Bullet Proof

Bullet Proof

Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee

-- John Donne

            God wanted this writer, though early in life disabled by blindness, to travel and sense His world.  So, eight round the world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries, using my remaining senses to study the world...the impoverished, the decadent, the prosperous.

            Man is the only animal who knows he is going to die, man is the only animal who can blush. So many men spend their lives thinking of dying.  Not as much now as in the past, because men have learned to preserve health through technologies which have led to longer life spans, but no real change in human nature.  It breaks my heart that people so blessed with long lives think they are bullet-proof... that nothing is going to affect them.  

             

            Many live thinking they will live forever, the perils of life (disease-accidents) are no respecters of persons. There was a time when life was very simple, just food, shelter, and exercise.  With prosperity the three big ones, heart attack-cancer-stroke, are taking their toll.  Few human beings escape cancer, it is just a matter of how long your immune system can prevent its diagnosis. Like the fear of dying, the fear of disease cannot control our living, yet we should never forget that death is just one breath away.   

            Almost daily I hear a last name, a city, which brings back the memory of someone I have known, like wonderful memories of wonderful people.   I have learned to understand unbelieving real men who have gone through the trials and trauma of raising families, building businesses, cultivating farms, defending a nation, who do not want to hear preachers or politicians who have never done anything.  It is like listening to a catholic priest tell you how to raise your children.  Some of the best men I have ever known did not possess ancestral genes, had never gained anything from family wealth and position.  Like all of us, the race was theirs, and they had done the best they could with it.  I remember two great generals who could not read nor write (Nathan Bedford Forrest of the American Civil War and Pablo of the Spanish Revolution) they did their best with what they had.   How many of us have done as much?  

            We get so tired of hypocrisy, a word not allowed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Friedrich Neitzsche (of 'God is dead' fame) said, "You do not challenge Christianity for its truthness, just Christians for their unhappiness".  If Christians really believed what they profess to believe, they would have a perpetual smile on their faces, they would be the happiest people in the world.  Christians are the only people on earth who are truly bullet-proof. 

            We hear much about accomplishment and heroes.  In my book, the real heroes, people of accomplishment, those who have run the race of life with integrity, gone through the trials of raising-protecting families, able to recover after financial and other setbacks and still have a sense of humor, to be able to laugh.  It breaks my heart that gifted men, so accomplished in every way never know the transforming-redeeming power of the Holy Spirit of God, after such a productive life here on earth, stumbling at the Cross of Christ, will die and spend eternity in hell... men blessed with so much, the gravitas of survival skills here on earth, will simply throw it all away, never knowing or believing, that their most important decision in life is making sure the welfare of their eternal soul.

            It has been this writer's unforgettable, marvelous experience to view from the outside many of the world's great cathedrals and churches.  The church exterior does not escape the smut and smog of a great city, the walls look dreary, but, going inside the church or cathedral, sun invading the great stained glass windows, the building has an entirely different appearance.  Our bodies are the temple of God, they get very smeared with smut and the debris of living on the outside, but it is the inside that makes the difference.  It is so important to treat your body like a temple, not a dumpster.  20% of the world's population have never known good potable drinking water.  It is what we eat and drink that determines our health.  Like good food, good mental processes determine our mental health.  It is from the interior of a man that defilement takes place. (Mark 7:15 "there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man".)  The mortality rate is still 100%, all of us will experience clinical death.  But, for the Christian, we do not experience spiritual death, bullet proof, living forever.

"For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."

- Romans 14:8, King James Bible "Authorized Version", Cambridge Edition