Tartuffe

“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue”

-- Moliere

This writer believes that 90% of Christian faith is just raw courage. Thank God I was blessed with courage at a very young age because I have drawn from my storage vault of courage in every area of my life-- whether it be achievement in education, the rigors of military service, the challenge of blindness, the ruthlessness of family, friends and associates, or learning the fundamentals of many types of business. Life is not easy-- a hectic interlude in an otherwise-peaceful nonexistence-- and it is, in every way, what you, yourself, make of it. Many choose to leach off the world; others, in spite of life's lottery, determine to accomplish what God wants accomplished for those He chose for life.

I still remember sitting, frozen in fear, at that French class in Caldwell Hall, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  I knew the fundamentals of the French language from that small country high school (13 in my graduating class), but I was not prepared for the Advanced French Literature class in which I was placed. I wish I could remember the professor's name. He must have realized my fright, because he never called on me to participate in the class. The better prepared students, from the state's elite high schools and expensive prep schools, could chatter in French in such a way that would have made Parisians envious. I still remember Moliere's, Tartuffe, those quatrains of prose, which, even when translated into English, did not make much sense. The line I remember best is about "blind hypocrisy."

I am still bothered that many young preachers, politicians, and even poets, thrive on the criticism of hypocrites. The one word not allowed in the U.S. House of Representatives is "hypocrisy." I suppose all politicians know that they are hypocrites.  For instance, today's news is so concerned with the chemical poisonings in other countries, when little or nothing is said about the chemical destruction of babies in the mother's womb in their own nation (53 million babies, the most innocent of life, have killed in America since the supreme court decision of 1973)-- to say nothing of the slow death visited on so many patients through the chemical toxicity involved in prescription medications. We could all spend much time criticizing each other, the world, flesh, and devil. It has taken a lifetime for me to realize-- and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong-- that most pew warmers in church houses, justice types in court houses (judges, lawyers), and academicians in school houses have their eyes bandaged blind and their ears stopped up about the realities of the world around them.

As this writer has stated in so many blogs, this totally blind veteran, sightless, no longer able see whets going on, listens intently to everything he hears-- even other people's business on their cell phones. My best friend is the radio-- particularly programs involving Christian ministry and political talk. I get so distressed when I hear a good program pertaining to the ministry, the cause of Christ, God's redeeming word. Without fail, just as my heart rejoices at what I have heard, the hook is inserted-- someone begging for money or attempting to sell a book. No matter what time of year, "Summer is bad for donations...people on vacation," and later, around Christmas, "We are so desperate for money because everyone is spending their funds on Christmas," and still later, "Donations are so slow because everyone is spending their money because of a bad winter." If a ministry or status group does not foresee and prepare for their messaging on media, why start? Believers are led, by the Holy Spirit of God, to give. Unbelievers, whether it involves religious or secular programming, are made just that much more hostile by the pressure techniques of attempting to extract/ massage pocketbooks. The world has become accustomed to the pick-pocket techniques of the government-- with their permits, licenses and taxation. You cannot out-give God. The Christian knows the importance of giving to God's work.

Perhaps the greatest blindness-- stopped ears-- involves warfare. World War II was the last declared war by the Congress of The United States. According to the constitution, before Americans go to war-- or congress can finance a war-- there must be a declaration of war. Yet the United States of America, reeling in a $17 to 120 trillion debt (sources differ on entitlements; we know it is a debt that can never be repaid), sent 55,000 to die in the horror story of Korea-- around the Chosin Reservoir, frozen American bodies were stacked like cordwood. On a monument in Washington D.C. are inscribed the names of 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. In Iraq, 4,000 Americans were killed and 1 million Iraqis. In Afghanistan, 2,000 Americans were killed and hundreds of thousands of Afghanis. And so it goes: Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt, Balkans, etc. None of these wars were declared, and all were absolute failures. You see, it is not just those of us who are physically blind, who have no vision, who cannot see what is going on. Mothers love children in war-torn nations. Pain and suffering is the same, regardless of skin color-- or whether you are injured with a missile from a plane, a drone, or an IED.

Blindness is not always physical. My friend Kathryn, blind from birth, and her guide dog, Alma, were standing at a crosswalk in the city. Alma was her best friend; Kathryn did not have a living relative. She told me that not one church, civic group, or "do-gooder" organization had ever done anything for her. Along came a car load of young people, radio blasting. They ran over Kathryn and Alma, killing Alma, and inflicting injuries on Kathryn, which she suffered through, until her death, four years ago. The hymn writer said, "Open my eyes, that I might see the glimpses of truth Thou hast for me."