Fruit of a Poisonous Tree

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matthew, 16:26)

Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The mind of a man is an idle factory, we think that our identity depends upon our idols. AND, idols are not just man made carvings, figures which people worship and then throw away the scraps of their carving work. AND, idols are not just stock portfolios, real estate holdings, university degrees, athletic prowess (hitting, throwing, manipulating a ball of any sort), God given talent (playing an instrument, intrangency in voice manipulation, spoken or singing), just the all consuming self indulgent, profusion of looks and appearance. There are those who spend their entire life in the all consuming mental factory of beauty and anything else it takes to look superior to everyone else... usually females, often males. Each year, $426 billion is spent on looking good (Huffington Post, 2013). Of course, we ALL like to see attractive people, good smelling people (My greatest adjustment as a doctor was learning to tolerate the body odor of patients).

The longer I live, the more frustrated I become with human beings who live such "manicured" lives, just going through the motions... no depth feeling, no passion or purpose. Often when speaking from a pulpit, I would use a vase filled with dead vines-limbs-branches from once live bushes. These dead things produce nothing. Jesus taught us that He is the sustenance of life, the root, from which comes the tree, from which comes the branches with its flowers and fruit. The greatest lessons of Christianity are found in sowing and reaping. You reap from live producing plants. It is such a tragedy that all children are not raised and educated on a farm, where they can see the results of seeds planted in the soil, God's goodness in providing water and sunlight. It is tragic that every boy could not have a father who showed him how evil roots would choke the roots of producing plants. It is tragic that every child cannot see the love of mother animals for their young (hens for chicks, sows for piglets, cows for calves, cats for kittens, mother dogs for puppies, etc). It is only a human being-mother who aborts her young, refuses to fight, even die for her young. The human being is the only animal that can blush, now we know why.

Mankind has created God's, idols. To most people, their own God, individuality is all that matters. We live in a world of meism. We become totally fascinated by a soldier who saves the lives of his fellow soldiers, someone who saves another from drowning or from a fire. The miracle of the ages, how God must love those who adopt children... how God must love those around the world who care for the orphan. It is a scientific fact that children who are not loved or touched, die. There are two things the atheist cannot explain, that man is born with an innate ability to know good from evil, and that God is the caretaker of the planets. There is a third, which I have never been able to fully comprehend; how some chosen-blessed people are so willing to share their faith, both by living it in public and telling others about it. Why should we be embarrassed to share with others, even many times members of our own family, our conviction that Jesus Christ is the only way of life and our only salvation at death.

In this writer's DNA, you will find the dirt of the family farm where my farming ancestors learned about survival, faith both in dry times and in wet times. You will find in my DNA the hardness gained from sitting on the pews of a country church. The seeking of education from a country school where just one light bulb hung down from the ceiling. This writer did not idolize the addictions of drugs, including alcohol, pretentions of evolution. We had a faith to live with, to die by.

I was so disappointed yesterday, a time of bad weather here in eastern North Carolina, when I had one of the organized telephone messages, from that country church several hours away, where me, my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents worshipped. Over the years, I have been very generous with that church and I am on their telephone list. The secretary announced that their would be no prayer service because there was some ice on the steps and on the sidewalks. At this time of paved roads, wonderful heating system in the building, nice cars to get there, there would be no prayer service because of a little ice. Several years ago, a bad summer drought, the THEN pastor announced that there would be no prayer service because of a large rain filling the ditches. My ancestors would have been at the church rejoicing about the rain for the crops. The ice that is killing the insects.

All of our lives have someone's fingerprints on them. The life of the Islamist, evidently, has the fingerprint of Mohammad (Did you know that the Islamist mother is assured of heaven if she names her male child Mohammad? Now you understand why there are so many Mohammad's). Frustrating, exhausting, the very idea that the Muslim suicide bomber is promised seventeen virgins in heaven. Religions have always had a quality of attracting someone, someway, some good and some evil. The Klan burned the Christian cross at their gatherings, even claimed to be Christian as they spread their hate. Thank God, there are people in the world who did not eat from a poisonous tree.

