HAYLOFT

O beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

- American The Beautiful, by Katharine Lee Bates

Katharine Lee Bates wrote the hymn America The Beautiful while standing at Pike's Peak looking across the Rocky Mountains. Born in 1859, the same year as my great-grandfather, she had graduated and taught at Wellesley College. Perhaps no hymn about America better describes the patriotic fervor which most of us feel. We have ALL put God on trial when we ourselves should be on trial. This writer believes life is such an uneven playing field, some of our fellow man so blessed with ancestry, wealth, mental ability, looks, a total lack of flaws outwardly and inwardly. One of the first things we must get straight in our mind, LIFE IS NOT FAIR. The very worst time in human civilization, a time of persecution – decadence was when God Himself, walked on this earth. Jesus submitted to the insults of mankind when He could have with just a thought – word, just as when the world was formed, have wiped out every enemy. Across the brook Kidron, on the Mount of Olives, when Judas (His paid betrayer) came along with troops and religionists to bring Him to “their” justice, He tells us Himself that He could have brought down twelve legions of angels. Just as one angel snuffed out the lies of 184,000, soldiers of Sana Cribs Syrian army, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

I repeat, this has been the greatest “failure” of my commitment. Even today, this totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer of the Korean conflict stands in disdain looking at the “easy chair” patriots of political privilege. Every holiday these political partisans, those in places of “entitlement”, prestige because of who they know, not what they know, vacation while the “survivalists” of disenfranchisement work.

On the farm where I was raised, my father before me, we never saw a government – law enforcement – social services vehicle. My father said he had never known a sheriff's department vehicle to pass on the road. The only time we ever saw the Sheriff was at a big funeral where he could get out and pretend to direct traffic thinking those poor, ignorant people would vote for him. And so it goes. The manager of the local liquor store in this town, retired with $16,000 a month retirement. A chief of police, West Point, New York, living next to me, retired with $100,000 per year. Books have been written about such inequities, federal – state – local.

This type thing burned my conscience as a young man, having witnessed the inequities at our state university, haven for the state's elitist. At least fortunate whites could attend. Not the sons and daughters of hardworking, tax paying, God fearing black citizens. On the road, the farm on which I was reared, a dirt road without electric or telephone lines, as an example, one family to which was born a genetically crippled child...even as a teenager, a total baby...diapers, etc. Mrs. Mayo went to the church, her husband would take her there and come back for her, but God being on trial, no one else in the family ever believed in God because of what they saw in this one child. Further down the road another family, the Hooks, tenants, only the mother went to church, the father worked constantly. But, he did prepare a son for college and this PhD son died recently. Further down the road, a black family, the Blackmans, they could get no credit from the bank, the bank envious - anxious for their farm. Their children, living in the north, made all financial arrangements for their parents. Further down the road, a very poor family with small children, the Bass', totally destitute with disease. As a child would die, the father would put the body in a “fish box” (a box in which fish, in ice, were brought from a market in town to the local country store) and bury the child. Another family, the Broughtons, shack back in the woods, boys all marked by beatings from a drunkard father.

My young, questioning mind, nothing but inequalities, parents – grandparents – great-grandparents, frugal living, always depending upon God, and in my mind never getting back very much from God. What is the use in living? With a plow line, I planned to hang myself from the hayloft but then, God told me in no uncertain terms the grief this would bring to my mother.

Just think what would have happened if I had done such a stupid thing. God had chosen me for better things, wanted me to travel the world, give life to an outstanding son and outstanding grandsons, healthcare to many people. Before the foundation of the world, as unworthy of His grace, through faith He saw me as a speaker, writer, giver of time, talent, treasure to His magnificent work.

I am told that barn is still on the farm, the hayloft is still there. Even from the gouging heathen, satanic forces who rule this world, we who are His, who wear the whole armor of God (Eph. 6) must have a vertex of memory to remind us of what life is all about...a hay loft.