, it can happen to anyone. Across the tracks, in the poor section of town, one who cannot control alcohol is called a “drunk”. On “Pill Hill” or other ritzy sections of town, one who does not control alcohol is called an “alcoholic” or “having a disease”. We are all in this thing together...solidarity. Christ knew what he was talking about when he told us to love one another, the most difficult action in the universe: to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 19:19)

Even at the church you see few wheelchairs, few white canes, and as I have been told many times as a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran of the Korean era, disabled people make the normal feel uncomfortable. There is a certain solidarity in realizing that very few living human beings have escaped challenges of life, if your life has been perfect, solid, careful, you never know what is heading your way. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)

Earache

Having an earache all day has precipitated this expose. I know of no worse pain than an ear ache, even worse than a toothache. It so bothers me that children under three years of age are afflicted with earaches since the worst allergy, known to mankind, comes from milk. These children cannot tell you, especially real young ones that their ear aches. Your only suspicion comes if they put their hand up at their ear but, most of the time, a child‘s earache comes from allergic sensitivity to milk. I told a VA doctor in a VA hospital my attitude towards this and he told me he had cured more earaches by taking people off milk than he could ever have imagined. Milk is only good for young calves. However, research has shown that goat’s milk is a wonderful alternative.

Most of my life, I have been plagued with earaches. Not just the same ear, first one, and then the other. I have no idea how many doctors have looked in my ears with an otoscope. I always got the same answer, “Everything looks normal,” “I think it is your nerves,“ or “You keep your ears too clean,“ or, “It could be a throat problem.” There is nothing any worse for the ears than a q-tip. Keep everything larger than your elbow out of your ears. Swimmer’s ear, treated with hydrogen peroxide, is another category. Finally, past the age of 40 a specialist at Duke Hospital thought a tonsillectomy would solve the problem. Immediately after the tonsillectomy, he went in and did a rhinoplasty, nose surgery for a septum problem. This was an horrendous, painful experience which wasted time, money and made me very bitter towards Duke Hospital. I told the surgeon later, that he was not worth my going to prison otherwise I would shoot him for putting me through so much pain for nothing. Another problem in the septum surgery, I often awaken during anesthesia it has happened twice in surgery. The lack of care in the operating room in not paying attention to this is unforgivable. The surgeon and his assistants were just standing by me talking about a ball game never having any idea what I was going through under the sheets. Always, if you have any problem with anesthesia, warn the surgeon and anesthesiologist so they can observe. We usually think these incidents are a one-time failure but if you have awakened from anesthesia during surgery previously, your neurology is such that you will probably do it again.

A clinical earache is one thing but an earache brought on by the negligence of others is preventable. I can assure these young people who have their boom boxes, radios, iPods turned up many decibels too loud that their hearing will be affected at a time in life when they need hearing most, advanced age, disability with blindness or impaired vision, critical job skills. Can you even imagine my dependence on hearing since I am totally blind? Learn to listen with a critical ear. Technology has made everyone so lazy. I understand that one drives a car now mostly by GPS assistance. Some tell me that they pay no attention to street names, highway markers, anything. They just depend on an electronic system.

An earache is something that can occur anytime, anywhere. Like aspirin (the greatest miracle compound ever invented), when traveling one should always have aspirin and some ear drops and a small piece of cotton with which to pack the ear in case of an earache. There’s not much anyone can do for the earache other than entopic treatment. “Silence is golden” in a world fraught with noise, give yourself the beauty of silence real often.

Blindness

#482


As with everything on my blog, I dictate because I am totally blind, a 100% disabled, service connected, field grade medical officer, Korean War veteran. I am not dictating this for empathy or sympathy. I refuse to get the “victim mentality”. With all the blessings of life, perhaps blindness is my greatest blessing because if I were not blind I would have probably killed myself in an automobile collision long ago. Those who know me best, know my egocentric methods of doing everything in a rush. I have traveled life in the fast lane, how else could have I accomplished so much? But, when sighted, even with a small amount of vision in one eye, the sun visor on my car was lined with prescription glasses cases and I was constantly changing glasses, trying to see how to drive, always in a hurry, buying and selling real estate, taking care of patients, and speeding from place to place on speaking engagements. Some days I would speak in three places...miles apart. One time, passing all these slow people, I finally got right behind the hearse! Those who knew me knew that I was driving...a real menace on the highway because of my lack of sight, dictating into a recorder, making notes with one hand, and God only knows what I could have done with a cell phone.

