Fools Paradise

(Picture on left: Lamp that Dr. Morris studied by as a child. Picture on the right: Came from Dr. Morris' great grandparent's home, came over from England.)

Fools Paradise

            Death is now and always has been a rebellion against God. In the garden, man chose the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life. All necessary to imagine the beauty of God's world which he created, the garden of Eden, just study a beautiful flower, the texture and aroma of a rose, the remarkable sounds of bird life. God wanted to share this perfection, his creation, with his chief creation, man. And on top of all that, to actually visit with man in the garden. Like Heaven, God chooses those whom He will spend eternity.

            The great gift of free will was given to man. God established His rights with one tree. The rebel in man came forth as Adam and Eve yielded to the spirit of death instead of the spirit of life. We have the history of that fall. There is no way that Eve could have resisted that old serpent, so enticing-beautiful. He is a created being, even having enticed 1/3 of the angels in Heaven to leave with him. And, being created, knows that his time is short. He is going to attempt to take everyone he can with him to Hell. Our only hope, "greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). The entire life of the believer, child of God, is warfare against Satan (Ephesians 6:12). Our ancestors were fools in paradise, exchanging the spirit of life into the spirit of death. To this day, man, chief of God's creation, in battle with the deceit of Satan.

           

            It is in a time of trials, reaching for answers that we have our greatest conflict, wrestling match with Satanic forces of evil (1 Peter 1:7).

            It is in a time of disaster, fixing brokenness, that we have our greatest doubts and fears. In the sweat and sorrow of loss we find the greatest cost of discipleship.

            This writer thought of this many times this week as he studied the losses by hurricane Sandy. Like hurricane Katrina, those who had worked hard, so loved there possessions, and certainly those killed in the disaster, picking up the pieces and moving on.

            This blind man thought of this many times as he shoveled sand around his house several times after a storm, picked up pieces, paid for repairs. Always, in the back of my mind, my young parents and what they encountered through the storms of their lives. I keep a kerosene lamp here in my den to remind me of my childhood. Hardships have always been with us. Spoiled, lazy people of the 21st century, find coping much more difficult.

            Christians have learned that most people, if believers at all, want a God of their design. They think that God needs them. In all the struggles of life, certainly the disasters, we need the constant presence of the sovereign God of the universe. The word is preparation, spiritually and physically. Those who do not prepare spiritually usually do not prepare physically. Christians are not prepared until their neighbors are prepared. Throughout history, man kind, like the lower animals, even the ants, prepared for the winter time, disasters. "We knew there would always be a rainy day."

           

            Our domesticated animals can not prepare for themselves. So, we harvested grain-hay for the horses, mules, cows. Today's youth know little about preparation, themselves or their pets. My understanding, after a month of starvation, pets look very "tasty." One boy who worked for me said that if a nuclear or other disaster, utilities off, he would just eat in a fast food place. Another said, "I'm coming to your house because I know you have food." This antiquarian book collector-seller, sold a book on butchery. Two young college students working for me got sick just looking at how a hog or a cow is butchered. I believe this reliance on government (911, EMS, FEMA) started in the 20th century with FDR and his attempts to socialize the country, gateway to communism. At the beginning of WWII, arming troops, so many young men failing their physicals, the government established the WPA (Works Progress Administration).  I remember several young men in our community from very poor homes. Like prisoners they were kept in dormitories, fed nourishing food, used to built infrastructure. They were paid $15 dollars a month, the nation's greatest attempt to stimulate the economy.

            This writer was very young during those years but still remembers the controls on everything, particularly agriculture (agricultural stabilization corporation, ASC). I still remember my mother and grandmother crying as Roosevelt's Gestapo troops, acre-age controls, animal controls, cut down healthy growing crops, killed thousands of hogs and chickens. Livestock buried, could not be eaten by hungry people. The healthy green corn and soy beans could not be fed to hungry cows or hogs. Farmers who were paid $2 dollars a month called parity to subsidize living. So called commodities, excess cheese-lard-corn meal were passed out to the poor. I still remember, student in a public school, sorting out barrels of apples brought from the apple growing region to be given to the students in the school and their poor homes. It was there that I first heard the term, from a teacher, "A few rotten apples in a barrel will rot the entire barrel." He said, "You are seeing the beginning of rot for a nation." Taking food from one area to another, depriving the farmer of profit...GOVERNMENT CONTROLS ON EVERYTHING, MAN AND PROPERTY. AND, so it has continued, excessive taxation of producers, dependant welfare for the moochers.

            Just this morning, I was talking with a man who, every few months, takes a truck load of donated clothing-food to poor people in West Virginia. You see, nothing in our national sickness has been cured, just the warts and scars covered over. But, much worse than national wounds, what government deceit has done to the psyche of the people. Tyrants always use contrived social injustices, racial profiling, to bring distrust of every type to a society. Even on a remote South Pacific Island, a real paradise, fools, can turn a paradise into Hell with perceived societal inequalities. This writer was on one island where some of the natives had blonde hair, blue eyes, from a wrecked ship. In a north eastern county, North Carolina, one slave owner left property to his mistresses who bore him children of different colored skin, hair, eyes, there was much conflict. Foolish, people claiming victim, losing true identity, can lose everything.

            Life on planet earth, filled with the uncertainty of weather, disputes of nations, should prepare for anything (weather disasters, warfare, but certainly the inevitable claim on every human being-sickness-disease-death). As essential, preparation for the eventuality of weather. The certain hand of death. We don't want to talk or think about it but the greatest sadness in the world is the crossover to eternity, unredeemed by the grace-mercy of Jesus Christ.