Zwieback

It was my first trip to Germany, not that long after WWII and the Korean conflict. At the time I still had some vision in the left eye. West Berlin was well under restoration, even then on the Ku'damm (Kurfurstendamm) there were beautiful stores, prosperous-appearing people. The great Kaiser Wilhelm Cathedral was still in ruins (now, a memorial), but they had built the great Europa Center. At the hotel, I met an American Jewish couple from Minneapolis, who had survived Auschwitz, both still had their numbers tattooed on their arms. They were sent to the Nazi prison camp as children in 1938, so they were both about my age. The one thing that has always amazed me about people who had undergone such horrendous treatment...they could still laugh. He was in the wholesale plumbing business, manufacturing garbage disposals, and they had been very successful.

They asked me to go to East Germany with them, where they had been reared as children. This was the first time I went through Checkpoint Charlie, even though I went through it several times. I still have not forgotten the growling dogs on leashes, the mirrors looking under the vehicle. The vehicle and driver checked totally before we were allowed to proceed, as if someone would want to escape from West Germany to East Germany.

It was like black and white: West Berlin so prosperous, rebuilding; East Berlin still so destitute and destroyed. As the driver went down one street, this couple began to weep. She said, “this is the street on which we lived as children”. This was their first homecoming. After another block or two she began to shriek, there was an old lady on the street, walking with a cane. She said, “there is my aunt Sarah. I thought she was dead.” They got out of the car and I have never known such sobbing and hugging. The aunt had been to the store to buy Zwieback bread, she insisted that I eat a piece of the bread.

I remember Zwieback bread because my parents, probably from their European heritage, bought Zwieback for their children to eat when young, teething. The couple had lost contact with the aunt because in the craziness of Communism there was no way to investigate anything. The miracle: that the aunt still live closed by and just happened to be on the street at that particular time.

In everything, even in dealing with Nazism, Communism, the Holocaust...the mercies of the Lord endure forever (Psalm 118) This Psalm, 118, is exactly half way through the Bible, everything in God's Word on either side of this Psalm proves that the mercies of the Lord endure forever.

Another year, I met the same couple in South America, Rio de Janiero at the time of Carnival, I went with them to visit a friend from Auschwitz living in Rio, an artist/canvas-painter, I purchased two paintings from him, which I have since sold. As they told me, over and over, of the horrors of Auschwitz where most of their families were killed, they often quoted the words of Malcolm Muggeridge, “human life is always sacred.”

Life is a matter of looking back. Looking back, we know that many “so-called” facts in science and history were wrong, but at the time it was the only knowledge they had. Looking back, Jews, even American Jews, understand the ambitions of Nazism, just as the Jews, following the orders of Joshua (he, following the orders of God) marched around the fortress city of Jericho, they had no idea what they were doing. They learned that you trust...to obey is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22).

Looking back, we will see that “homeland security” began in Nazi Germany. Every time you go through inspections, scanning, remember that it began in Nazi Germany. The poisons from chem-trails in the air, fluoride in your drinking water, leeching toxins from plastics, your lack of ozone which purifies the earth, totalitarianism, it all began in Nazi Germany. Safety is not the absence of danger, but the presence of God. You can always look backwards and see the hand of God.

In my youth, our country church, and even the churches in the city, were the refueling stations for the soul...Sunday best, the mantle of the God. Looking back, only a mental midget would say that things have changed for the better, only for the worst, life on the farm or in the city, school, college, the church. Colleges counting numbers instead of making numbers count, in most churches you do not even see a Christian cross, political life is a matter of compromise, you do what the big boys want or you are sacrificed...the monetary fund official accused of rape, the big boys were finished with him (him wanting to become the president of France) as well as Schwarzenegger, as well as bin Laden, as well as Gaddafi.

In every Marian apparition, whether Lourdes (1858), Fatima (1917), Guadalupe (1531), and all the others, it was always peasants who had the vision. The church verified the supernatural, and millions visit the sights every year. We know about the miracles at Lourdes and yet there are over 200 tourist traps lining the roads, selling everything imaginable, even a Virgin Mary cigarette lighter. Looking backward, we know that God moves in mysterious ways; His wonders to performs. (Hymn, William Cowper)