Courage

My first trip to Germany was after World War II. Much of the rebuilding was already underway, but the destruction of Berlin, where the plane had landed and I had gone through immigration, was evident everywhere. I had made the acquaintance of a couple, man and wife, from Minneapolis and would travel with them again in South America. They had both survived Auschwitz, and each still had their enslavement numbers as German Jews, tattooed on their upper left arm. When our vehicle went into the city and they got near the street on which they had lived as children, and from which they had been hauled away to the death chambers, both began to weep and I realized, as I had never realized previously, the depth of hurt that the human physche can endure and which can escape when face-to-face with the love of country and the love of family.

Later, on the same trip, an older black man approached me in a restaurant, because he detected my southern accent. His story was almost as heartbreaking as the Jewish couple who had survived Auschwitz. During World War I, he had come to Germany with the American army as a civilian, because blacks were not used as soldiers in the military during World War I. He had been used in a transportation type facility in Berlin and had decided to stay after the war because he had met and married a German girl. In our conversation, as one finds in most conversations with strangers, you early surmise the spiritual side of your new acquaintance. He said that he and his wife were members of a Protestant church located near a railroad station in Berlin. He said, even on Sunday mornings, while in church they could hear the screams of the German Jews as they were loaded on the cattle cars, being taken as slave labor to the I.G. Farben chemical plants near Auschwitz where, as we now know, they were worked until they were almost dead and then their bodies were disposed in the death chambers of Auschwitz. He said,” as the cars passed on the tracks to drown out the screams, we would just sing louder.” Later, they would tell the organist to play louder. He said, “Right under our noses, right under a church that should have been concerned, our fellow human beings were being hauled away like cattle to certain death, and we did nothing about it.”

For those who are daily witnessing the downfall of this republic we have the downfall of the Weirmar Republic and the establishment of Hitler's Third Reich as a glaring example of what can happen when the “SPELL” of “change” and the desire of something “new” has taken over the mentality of a country such as Nazism took over Germany and Bolshevism took over Russia, Cuba and China. Remember, Bolshevism in the long history of Russia only lasted 37 years. Remember, in the long history of Germany with its great scientists, musicians, and most of the intelligentsia of the world, Nazism only lasted 20 years. A blight of diseased thinking can overcome a people just as a blight of a disease pathogen can overcome a healthy people.

In the congress of the United States, on October 4, 2003, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, of Georgia, said, “George W. smirks, Dick Cheney sneers, Rumsfeld jokes, Powell blusters, Rice lies.” This is not the first time that Americans have been insulted by critics. The country's most popular president; the country's most memorable address was described as follows by the Chicago Times: “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances."

In 1999, John Cornwell, British author wrote the book Hitler's Pope which examines the actions of Pope Pius XII during the Nazi era and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933. It is certain that Pope Pius knew about the deaths of 275,000 German citizens (even before the 6 million Jewish Holocaust deaths) and the genocide of these citizens because they were disabled and old. Hitler, a student of Karl Marx and Margaret Sanger, all proponents of euthanasia and abortion, dispassionately witnessed the slaying of fellow human beings. Are we, as American citizens, any better? I

n our lackadaisical silliness for comfort we are apathetic as such politicians as McKinney, the media such as the Chicago paper speaking of the Gettysburg Address, religious leaders such as Pius XII and even your very neighbors support with their money and vote at the voting booth for such evil forces as those operating in your county, state and national government. We say nothing while three thousand babies are killed everyday. We said nothing when old people, in nursing homes, were left to drown in their beds during the Katrina disaster. 90% OF CHRISTIAN FAITH IS JUST RAW COURAGE. Forget the media, forget the church, forget your “do-gooder” civic groups. They know nothing of courage. The only courageous hands available are yours.

Early in my professional career, as editor of a professional journal, I was severely criticized for pointing out the metal Quonset Hut type buildings in which many of us were educated following World War II. Many of us had survived in such facilities during the wars. These surplus buildings were used on the university campus at Chapel Hill and many other schools. Much of my education was attained in barrack-type buildings such as those used at military installations and in which we received an education. Even though, at times, (this was before the time of air conditioning in any building) sweat would drop off our elbows into a puddle onto the floor. My criticism, then as now, air conditioned, carpeted classrooms have done little to improve the education product of our schools, lower grades or universities. Most of us survived un-air conditioned homes, most with heat in only one room.

Many children laugh when you say this, but most of us walked to school. Even after His crucifixion and resurrection, our blessed Lord walked six miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35 ) discussing the history of the world with Cleopas (the other man's name we do not know). In fact, our Lord walked everywhere. It surprises most young people that the first telephone in the world, was in the white house during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. It shocks many young people in today's world of cell phones and laziness in the extreme that I was reared in a community in which only one telephone existed within miles (at my cousin's country store).

The DNA molecule in every cell in the trillions of cells in every human body contains thousands of pages of family history. Your family had the courage to battle not only the enemies of this nation but weather and disease and discouragement. (The greatest weapon Satan has in his arsenal.) But, with courage, with compassion, a nation of promise and every possibility the mind of man can imagine had been presented to you. Character determines destination. We must believe that you have the character to protect and defend the constitution of this great nation. At one point in history, on Calvary, where two pieces of wood made a cross all the evil in the world converged and all the goodness of the world diverged. The choice is ours. In His graciousness He gave us liberty, free will. John 8:32

“Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory!
O glorious victory, that overcomes the world.”