Blitzkrieg

Life is just a bowl of cherries Don't take it serious, it's too mysterious You work, you save, you worry so But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

                                    Doris Day - Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries

Warsaw after the destruction of WWII

            God is not buying what the world is trying to sell you. Life is not just a "bowl of cherries." One of God's great gifts to you is the freedom to choose. There is such a waste of time in youth-- only realizing this when you get old. When searching the tombstones in old cemeteries, the bookshelves in old libraries, you realize that those chosen by God to have life, lived and accomplished and then went on to a far better, or far worse, place. Everything tells us that life is not over with clinical death.

            I have a beach home on Wrightsville Beach, in NC. It is known as one of the prettiest beaches in the world and is a favorite for movie making. Drug sales were going on across the street from me, during the time of the "War on Drugs." I do not have sight, but others who can see told me it was a Police Department operation. Young people, not old enough to drive, would come out of the house to their bicycles, with their drugs wrapped in toilet paper. I finally went to the city council member responsible for law enforcement and reported the situation. My next-door neighbor, staying up most of the night, due to a health problem, saw the police officers when they flattened my tires with ice picks. They did this to a blind veteran, who, at that time, owned much property and paid much tax on Wrightsville Beach which helped to pay their salaries.

            This writer has often said to God-fearing, tax-paying citizens, "Do legislators ever pass any law that helps you?" Most laws cost and cost dramatically those who keep the law, those who work hard, those who live responsibly. We tire of subsidizing and enabling the failings of our fellow man.

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ."

                                    -Galatians 6:2

            We have been fed a constant diet of collateral damage-- that the innocent must suffer in the punishment of a few. We hear this proclaimed over and over in modern warfare. An explosion from the air (drones or planes), explosions from munitions, which kill mothers and children, elderly and disabled. And all in the name of saving the world-- rescuing people from bad things.

            This world traveler has seen the mental scars of warfare-- scars on the minds and souls of real people. We know that the mind controls pain, and that the mind can cause pain to go away. In a mental asylum in Israel, in a mental hospital in Russia, I saw people who could not erase the pain.

           

            On the mainland of China (I have traveled through China three times since it was reopened), in Russia (I crossed Russia on the Tran Siberian Railroad), and in many other places I have seen human slavery, which to many, would seem worse than death.

            Following the traditional fighting of World War I, combatants in World War II were unprepared for the surprise, encirclement and confusion of a blitzkrieg-- heavy armor, aircraft bombing, irrational suffering inflicted on an enemy, such as was involved in Europe. It is obvious that America is not prepared for the untraditional blitzkrieg type attacks that will be involved in the next war. Our soft, spoiled populous cannot even imagine the horrors which can be inflicted by an enemy that has such a hatred for the "great Satan" (the way America is referred to by most of the world, 1.3 billion Muslims, as well as communist hordes in China, Cuba, N. Korea, etc.) Think what will happen in just a few days, when the electrical grids have been shut down-- no electricity, no running water, no welfare or social agencies of any type. We are a withering, muttering target, a target from all the hatred of the world, brought on by our incessant warfare. We have refused to protect our own borders. We do not know our own neighbors, much less the implanted enemies from foreign countries.

            In shock, totally demoralized, the United States of America will quickly surrender. I have found that my friends and relatives will not even recognize the challenges of their past. They will never admit that their ancestors were reared in poverty. Just because each member of their family has a cell phone, lives in an electrified house, too good to cook, rather eating out all the time, insist on fighting Satan in their church, from air-conditioned foxholes, by some strange theology, has a bellhop God (available only when called upon), and in spite of conservative rhetoric, wants all their needs met by government agencies, uses patriotism-Christianity-integrity only as an ideology, not a moral compass. They cannot believe that God was serious when he told us to take up the cross he has given us, and follow Him. It is much more fun to follow movie stars, sports figures, and pretending politicians.

            This writer has seen, in a dream, what Washington DC looks like after its bombardment, the great buildings on the ground, a great cement or marble column sticking up here or there. The IRS, with 90,000 employees, the NSA with 40,000 will have survival tunnels, with millions of MREs (meals ready to eat). Previous generations, our forefathers, established our survival around the constitution and the sovereign word of God. In my lifetime, I have seen all absolutes wither on the vine and die. Small denominations, storefront churches, gasping political groups (The Tea Party), have attempted to bring sanity to our country. But, those who have enslaved the masses for their own benefit (military industrial complex, Big Pharma, the cultural elite, secular media) have effectively destroyed every vestige pertaining to the salvation of good and the damnation of evil.