It was many years ago, this writer was "NC Young Man of the Year", like my high school Valedictory address, which I still remember, I remember the speech after the award presentation. I spoke of my parents, teachers and other people in my life who had influenced my life for the good. I told young men and women in the military service, I have said it to graduating classes, "At your peril, you drink from the poison well... you seek sustenance from the poison tree." We are blessed with life and in spite of its troubles, trials, tribulations, no man, except the mentally sick, wants to die. At death, you look like an old beat up beer can lying by the side of the highway and have about as much usefulness. Every day is a challenge, every day is a gift from God.

Rhonda Bryne in her famous book, The Secret, tells us that every man is his own God. Perhaps some unfortunates have found some man to worship.

Jungle, Jumble, Jihad

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Ungodliness is a state of mind. There was not a time when Jesus was not aware of the holiness of his father. Faith must be a way of life. This writer must have the faith to believe that God is involved in everything. Faith is a verb, action, based on belief, sustained by confidence. Faith must be life, a way of life. I have the faith to believe that God can subtract as well as add, that in the jungle-jumble almost Jihadist actions of men, IN HIS SOVEREIGNTY, God will handle everything, including the Jihadist actions of one company toward me. "Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed" (Lamentations, 2:22).

When you speak of a man's life, you talk about impact, what he does, the resourcefulness of the individual. It has been the resourcefulness of the individual that has made this nation what it is. Most businesses started in the home. I am old enough to remember the woman who started a large clothing-sewing factory in her home. Before the time of motels, there were "tourist homes." Most beauty shops, barber shops, started in homes. Today's large hospitals started in the private individual offices of physicians or surgeons. All new testament churches were in homes, large cathedrals, houses of worship were started and built at least a thousand years after the early church. Automobile garages-dealerships started in blacksmith shops. AND, we could go on and on of how commerce, "sick care", education, specialized services of every type started on a small scale, usually in a home. Before the time of bakeries, large self service grocery stores, mothers made extra money for the family by cooking at home and selling at the curb market.

In the curse of free enterprise, capitalism, governments want control. Now, there must be a permit or a license for everything and, in the fascism-communism regulatory mentalities that afflict the brains of some human beings, large must be better, whether with a smart phone or smart electric meter, your life must be controlled. One of the greatest curses in the modern municipality, homeowner associations. A small elitist group of "supposed" neighbors who regulate and control other peoples homes, people who pay for their home, its taxes, its expenses. Then, homeowners are told what they can and cannot do. Robbing the world of the greatest business model mankind has ever known, the "mom and pop" business, the strip mall concept of small businesses now being "ERASED" by the giants of commerce. This writer has traveled through Communist China three times since the reopening of China to the west. All the stores-businesses in Communist China, Russia, Burma, are much like your local Wal-Mart... huge buildings with great piles of things. Do you miss window shopping? The extravagance of having competitive-civilized service, in any type business? Rapidly coming, just robots doing everything-going through the motions. Watch what goes on in every business enterprise around you.

This world traveler has seen the beginnings of commercial entrepreneurs in developing countries. When you go to a city like Lagos, Nigeria, you find every type of business-enterprise in small stores-offices operated by concerned owners. They want to help you, please you and, this was the American capitalism spirit of my childhood.

The salvation of the small entrepreneur has been online selling. I will not go into every aspect of online selling, just my own personal business. In online selling, just as selling from a brick and mortar building, you face problems. You have all the problems of any other type of business; buyer remorse, employee theft and often disgruntled employee sabotaging, coding and keeping up with everything, postal and government taxes-services. You have wins, might even make some profit, in spite of government, not because of it. The bureaucrat-politician has no concept of what is involved in business success. Most politicians, like Obama have never operated a lemonade stand. The CEO's of most large corporations have never earned a living... they got their positions by knowing the right people, networking at the fraternity house.

