12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
In these radical times, when history can be wiped out without notice with a worldwide nuclear conflagration OR, more slowly by engineered viruses, the living-breathing member of genus Homo who knows he has a soul, will take a few moments to think about his identity. Those who dance to the tune of the New World Order believe that Christians are spiritual lunatics-patriots are political extremists. God chooses many of us to deny self, bear His cross, be transformed by His eternal truth. He draws us, and the call by God on a person's life makes him or her different, if not different, there is something very wrong with your identity (I Peter 2:11). Our citizenship is in Heaven, we are just passing through (Philippians 3:20). In modern times, among Madison Ave. trained church workers, Christianity is based on what you can get by with, not the absolutes of right and wrong. How quickly we learn that life is a wrestling match, warfare against powerful forces in high places (Ephesians 6:11-12).
Born into the poverty of an Eastern N.C. tobacco farm, on a dirt road without power-phone-water lines, I just knew the integrity and sweat of my parents and ancestors. From a small country school, thirteen in my graduating class, life became a matter of destination at the University. World War II had just ended, my father and other relatives were returning to the farm-jobs-communities. One of my uncles, wounded in the South Pacific, said, "Let's take a walk." A neurological mess until he died, constant spasms of his body, he said, "My best friend killed next to me and in pieces, I thought I was dying and realized that no one knew my true identity. That I was 'known only to God'. But, I did not die and regained life in a hospital." This uncle, married to my mothers sister, went on to raise a wonderful family, marvelous job with the state prison system, mayor of his town and family members said they had never seen so many dark blue suits file into one funeral... when he did die. Character determines destination and we are not all biological robots. His words to me that day, "Don't forget who you are, where you came from."
It was necessary for me to work my way through eight years of professional education, first at Chapel Hill, then at Tennessee. My first job at Chapel Hill, working at Lenoir Hall, the student eating center. We hauled food for cooking from a warehouse. The place was totally infested with rats. Rats running all over the food containers. Even though rats, in their genome, are within a few percentage points of human beings, the rat does not control his excretion, is one of the most dangerous disease carriers alive. As a British Ambassador said to me in Africa one time, "Rats cause more disease in Africa than anything else." BUT, when I said something to UNC Food Management about the rats, I lost my job at this prestigious learning institution (UNC-Chapel Hill, first state-supported University). North Carolina's first student at its University was Hinton James, from this town where I live, who walked all the way to Chapel Hill-200 miles in order to get a college education. It did not take long for this poor farm boy, working his way through college (at that time, no grants-loans or other government largess) to learn that the large, elitist state universities were intended for rich families, that the sons of legislators-judges-wealthy were coddled and coached by special university advisers. I did not care then or now, my objective there and elsewhere was an education. I had the assurance of a protector-defender-provider.
For eight summers, I covered every PIG-PATH in North Carolina selling bibles door to door. Not only making money but learning the value of a dollar and the most important value of the personhood of real people. In Memphis, living in student poverty, I depended on the "10 Cent Row" of a poor neighborhood grocery store for my food, I sold cemetery property on weekends, and as a young Doctor worked at Millington Veteran's Center helping care for four veterans without arms or legs. Even before my own military service, I have seen what is known to God. On the staff of one army hospital, nearest to Red Stone Arsenal, former Nazi doctors staffing a U.S Army Hospital.
God wanted me to sense the world, sightless. At the Pakistan border with Afghanistan, I saw refugees with all their worldly possessions in bags on backs, their children barefoot on ice. In the bottomless ocean of knowledge, surely mankind deserves better.
Owning-maintaining an apartment near the United Nations in New York, in Manhattan, at an elitist party, a drunk Russian learned of my recent trip across the Gobi desert and China. I told him about making photographs with my telescopic lens, under blankets, which his Russians did not capture. In order to get the film, this Russian diplomat told me about the capture and enslavement of the Americans on the South Korean airline shot down (KAL 007). He said all the passengers are alive and slaves near Vladivostok. When I talked to the South Korean embassy, just across the street from me on Beekman Place, the ambassador said, "Korea nor the USA will start a Third World War over some slaves." (I have written all about this in another article.)
For 6,000 years, Man has known that he is just a squatter on this planet specially designed by God. I know that I was chosen by God before the very creation of the Universe and I know that I have my identity with him, in spite of the world, flesh, devil. When God heard people cry, "Crucify Him," about his own son, he knew then, as now, who is in charge of everything. This writer has known and seen many insignificant people around the world, every continent. Darkness, not light, has become romanticized. With 600,000 young men in prison for drugs, drug activity has also become romanticized-sanitized-"cool." "How shall we escape (Hebrews 2:3)": Before American soldiers arrived in Afghanistan, even the times I was there before the war, Afghanistan produced 7% of the world's Heroin market. Today, after a warfare covering many years, Afghanistan is producing 93% of the world's heroin supply. Nations, like individuals, are responsible for their identity AND, as with Sodom and Gomorrah, known to God.
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