So, the little sight left from the military finally went and now I have plenty of time for worship as well as thinking and I still accomplish much in absolute darkness...still in business, still investing, still buying and selling, still writing.

One cannot imagine the challenge of blindness until you are there. I truly believe some people think it is an interlude in your day when they see me out somewhere...being led around...using a white cane but it is continuous. You shave as a blind man, you dress as a blind man, you prepare your food as a blind man, you do your laundry as a blind man. You have many radios set on certain stations because you cannot see how to change the dial. You learn to move your fingers on the telephone, the cook stove, the microwave, the alarm system. Life is a challenge from the time you get up until you go to bed, and then you know the hazards of fire or emergency...particularly when you live alone.

Don't think for one minute that anyone understands or that anyone cares...least of all your family. I could count on the fingers of one hand the relatives who have been in my house during the past 50 years. I could almost count on the fingers of two hands, the friends or neighbors who have been in my house during the past 50 years. Out of their sight, out of their mind. I just wish I knew there were a few people in the world who prayed for me each day, who had that much concern but, I know that concern is a lost word in most vocabularies. It is a “me” generation. I have said on talk radio, that if anyone wants to make a quick 1000 dollars, I will give 1000 dollars to anyone who can prove that one veterans group, one civic club, one church, one social group (Red Cross, Social Services, Commission for the Blind, Blind Veterans Association) has ever done one thing for this veteran, blind citizen. I am expected to pay as much tax as anyone else. The only thing government has ever given me is the license plate for my car. In North Carolina, the license plate for a handicapped, decorated veteran is free. But, the one who was so concerned about blind people in his word (Seven times God referred to blind people in his book) has been very concerned about me. Like blind Bartimaeus, at Jericho, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” (Luke 18:38) God has had mercy on me. Thank God I have not sought justice...only mercy.

I get very exasperated with sighted people who see so little and have no appreciation for their sight. Next to life itself, your greatest physical gift is eyesight. The world does not consider you disabled unless you are in a wheel chair. Even at the veterans hospital, the blind veterans get very little attention...are expected to feel their way around, must hire someone to get them there and yet, having given your most precious sense, treated like trash. It is too late for me, but I hope the very inept Veterans Administration will treat the young warriors who are blind, better.

I never received one minute of rehabilitation training. It took 30 years for me to get the utility housing allowance for disabled veterans when I had a security system put in the house since the greatest horror of a blind person is a break in or fire and as you age, falling. For 30 years, I put cement blocks behind exits. The VA obviously did not care that I would be burned in my own house...after being commissioned straight out of school, having starved through eight years of education to be able to give specialized service in an Army hospital, to then be burdened with writing stacks of letters trying to get minimum help. Delay, deny, and wait for you to die is the mantra of VA care for veterans. I have made it very clear to the trust officer who will handle my remains, I do not want one dime of government money spent on my burial, not even a flag. The worst thing that can happen to a blind person, other than dishonest employees (two young men are in prison now for writing checks on my bank account) is having people whisper around you. In traveling the world, I never allowed people to talk to me in English around people who did not understand English. Once, two friends were speaking their language which I did not understand and I said to them, “your rudeness is only exceeded by your rudeness, you know I cannot understand what you are saying, are you talking about me?” I go to a meeting, to a church, into a restaurant, and everything gets quiet. One restaurant owner told me that he did not want a handicapped customer like me in his restaurant because it made his normal customers uncomfortable.

Blind people pay taxes like everyone else but use few things for which their taxes are spent...parks, concert halls, athletic stadiums, jails, very few disabled people in prison. Most of us make our own way. I have been greatly blessed to have traveled most of the world, using my other senses, hearing the sounds of Hong Kong, smelling Tangier, and feeling the cold of Siberia. I would like to have seen my parents before they were put into the ground. I would like very much to see my two grandsons. (Both grown, one a lawyer, one an engineer) My next sight will be in heaven and I so look forward to that.

