Dialogue

At a time when the perimeters of every airport should be under surveillance, when checked baggage and packages should be scanned or sniffed by a bomb-seeking dog, at a time when Americans are put through scanners like radiated meats and perverts roam their hands around in your clothing. We understand the importance of dialogue, talking to one another.

I have been through many checkpoints in my life of travel, the most famous, Checkpoint Charley, dividing east and west Berlin. How well I remember the dogs, the mirrors, as they looked under vehicles. Of course, the inspections were on the east German side, no one from west Germany, west Berlin were trying to get into the east German, Russian-controlled side, where communism has made a once beautiful city and country a place of wanton desolation.

The story is told of a West German going to work in east Germany, each day passing through Checkpoint Charley. Each day he had a wheelbarrow with a bail of hay. One day a guard said, “I know you are smuggling something.” He and the other guards began to search the hay, “you might as well tell us what you are smuggling.” The west German said, “wheelbarrows.”

Over and over we have seen lives and industries ruined, such as the airline industry ruined because of our failure to communicate. My grandfather was the last farmer to sign Mr. Roosevelt's soil conservation and crop control, local farm legislation, legislation which controlled all farming operations on the family farm, acreage, livestock, marketing. He said, “it is like putting a noose around a farmers neck.” From then until now, worsening with every socialized control, American farming is disappearing. 70% of all produce is now shipped into America from other countries.

About 50 years ago, because of conflicts affecting the Christian church, the Catholic church and the Jewish community, I became active in the National Conference of Christians and Jews, (now the National Conference for Community and Justice), started in 1927 by Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes. Because every religion is interrelated historically, Judeo/Christian, Judeo/Catholic, Judeo/Islamic, all from the same beginnings. It was founded in response to anti-denominational furor around Al Smith was running for President, the conference tried to reach all areas of discrimination, particularly that affecting the disabled, the poor, and those generally disenfranchised because of class.

America is supposed to be a society of equality and justice, but Roosevelt, influenced by such communists as his vice President Henry Wallace, his Chief of Staff Harry Hopkins, Supreme Court appointments such as Hugo Black (member of the KKK), increased discrimination and lack of justice at one of the worst times in American history, the Great Depression. Today, we have a greater need for dialogue than ever before, never has the clamor about things with which we might personally disagree been greater. We seem unable to compromise, even listen, because of the noise of controversy.

I remember in the city of Hong Kong, the noisiest city of the world, how quiet it was to go into a Buddhist temple. I remember how quiet a plane becomes just before touchdown. In a country of the big band sound, fireworks, the constant insane beat and lyrics from radios tuned to low-life radio stations which abound from cars at every traffic light.

The world's attempt to show solace and sadness at times of personal community grief, the effort not to offend anyone at a graduation, this matter of a “moment of silence”. Only one who is blind misses the joy of sight, only one who is crippled misses the thrill of walking. Only one who is deaf really appreciates sound, from the first breath of the new born child, sound. We like sound, because then we know the world is alive. Our blessed Lord said, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15) At Pentecost, 50 days after our Lord's Resurrection, there should have been more hearing and less talking (tongues). I believe that God wants to hear our petitions, praises, please.

At a recent university graduation, the serenity was ruined by a moment of silence, instead of vocally pleading with God for guidance. Yesterday, Mr. Obama had a moment of silence, concerning the Saturday massacre. He being a Sunni Muslim, as Colonel Kadafi has said, “Obama is strict Muslim, he probably does not want to offend the Christians, Catholics, and other cults of America by participating in a prayer service.” We know that academics, politicians, pragmatists, look upon prayer as a moral superstition. But you will find very few, only those who are truly self-destructive, who do not believe in God. God in the spirit of man is as natural as breathing. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:28-32)

If there has ever been a time when voices should be raised heavenward, seeking the mercies of God, it is now. We have been silent too long. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (Psalm 2:12)