Calluses

In these "Rock n' roll" days of high living-- cell phones, fast foods, and hooking up--  most young people think you are crazy when you speak about the great depression-- which was a reality to old folks of my generation... it was just 80 years ago.

I still remember my father re-soling our shoes-- cutting the soles from a sheet of leather, using a powerful/ sticky substance. At least we could buy the materials. Black children and their parents wore shoes inserted with cardboard/ old tire rubber.

Until their deaths, many of my old uncles-- and other old men in the community-- wore shoes (brogans) which had been sliced, to make them wearable with their bunions. Men and women of that generation, wearing their often-too-small shoes, were afflicted with foot problems from which they could never recover.

I still remember one of my patients, a hard-working black woman, Ms. Daisy Thompson, talking with me on the condition of her parents' feet. She said, " Doctor, my 'feets' have got to take me a long way. I do without other things to have good shoes."

This writer still remembers one African (gorilla )safari where I was in the bush in Zaire photographing gorillas protected by African Pygmys. These men had never worn shoes. Their feet looked more like animal hooves than human feet. In New Guinea, this traveler saw men walk across hot coals with bare feet. I saw people walking bare footed on ice slopes in Bhutan. And, as I have described in other articles, I will never forget the young bare-foot children on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan-- their fathers and mothers carrying all their worldly possession in bags over their shoulders.

In a world of the "haves" and the "have-nots," where poor people experience pain just as much as the elitist, I have never been able to understand those who bring pain on themselves through bad habits, addictions, etc.

In other articles I have described the many years at my "pied d' terre" in Manhattan-- where I lived some weeks each year. Back then (40 years ago) the drug culture was just getting started. One heroine addict, attempting to break himself from buying on the street, chained an arm to a radiator in his apartment. However, when the overwhelming, craving appetite came over him, his other hand disconnected the radiator, and here he was on the street buying, attached to a radiator. This is a supreme callus on the brain. Much more horrendous than one on the foot or cancer on any other part of the body.

So it is with addictions to cigarettes, sexual activity, and the greatest addictive agent of all, the liquor bottle. The worst experiences of my life were seeing alcoholics totally enslaved by "demon rum." Every slave of alcohol started with the first drink. Every slave of tobacco, the first cigarette. We live in a country where 50% of the people are diabetics, every cancer feeding on sugar.

Ancient pagans threw Christians to the lions. Now, a world of worldly religionists-- church members more interested in the world flesh devil... very interested in the activities of their unsaved friends-- more interested in the cause and effect of politics and their own economics than the cause of Christ. Real Christians, and the church, thrown to the socialized preachers and their unsaved poachers. The tares have taken over the pews and the pulpit does not wish to offend them-- particularly, if they are community socialites, able to make large contributions (of course as a tax write off.) One thing we should all learn from that great California preacher, Dr. Gene Scott and his great University Cathedral is as he said, "If you give in order to get a tax write off, you have already gotten your reward." God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)  He also said, "Don't ask this church to give you any type of documentation for you to give to the government about what you 'supposedly' gave to God." Another thing we might learn from Dr. Scott in this day of children misbehaving in the sanctuary, children in the university cathedral sat with their parents until they were married. He did not allow any misbehavior of any type. He would stop in the middle of a sermon and ask an usher to escort the offender to the door. If people started leaving while the invitation was given at the end of the service, the great preacher, Dr. R.G. Lee of Bellevue Baptist-- a church with thousands of members, where this writer was active for many years-- would say, "Stare them down! We work the entire week for this time of the week, and they are in a hurry to get to a cafeteria." Lives are effected by calluses at the church house, school house, most certainly at the courthouse, and even at your house.

Just as a child's vision pattern is determined by age five, so a child's future character is established by age six. Children need a father and mother, boys need a father to teach them how a man should act, treat a woman. Boys need the tenderness of a mother, what to look for in a wife and girls should certainly know how a man is supposed to treat a woman. Hollywood and the internet have brought calluses onto the minds of young people. They willingly accept the gay agenda promotions of same-sex marriage, the euthanasia of the unborn, and old people who are no longer attractive and take up so much of the country's resources. The fastest growing segment, those 85 and above, use more healthcare resources than all others combined. Remember, the "old folks" planted the flowers which you are picking; they bare and wear the calluses of leaving to you advantages which you enjoy.

Calluses show hard work. This writer always enjoyed shaking the callused hands of a working person. I had the undertaker place my hand on my parents' hands in their casket. Neither ever had a manicure, only knew the value of hard work, leadership, and caring for others.