Gently Into the Night

Many have asked me if my other senses became more active as I became more blind. Both, from a neurological study stance, and from the experience itself, I can tell you that your other senses become more acute as you lose one. I hear everything, many things I do not want to hear.

I heard an atheist Jewish friend say to a political power-broker to whom I had been introduced, and as I walked away I heard the Jewish friend say, “he is very religious, believes in fairy tales.” This is the attitude of many atheists, even Jews. Judaism the most historic, spiritual belief system in the world. I came into contact with most of the world's great religions as I traveled the world. Never did I demean any of them: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. I certainly did not understand many of these religions, such as the Jains in India. At Jain temples, people with nets all over them, so afraid of killing anything, even an insect.

The Europe my ancestors left, seeking religious freedom in a new world, was very different from the Europe of today. The world preceding the early landings in America, was one of despotism an effort at desperate survival. Behind hedge rows, in mountainous caverns, living in ancient hubbles of every type, the poor people were just trying to eke out a living. More often than not, slaves of parasitic government and a paralytic church. When the people learned to read, when some literature in the Bible was made available to them, when they learned to socialize and discuss, the inner struggle for freedom and worship began to flow from the human heart. With tyrannical rulers, both in government and church, the people must be kept in servitude, showing freedom of will, showing any disobedience, the people were hung or burned at the stake. Such a tyrannical government-church social structure would not permit prison, prisoners eat, since the message of the church, then as now, has always been liberty, people begin to flee, such a miserable existence.

My ancestors were some of the first Europeans to flee persecution. They, like the other pilgrims landed on the east coast of America, thankful for the opportunity just to survive, just to work, just to worship.

Most of the earliest settlers, did what they had done in Europe, attempted to survive from the land, as farmers. In order to grow food, they had to till the soil, they had brought a few tools with them, by ship, as well as a few household implements. From these early beginnings, building crude structures in which to live, tilling an inhospitable soil, learning to eat much of their food from wilderness and the sea, with the help of Native Americans, many survived.

It was from these farming opportunities that business opportunities developed, everything prospered from need, a need for stores, public service such as doctors and teachers, and on bends in the rivers; rivers, the best form of travel in America, and bays that lent themselves to harbors. Slowly life and commerce emerged in this great democratic republic. It was all a matter of human mind directing and developing the work ethic which led to buildings, bridges, roads and eventual industry.

After my fore bearers left Morristown, NJ which they had founded, and moved south, it was left up to the men of the community to build dirt roads so that people could get around, it was left up to the men of the community to build the school house, the church houses, the courthouse, and the buildings of commerce which they needed for their family in a sound, progressing society. The men and women who produced the families, who gave leadership in the community, proposed and enacted statutes and laws, rules and regulations which they needed for their protection.

Today's political power brokers: local, state, and federal, I would say 99% do not know the honor of hard work. Most of these politicians and the bureaucrats they appoint to run things, have never used an outhouse, know nothing of the preservation of food, have never wanted for anything. They think food magically appears in the store, designer clothing magically appears in the shops, prestigious furniture magically appears in warehouses. The voyeurs of social change know nothing of the book-sweat, the knowledge required for licensure in caring for patients, wiring or plumbing a house, keeping a motor vehicle going, or producing anything of utilitarian value.

50% of Americans pay no income tax, most do not even offer to help push the wagon in which they riding, and which the other 50% are pulling. The white collar welfare worker, those elected, or appointed, will lie, cheat, and steal to keep their nose in the trough. It is the hardworking, god-fearing, taxpaying citizen who should be respected. It is the man or woman with guts enough to wear their country's uniform, use the armaments of offense and defense, but the heroes of the faith, the heroes of the family, the heroes of the working class, the heroes of the defending class, NOW, unlike the past, are the last to receive recognition, the last to receive any level of respect. The last standing as a ship of state, captured and captained by a deck of fools, sink.

Christopher Hitchens, always testy and tasteless in his English accent, is dying with cancer. He said that he had attempted to bring science against superstition, he seems to offer no comfort to concerned about acceptance of any faith. His brother, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian. Hitchens, like so many atheists, are in a dilemma, they want to go gently into the night with ambiguity. The Christian song says, “neutral you can not be”, the very least the atheist could do is admit that the greatness of America comes from the goodness of Americans. Goodness, mostly from god-loving, sin-hating Christians who were willing to deny sinful self and work for this great nation under the umbra of God's precious promises of prosperity. This nation has been blessed because God has blessed his own, think of what this nation would have been like if left to the scurrilous satanic forces of atheism.