Research in England tells us that 70% of all entrepreneurs think that their failures are due to themselves, not the problems afflicted on them by government and others further up the food chain. Time is always a factor and there is not enough time for me to pursue what I want to explain here. We live one day at a time and almost, before you know it, its tomorrow.

I am a totally blind veteran, Army Medical Officer, and I have made my living by investing and still work at age 85.

I am an antiquarian book collector, thousands of rare books and many other antiques (old things). I employ local university students who help me. We sell thousands of dollars in merchandise online every year. We make much money for those licensed by government in E-commerce, such as EBay, Amazon, Etsy and many others. They assist us and get a commission of our sales. We have no quarrel with that. But, Amazon has become a monster-Jihadist, terrorizing enemy of the small business person.

Their latest business model, Fulfillment By Amazon or FBA. To do business with Amazon, you transport your entire inventory to them, where you pay storage fees, handling fees and, if anything is left from their sale efforts, you might get some results from your years of time-efforts-energy. Just think, does this make common sense? You have spent your entire life-money-efforts, collecting, listing for sale inventory which customers might wish to buy. I have over ten thousand items listed in Amazon's sales catalog. Much of the ephemera (paper products) are old documents that have been carefully chosen-purchased, kept in plastic, in climate control and, like old books-vinyl records, kept in plastic-climate control. This company wants me to forgo all my years of training in handling such merchandise. To ship, at my expense, my entire inventory to them for their perusal and disposal. "When orders are received, we will professionally pick, pack and ship the product directly to your customer. In addition, our customer service team will manage customer inquiries, refunds, and returns for your FBA orders." In other words, the new model for American commerce, as in the communist system, big brother controls your business efforts as well as controlling your life.

In the jungle of the new world order, the jumble of financial duress (recessions, etc.). Facing terrorism everyday from some new direction, you now survive in business at the whim of Jihadist competition. The American spirit of free enterprise has been shamed previously by elitists (minorities-especially blacks in business, women in business, the disabled-handicapped in business efforts). Now comes the extremes of taking away from the entrepreneur, every tradition-discipline of self worth. Doctor Benjamin Rush, physician, signer of the Constitution, said, "I have been alternately called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am now neither. I am a Christocrat." What would Jesus do?

Voir Dire

(To Tell The Truth)

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold (Proverbs, 22:1).

You always want what you think you are giving. The scarcest entity in this world, be it physical, financial, political, or even spiritual, is truth. And, truth is truth, whether anyone believes it or not. I could disappear into a black forest of moodiness just knowing that I must question the truthfulness of every man or matter I encounter. You know that the "Talking Heads" on newscasts are mostly lying to you. You know that most people with whom you do business are mostly deceiving-misleading you. You know that your doctor is just guessing (We call it practicing, if this doesn't work, you try something else). You know that your attorney is fabricating for a fee. You know how your fellow worshippers feel about one another. You question the inner alter of your pastor. Most of us are afflicted by denying the guidance of our inner man. Most of us are greatly disappointed with everyone but think, deep inside, that they are not disappointed with us. The hardest master to conquer is self.

Over the years, I have employed many young men, many of them veterans. One, Jai, had seen the horrors and experienced the wounds of Iraq. He was drawing 80% disability, home, married, attending college. He was doing some work for me.

Every time he came in my office there was a sense of defeat-bitterness. One day, I told him to sit in a chair right across from me, I said "Jai, you are looking at a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran. GET OVER IT, NO ONE CARES!" I told him that the best men either of us had ever known did not come home. We have all heard the expression, truth hurts. I advised him to get on with his life, as far as possible, to forget and forgive what he had seen and experienced in battle.

The next time that Jai was in my office, my other employees exclaimed, "He is a changed man, the bitterness is gone, he is actually smiling and wanting to talk with all of us."