            In Botswana, Africa, this writer saw a great mother Eagle teaching her eaglets to fly from her nest. She would knock them out of the nest, and just before they neared the ground, would swoop down on her large wings, and catch them up-- over and over again, until the eaglets could fly. It is long past the time for the American people to learn survival. Our ancestors, with nothing, landed on this great land of opportunity, and survived. When I was a child, only 12% of the nation's population had electric power. If your church, your government, your neighbors, loved you as they say they do, as they are supposed to love, they would be not only warning you about the horror story which is to come, but preparing you for it.  

The Tooth Fairy

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

 - Psalm 139:13-17

            We worship a God of wonder and grace, power and mercy. His manufacturer's handbook, His instruction manual, is not an Aesop's Fable, or a romance novel. To those whom he chose to live in this world, before the world was formed (Ephesians 1:4), He gave discernment-- to be able to tell the real from the unreal. The Bible is a supernatural book. Christianity is a supernatural belief. God spoke and nothingness became "somethingness."

            My parents had their last child when their other three children were grown. We told this baby brother that, when he lost his baby teeth, if he put his teeth under his pillow, the tooth fairy would leave him some money. I still remember the morning when he got out of his bed, so anxious and disappointed, that there was no money under his pillow. My father, having forgotten, and being very concerned, began to help him feel around his bed, thinking that the money had gotten lost, as he fished a coin out of his pocket. Like Santa Claus, it probably brings a smile to God to see that fairy tales make children happy. We just hope that fairy tales end with maturity.

            A tenant, living in one of my buildings, his life tainted by drugs, told me he needed to make a change. I made the same mistake that many make, thinking that inviting him to church would bring the right assistance to him. He was a cradle-Catholic, had never been to an evangelical-Christian church. After the service, while walking home, I said, "What do you think?"

           

            He said, "It was the most pitiful place I could imagine."

           

            I had not been back to my house very long when the telephone rang. A lady, 72 year member of the church, said, "Tom, who was the young man with you at church? You know we like for the men who attend our church to wear a suit."

            You see, church, even the bride of Jesus, is still make-believe for many church members-- not real. It is a masquerade party. A matter of pretending. The soul of any man will never die. God is interested in the soul, not the shell. Christianity is not indifferent, just difficult. Most church members I have known, still think of their church activity as a fairy tale-- not real. Therefore, their faith, if any, is in vain. They are just going through the motions. In the ordinance of baptism, death to our old life of sin and rejection, raised out of a watery grave to walk in newness of life, or in the ordinance of the Lord's table, remembering His sacrificial death for us through the bread and wine, we are responsible for what we understand.

            I truly believe that the greatest mistake Baptists, and most evangelicals, have made in their outreach, discipleship, mission to the world, is not having a catechism. Most Baptists, and for that matter, other non-Catholic believers, especially those maturing in High School and College, do not know the basic theology of what they believe, certainly cannot defend their belief, and this is probably why 70% leave the church, never to return. Jesus was a God-man. Having put on a tent of humanity, He lived among us as a man, and yet had all the supernatural attributes of God. It is essential that the believer, who is saved by grace through faith, with the goal of heaven, possess an understanding knowledge between his biological self, and his supernatural soul.

            In the facade of party politics, conservatism, liberalism, we are left with the choice to pick the better of two evils. It would be so good to live in the real world of supporting someone for whom we have a passion, knowing that the individual we support has integrity and a passion for service.

            This matter of reality is seen throughout our lifestyles. I have known so many associates, even, I am sad to say, family members, who went to certain expensive doctor's offices, certain elitist stores, certain classy restaurants, simply because it made them look good. Before air conditioning was commonplace in cars, one of my aunts and uncles purchased an expensive car that did not have air conditioning-- only a few of that make did. But, to impress their family and friends that they had A/C in their car, would ride around with the windows up. This writer, blessed to have traveled the world, been to every continent, saw that most of the poorest people of the world live below the 30th parallel-- Africa, Asia, South America. The thing that impressed me most about travel in poor countries was the genuineness of heart. The people did not smile at me, treat me warmly, because they were expecting to get something out of me. In America, service people (waitresses, sales people) are taught to treat you nice because they want your money. I have never known a con man, whom I didn't like. They were always nice to me. Ministries have come to me wanting money. Pretending to be interested in me, in my disability, but I never heard from them again. A telephone call would have been so nice-- showing a spirit of concern.

            From childhood, I have been a student of history-- history of this republic, of the world, and certainly the history of religions. I have witnessed religions all over the world, their temples, cathedrals, shrines. I was reared in the poverty of Eastern North Carolina tobacco fields. I worked in the gummy plants, soaked with poisons, then cured/dried the plants for someone to suck into their lungs. The very religious people who produced this cash-crop realize its toxicity. The manufacturers of alcoholic spirits realize their product is poison. Big Pharma knows the toxicity of its poison. Tobacco, liquor, beer, and prescription meds are all dangerous, yet all are legal-- supposedly controlled.

