No Invitation

#484

I listened to Governor Palin speak to the “Tea Party” crowd in Nashville, Tennessee. The Tea Party movement seems to have gained momentum. Where have these people been all these years when speakers and writers like me, staunch conservatives, were wailing and warning about conditions in our once great country? But, you see, the largest minority in this nation is ignored by politicians just as we are ignored by pastors, profits, poets and most of our fellow citizens. Nationally , statewide, even locally, they know how to ask me for funds but never “an invitation” to any of their parties. Many of us just don't get invitations to the clubhouse, the church house or the “big house”(prison). To the uninitiated, everything is obscure, those who have had the best life has to offer, who have gone along with the crowd, now, finally have awakened and are going to tea parties. They finally realize that the national debt is now fourteen thousand billion dollars. They now realize that America is heading in the same direction as countries in Europe...Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain...all in bankruptcy. In Greece, the people exchange drachma for euros. Like in America, more people are working for the government than in the private sector. With everyone's nose in the trough, there are just not that many to refill the trough.

Once I was in Tiger Tops, India (famous hotel up in the trees, where, at one time when there were still tigers you could watch them from your room) I rode on an elephant from a remote airstrip to this famous hunting lodge. I noticed there was a train track which went through these thousands of acres of game preserves. My guide described how, in another era, the ruling class of India and England would be brought there on a train, animals would be tethered within shooting range of the track, and these “real” sportsmen would ride along on the train hunting for tigers eating the tethered animals. This is a wonderful hunting “invitation”.

In the early 1960s a prominent NC Surgeon/Senator (Dr. David Rose), who owned a large game land in coastal NC would bait the land with corn so his prominent DC Democrat friends could shoot birds from their blinds. The news got out about these Democrat hunting sportsmen and the way they hunted birds in Eastern NC.

Yesterday, we learned that the President of the University of North Carolina...a former member of the board of directors of failed General Motors...who raised tuition at UNC many times...will become Mr. Obama's commission chief to get spending under control. I knew Erskine's father, Skipper Bowles...a more abrasive and corrupt politician than even his Democrat-prominent son...Democrats at their well controlled Democrat trough in NC who have never had a want or had to work for anything.

I was probably the most innocent youngster to ever matriculate at UNC. I remember rush week...the time when social fraternities pick out the men they want in their elitest group...by invitation...having been recommended by some prominent person at home or somewhere, a former fraternity member. I knew then as now this “country boy” with cow manure still on his shoes, would never fit in with the invitation only crowd. The invitations for fraternity rushing were given out at Gerrard Hall. Although I would never become a member of any of these elitest fraternal groups at least I have been blessed to become a member of the Gerrard Society(significant givers to the University).


I have had my fill of fellow professionals and even relatives who think that social memberships in country clubs, golf clubs and hunting clubs are more important in life than the invitation extended to God's “elect” to serve him in a place of worship, a Christian institution or even, in his name, a social, civil, prerogative(civic club, scouts, boys and girls clubs, facility for the elderly).

I have known many “born again”, committed, Baptists, who after getting successful in business or otherwise, became Episcopalians...because it is more socially acceptable to behave mildly in an Episcopal or Catholic religious group.

Many have never learned that “we are living Epistles”. We represent God in everything we do. I have been active in many civic service clubs...state officer in the Jaycees, at their parties, knowing there were many there aware of my testimony, instead of beer I would drink a soft drink. One of my fellow church members said once, “Tom, you take religion too seriously”.

In the military the only Chaplains I ever saw...even in an Army hospital were at the officer's club, wobbling around with a cocktail in their hand. One Major General, a combat veteran of WWII, told me he had never had a Chaplain speak to him about his soul.

This is the first day of “Lent”. This is Ash Wednesday. For the next 40 days mostly Catholics observe the time before the crucifixion of Christ by renewal and self denial. It is a time of repentance. Lent means springtime. The “fasting” of Lent shows ones willingness to give up something in honor of Christ just as Christ gave up his life for us...Easter, the second greatest event in the history of the world. If Christ were not raised form the dead, our faith is in vain. It was the fact that Christ was raised from the dead as he had said, as had been prophesied, that led a hand full of Christians to change the world. It is important, during this season of Lent, whether you are Catholic or not, to realize that the same power that raised Christ from the dead, the same power that enabled Christ to accomplish his miracles, the same power with which God created the world, the same power that threw the thousands of starts into space, is available to you when you invite his Holy Spirit within your being. I have traveled the world. I have seen poverty such as man cannot believe. I have seen unbelievable wealth. But the greatest miracle is the invitation mere man can can have...a mere creature...from the creator of the universe.