This writer, world traveler, has been on excursions to both the North and South Poles. Up and around the Arctic Circle, there are remote-uninhabited islands. When you go on one of these islands, there is continuously frozen tundra... never completely thaws. A foot print in the tundra will last forever, will always be there. Footprints of the earliest explorers on these islands are still there, nothing decomposes. Now, I will make the admission that I brought back some animal bones from there... a whale vertebrae, the jawbone of some animal. The border authorities in Canada threw a fit about my souvenirs... you are not supposed to take anything from those islands. But, with smiles towards this old blind man, one said, "I don't know what the things are?" and he closed my suitcase. And, of course, I have sold these relics, but they did shrink after leaving the harsh cold of the arctic. I inquired about a small building next to every church house in the arctic. They said that they put their dead there until summertime when they could "perhaps" dig a grave.

The physiognomy of facial features, body language, are no longer forces which I can employ. The blind cannot grasp the lurid assets of others. I have no idea about features of my employees, friends, associates, even relatives. My blind friend, Catherine Vassilou, blind from birth, wanted me to describe colors to her. When one of my non-believing-evolution believing associates started a harangue about creation, I asked them to tell me the truth about the color-texture of a rose, even a zinnia or petunia. I so remember one of my army fellow medical staff members, Colonel Tuhy. He was a photography fanatic. Back then, of course the beginnings of color film. With his expensive camera, tripod, he would spend hours photographing beautiful flowers... getting the color-texture-botany just right. How can anyone, with truthfulness, study a flower? The perfection of a young child... even a small animal, and still believe that it is all just happenstance (something that happens by chance).

I am a 1930s child, always listening to radios. To this very day, radios all over my house. They help me to get around. I never get lonely with radio sounds. I perish with the sensations of wanting to see again. But, how could anyone not have faith in God, who has seen his marvels... time and space, colors, tastes, heard the symphonic notes of birds. There is real truth in color, in the twelve tones of music chords. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature, not realizing the absolutes of right and wrong, good and bad, sweet and sour. Even those before the great flood of Noah, knew about the laws of physics. Separating good from evil, that there is bound to be a caretaker of the planets. Could anyone be so dishonest that they could not truthfully recognize the small voice within self? It is a vacuum soul that does not recognize the poverty of the mind. We understand the attitude of the black people, even to this day engrained in the minds of their children. One young black man told this writer, that I could never realize the depth of sorrow he had experienced in the degradation of his mother simply because of her skin color. Born in poverty, I saw the treatment of my own mother simply because she was poor. Could anyone question the words of Jesus when he told us, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew, 5:3).

I so remember the poverty of my childhood, how hungry I became as a college student, being poor during the first years of marriage. But, I know the richness of giving the best version of myself always. Regardless, I still wear a necktie, polished shoes, clean clothes. You can see truthfulness as well as feel and hear truthfulness. Life here is not just a dress rehearsal and we only go around one time. Get over the harshness-deceit of the world, learn to love truth.

Open my eyes that I may see. Glimpses of truth thou hast for me; Place in my hands the wonderful key. That shall unclasp and set me free.

Au Revoir, Entanglements

(Goodbye)

"The world had absorbed the Church, and the church is content that it should be so!

Horatius Bonar

One of the affects of aging, you know that you are going to say good bye, Au Revoir. You know you are going to say goodbye even though you used botanical medicines to escape the poisons of modern medicines and the chemicals of Big Pharma. But, as was said by one of the preachers at my own father's funeral, "You just wear out."

Most of us live on an island of dissociative fugue (Fugue usually involves daydreaming, travel, even establishing a new identity). Most of us are on stage, pretending to be someone else, most of our lives, giving the minimal yet trying to get the maximum. I often feel that I have struggled on my own towards an ocean's shore after battering the waves of trials and turmoil, almost drowning with the despair of living.

Those of us living are accosted by the boxes of financial, political, even spiritual hype, when there is no longer anything in the boxes.