Life is what you make of it, normal or disabled. I have told many that happiness is being able to work, going to bed at night and looking forward to working the next day. The test of the man is not what he does when he is healthy, wealthy and wise, but what he does when unhealthy...disabled.

Midnight Madness

In 1980, I attended the opening performance for “Children of a Lesser God” a Broadway play bringing out the captivity and enlightenment of deaf citizens. As a totally blind person, I was interested in knowing how deaf actors approached their roles in a Broadway setting. The largest minority of citizens are the handicapped. The largest group of disabled citizens are those who are deaf, numbering somewhere around 20 million. I have often had people ask me if I would choose blindness or deafness. The problem with deaf citizens is that they never have the intelligence potential of others because so many of the intricacies of life depend on sound.

Gallaudet University is the first all deaf university in the world, was founded in 1864 and has an enrollment of around 1,500 students each semester. Sign language is a universal language and is not specific enough to bring out the highest intelligence quotients in most deaf students. Many deaf students do not graduate from high school. There is a debatable rational of success in dealing with deaf students. There is a fear connected with deafness that most “normal people” cannot understand. As in blindness, the fear of an unknown and unexpected limits one's ability to perform tasks which the normal person considers simple. Just thinking of what could happen, very much as a race car driver usually has his problem at a turn where he and he alone encounters the fear of what could go wrong. I often think, it is very much like Christ standing outside the church looking in. I believe our blessed Lord, standing outside, where he has been placed too many times thinks, “what is wrong with those people?”

In this day, where there are so many factories all over the country, standing silent and idle, full of machinery and the tools to do many things if active and working, like the church, nothing is produced, nothing accomplished. Let us remember that the light from the stars or even light from the sun, is not strong and bright enough to penetrate a black heart. A power which many do not have but is easily assessable is the power that raised Lazarus from the dead, is the power of God, that can overturn this midnight darkness of our lives.

After Christ, on that first Easter morning, left his tomb and walked on the road with Cleopas and another unnamed disciple, he talked with them about everything that had happened in the Christian walk since the foundation of the world. They did not recognize him until the breaking of bread when he was eating with them. Would you not like to have been one of those walking with Him and hearing His words? But would you, like most of today's followers, say I would like to walk with you but I am so busy, I have another appointment? This is the midnight madness of the world in which we live, with insane actions bombarding us from all over the world every day. We do not take the time to walk and talk with Jesus, to study His word, to seek His answers for our problems but rather like the deaf, the blind, the crippled, we seek answers everywhere except the right place. We do not worship a Savior who cannot be approached in our time of midnight madness. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3

No where in scripture do we find that Christ spent any time in acts of enjoyment. It is hard to imagine Christ on the golf course or at an athletic event, when then as now, there was and is so much madness all around us. (Christ's entire ministry was at a time of horrific Roman occupation.) Our enemy now as then, is the world, the flesh and the devil. We have no record of Paul and the disciples debating with unbelievers. They lived their faith in front of them and in spite of them.

Recently, in a public building, I was going up some stair steps and a young woman came rushing down the steps, knocked me down, broke my white cane (White canes are very tough, not easily broken.) Then I heard her tell another man, coming up an adjoining hallway, to tell the old blind man she knocked down the steps that she was sorry, but she was late for a church meeting. Such is today's Christians in a world of midnight madness showing their faith at a time when Christian witness is more important than ever.

We know that no one can love like Jesus loved. We know that no one can be as Christ-like as was Christ. In a time when the state-controlled media dominates our interpretation of life and world activities, when a fear of Iran is as great as the fear of “Niger Yellow Cake” just a few years ago, we must not allow the madness of the world to bring on a midnight of doubts and unbelief affecting our faith.

The vast majority of Americans do not want financial bailouts. The vast majority of Americans do not want abortion and euthanasia. The vast majority of Americans do not want socialized health care. The vast majority of Americans do not want same-sex marriage. When the Episcopalians, Lutherans, and other religious groups ordain gay priests, this is not the madness desired by most Christians and most church goers. I refuse to believe that descent hardworking, taxpaying Americans have given up every evidence of good sense to satisfy the politically correct.