Dignity

There were many great parades in history. When Caesar crossed the Hellespont (today known as the Dardanelles) returning from his military exploits in Africa, crudely built cages containing African animals never before seen in Europe. The parade of animals and men all the way to Rome. The giraffes, totally unknown to western civilization, were walked. From Rome, one giraffe was walked all the way to Place de la Concorde in Paris, France. Peasants lined the roadways all the way just to glimpse such an animal.

After military conquest, to further add to the indignity of defeat, soldiers of defeated armies, with officers in front, walking naked, chained together behind the victorious army.

One of my ancestors, Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Preamble of the Constitution, Ambassador to France, witnessed the indignities of the French Revolution, when naked men were dragged through the streets of Paris. He said, “such makes one feel inhuman”. In recent years, American soldiers were dragged naked through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia. Needless to say, some are not offended or embarrassed by nudity... beaches, strip shows. Nudity in the Moulin Rouge, Paris, is done with some taste. Nakedness always accompanies sin, such as, nakedness of the three million children of Israel, delivered from bondage, at Mount Sinai, dancing naked around a gold calf.

Embarrassing to every Christian, the very thought of our blessed Lord, redeemer, crucified naked on a cross. The artist has been so modest to paint a strip of cloth around his private area. But, He was crucified naked, as were the two others on crosses. Defiled, without dignity... his mother, and two other Mary's, his beloved disciple John, all at the foot of the cross, His other disciples had fled. Barabbas, who he replaced, was again robbing on the streets. This picture of indignity should bother every Christian that, on this side of the cross, the world, the flesh, the devil, still chooses robbers and is not embarrassed by indignity, the indignities of the non negotiables, abortion, same sex marriage, homosexuality, euthanasia, cloning, and the murder of innocence as in stem cells.

I have heard the screams of burn victims in army hospitals. The screams of children abused by parents. There are sights and sounds we wish we could erase from our minds. Such was the screams of a young woman, being beaten by her father in a housing project when I was, as a young intern, making a call with an ambulance. Surely, her family, neighbors, heard her begging him to stop.

I crossed the Berlin wall several times, checkpoint Charlie, before the wall came down in 1989. I will never forget the indignity of dogs searching-sniffing, guards molesting. Some of the most frightened people I have ever known boarded planes in Entebbe, Uganda and other African places after extreme, undignified body searches. Unbelievable that Americans, without shame, are permitting the TSA to do the same to their fellow citizens here. There are indignities enough in hospitals, mental institutions, mortuaries. The diseased and the dead deserve as much dignified treatment as the very alert and the very much alive. I cannot reconcile to VIEWING the dead, even the decomposing Gadaffi in a meat freezer, should have been treated better. Gadaffi, still doing business with America, still kept in check by the likes of Condoleza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, the darlings of all such liberals as Farrakhan, Carter, Obama. Decomposing body, buried with his son in an unmarked grave in the desert. After all, for 42 years he was head of state, like Bin Laden, never a trial. Just assassinated at the direction of Obama. American liberals have a strange way of dignifying decadence, as long as it suits there purpose, money funneled into a Swiss bank account for Pakistan's Perez Musharraf as long as he kept a lid on things. Many believe that JFK and RFK were eliminated by their own country when showing too much curiosity.

I am so sickened by government-produced ads concerning dignifying veterans. Go to a veterans hospital facility and learn firsthand the indignities afforded living veterans.

I am sickened that many are shown honor and dignity after death... hard-working, God-fearing, tax-paying parents, who sweated to support ungrateful children. Many showed ungratefulness while they were alive but tossed funeral wreaths at their caskets when they died. (I have known mothers never given a posy while alive but her casket covered with expensive arrangements after death, flowers she could not see or smell) Like politeness, good manners, expressions of thankfulness for accomplishment cost so little. The artist Van Gogh painted 1700 canvasses in his lifetime, He sold one for $85. Galleries and museums are full of his paintings, he hears nothing of the praise. His last painting sold at auction, sold for $40 million.

Did Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus, actually believe they were serving God when Jesus visited them in their home? In giving to anyone, anything, whether a family member or beggar on the street, always think of the blessedness of being able to give. Giving as unto Jesus, with love and dignity.