As a young boy, I would often observe the despair in the eyes of our farm livestock... the sweating, overworked mules, the milk cow. Then I would look at the eyes of my sweating, overworked parents and grandparents. What kept them going? Was it a matter of reason, or faith, or just survival? Did people really believe what people in our country church THOUGHT they believed? I SO remember our Pastor, M.L. Johnson, standing in the church yard smoking cigarettes... deacons and other men of the church smoking cigarettes and I thought, will there be smoking in heaven?

There is no doubt in my mind that I was chosen, elected of God. It has taken an entire lifetime for my or your redemption to gel in my mind. Faith is 90% courage and I have had the courage to test my faith. I know that God wanted me to travel the world and he made the necessary arrangements. When I saw the Hindu Temples at Khajuraho, Buddhist monkey temples in Nepal, Islamic Mosques across North Africa... the warp and woof of humanity seeking a power greater than themselves. I knew why David Livingston-Africa, Hudson Taylor-China and other Christian missionaries across the world had the passion to proclaim the Christ whom we loved. I did not understand eternal security, the security we all seek in life as well as death, until I saw a father walk down the street holding on to the arm of his young son. The French Philosopher, Blaise Pascal said, "Make people believe that the Gospel is true and then show them that it is."  Life is more than the eventual disappearance than your eventual disappearance into open ground (grave). We have found that lives are a symphony of personalities... no matter where, no matter when, that the individual is not a solitary shooting star. Don't try to hide it, parts of your body can be transplanted, but your soul is a mystery within yourself. Your mind is always factoring the equations of living. Like my parents, you may be working to hard to get sick, or take vacations, or holidays. Many of us have never had time for the pleasures that many enjoy... hitting a small white ball, shooting at animals in their home place. Even enjoying the pleasures of fishing, which simply must be treasured because our blessed Lord enjoyed fish and picked his friends among fisherman. Some of us just enjoy learning for learning sake. But, in the quietness of the night, every time we hear the siren of an EMS ambulance, drive past a graveyard, we know that death awaits us as it has awaited everyone else before us, the mortality rate is still 100%.

One of my best friends was a black physician. His father, a well known black preacher, died and I attended the funeral. The funeral was held in a very large black church, the largest in the city. To this day, my own paternal grandmother's funeral was the largest I have ever attended, I was age 7. Perhaps this is the last great homage we can extend to our loved ones. At this black preacher's funeral, I had never heard such coral music, the pallbearers wearing white gloves, nurses in white uniforms attending to families. At the end, the casket carried quite a distance to the hearse while the carillon pealed a mournful dirge.

God is "Boss", he is in control of everything. He knows about the hungry children of refugees, the desperate lives of Christians living in the concentration camps of North Korea (These matters, a burden on my heart every day of my life, in my prayers). There are so many things my sighted eyes saw, my blind eyes remember, that I wish to forget. I will never forget the refugees lined up at a boarder crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan... those desperate people with their worldly goods in sacks on their backs, their children in rags barefoot on the icy ground. I have not forgotten the city of Manila, in the Philippines, where desperate people searched through great piles of garbage (Not far from the Philippines University and the great hotels where tourists stay, just around the corner from the place where Muhammad Ali, his famous fight, Rumble in the Jungle). A young man I met on the street, student at the University, whose father was an American soldier, told me that every time I heard a siren it was probably the limousine of Imelda Marcos, Governor of Manila. At the end of her husband's reign as President, there was a thousand pairs of shoes in her closet in the Presidential Palace. Is it any different in the haves and the have-nots in our own country? What does your IRS master file say about you? The IRS has a master file on all of us. More important, our blessed Lord who can subtract as well as add, what does his accounting book say about us?

But, Christianity is not a checklist, you do this-you don't do that. In my lifetime, I feel I have been catapulted into Ripley's radio program which came on when I was a child, Believe It or Not. I would never have believed that churches would accept the killing of babies, same sex marriage. Life intensity-obedient trance, the strangulation of all absolutes via eyesight and the television set.