            Travel throughout the world taught me much about people, but I also saw much about the treatment of animals-- mouths that cannot speak. God alone knows the suffering of animals from hunger and thirst. God is not buying everything that people are selling-- GMOs, synthetics, the atrocious treatment of our fellow man, healthy or disabled. To change things, we must learn to be radically different, to be able to discern fairy tales from the realities of this world.   

The Wounds and Scars of Fathers

No Scar?

Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land;
I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent,
Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And piercèd are the feet that follow Me.
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hast no wound or scar?

BY Amy Carmichael

            Paul Simon wrote, "These are the days of miracle and wonder, The way we look to a distant constellation That's dying in a corner of the sky." In a world of cell-phones, online banking, homes with walls of LCD screeens, you find there are things larger than yourself-- such as your memory of Daddy.

            In a day when most boys do not know how to fix anything, do not know how to use a handsaw or hammer, when children know nothing of animals, even transitory animals (those used for food), only knowing animals as pets, and those in zoos,  when children have become "containerized" (car seats, playpens, then vans, even children in Ethiopia, there is a decline of 50% of children playing outside (playing ball, fishing, exploring the woods). In  time where children can better identify comic book characters than species of trees (pine, oak, cedar, etc.). Instead of children invading ditch banks, hunting for berries, they are allowed to play on manicured, state-controlled fields, and why not, they have yards the size of cemetery plots. Fifty-seven million homes are controlled by HOAs, who do not allow basketball hoops or roller-skating. In my state, kite flying on the beach disturbs birds. Of course the state controls beach, even to the extent of "No Smoking." In today's world, there are signs, advertising at controlled camps about the wonders of country living.

            This writer, in his youth, and even more-so since college, thought I was impoverished in my youth by country living. There is no poverty like the poverty of internet and TV addictictions. There is no theivery-robbery on earth like the robbery of television-- wasted precious time. My father did not allow a television in his house until his youngest child left for college. His youngest, like his oldest (your writer), read books. He knew that children live through their senses. Their world is not constricted by a screen of any type. Your writer, like my father, and our forefathers, were "old school." Fatherhood was more than just fertilizing an egg. Fatherhood was living the example-- hard working, tax paying, God-country-family.

            My father was the pastor's right hand man. The pastor knew he could depend on him to handle any situation. The school's principal (my father was school board chairman) knew that he could depend on my father to handle any situation at the school. If any boy gave the school a problem, the prinicpal knew that my father knew, not only the boy, but, also the boy's father. The pastor knew he always had at least one eating table, under which he could put his feet. My father so believed in God's word (observing rest on the Lord's day), that even the mules went to the pasture and rested on Sunday.

            There was a time when the church was important in the community. Church people were different. On the day of my oldest aunt's funeral, and she was buried in the ancient family cemetery, because her husband had died so long (not like most of my relatives, like my parents, who were buried in town in a perpetual-care cemetery). Her youngest son may not have remembered, but I did, our favorite cousin, who was kicked out of the church because he lost his religion for a while, got drunk, and drove his car into a ditch by the cemetery.

            My earliest family members landed in New Jersey in 1677, and founded Morristown. Think of their plight, coming over in a small boat, where 50% died on the journey, or shortly thereafter. There were no work animals (oxen, horses, mules). They raised crops by planting scarce seeds around the stumps of felled trees. Trees from which they managed to build shelter. From one generation to another, and I saw it myself with father and grandfathers, there was the butchery of food animals-- cleaning, gutting, and preparing the meat, making lard and sausage. In my grandfather's back yard, there was a patch of fennel. A great-grandfather, many years before, had planted it to use as seasoning. I noticed that more recent ancestors did not recognize it, or know how to use fennel or rosemary. Today's farmers want to live out of a paper sack, like their relatives in town. Most young people think that meat products, dairy products, eggs and the basics of cooking, just magically materialize on grocery shelves. Our farm-parents knew about farm animals, seeds, fruit trees. At my own father's funeral, one of the several preachers said, "He had his last stroke picking peaches off peach tree which he had planted." One spoke of the many heads of hair he had cut during The Great Depression, at ten cents per head.

            We are victims of Madison Avenue.  Space is used to promote advertising for fatherhood/ Father's Day. The real fathers, those building the communities, the roads, the church houses and schoolhouses, at a time when, even in my lifetime, when only 12% of families had electric power lines. I never knew a father, certainly not my father, who did not want better for his children, than he had experienced himself.

            Beyond the fringe of highways, there is a world not controlled by navigation systems. In the last years of my father's life, my mother had already graduated. His sightless, oldest son, would travel to visit him. I would call ahead and tell him at what time to expect me. The black man who drove my car would always say, "He will be sitting on the front porch, watching for you." We would take him into town for lunch, stopping on the way back to visit a relative. God help me not to surprise him as he watches for my appearance beyond this life.