"He understands you longing, Your deepest grief He shares; Then let Him bear your burden, He understands, and cares."

Flotsam-Jetsam

(Results of Shipwreck)

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever (Isaiah, 40:8).

Our lives change when our habits change. Show me an individual with good habits and I will show you someone who will succeed because of a disciplined life, character. Character determines destination.

We often hear people talk about the "invisible people", "they" and "them". "What will they say?" or "What about them?" Today's young people have no examples, who are their heroes? The one word not allowed to be used in speeches, U.S House of Representatives, the word "hypocrisy." Young people recognize hypocrisy before anything else, in their politicians, their physicians, their pastors, even their parents. Young people, even less than their older relatives know that science has been backed into a corner of drugs packed with chemicals, no cures just treatments, leading to "brain fog." My early education-life, "sick care" was mostly faith healing. We live in a world of sociology-psychology. This writer has seen the growth of psychology. Educators-scientists have pushed mental health into a system of psycho pathology.

In a world of trauma and dilemma where nutrition is neglected, vision impulses infiltrated by horror, how are some so thoroughly addicted-afflicted by the extremism of psychosis-neurosis-pathology, while others who are exposed to the same life experiences, escape. One third of our population have cancer, our prisons-court systems filled with crime. How do some escape? It is the ultimate hidden purposes of God. God is boss, He does what he pleases. He could have sent 3 million fiery chariots to transfer his chosen Jewish people from their slave pits in Egypt to the Promised Land IF He had chosen. He could save eternally, redeem, every person in New York City or Chicago if He chose. Our first parents, Adam and Eve chose death instead of life... and here we are.

103 years ago the greatest ship ever built at that time, the Titanic (A ship that some said, God could not sink) went to the bottom of the ocean after striking an iceberg. Even after the ship was tilting, and it took two and a half hours to sink, many on board thought it would not sink. But, 1,511 went to their death at the bottom of the ocean. Do you think those who survived could forget the images in their minds of that experience? Do you think that veterans of war, victims of the Holocaust and other horrors ever lose their mind's images? Images from their eyesight?

I speak as a totally blind man, blind for many, many years. When I dream, I see very clearly, so I enjoy dreaming... I see my mother, father, the home place, the old home church, friends-associates. Any person who dreams, knows the entanglements of reality with non-reality, even a mix up in time. We know what it is to go to the brink. We understand, better than most, Senile Dementia and even Alzheimer's. We know that chemicals, psychotropic drugs, caustic lifestyles are taking their tolls, first confusion, loss of memory and finally that long slow death. Those who understand the dream know what it is like to cross the firewall. Recently, in a confusing dream, I was talking with a girl whom I had known my entire life. She and I were mascots for a graduating class when we were about five years of age. Later we were classmates, she died early, at least 50 years ago. Yet, she was as clear to me as anytime in life. I actually talked with her about my new great grandchild. We were talking in an office building where I had done business many years ago. I can understand the complexities of mental health. We try to "pigeon hole" our thoughts and activities to certain places-levels (family-friend, social-political-professional activities, etc). We cannot predict what God is going to do with our lives, we try to pigeon hole too many things. He has unexpecteds-surprises for us. If we are intolerant at all, we have personality disorders. We are supposed to tolerate the unexpecteds, without being psycho pathological. Such matters as same sex marriage, abortion, "don't ask-don't tell", a world of lost absolutes... nothing wrong-nothing right, nothing good-nothing bad.

No matter how bad our lives get, most people, blessed with life, want to keep living. Men who have seen-experienced the horrors of war, people who have seen and experienced injustice still desire the personhood of living. We know pretenders, the genuineness of real people, solid character.

Have you ever thought about his disciples, those who had lived-walked-talked with him during his entire ministry as his feet nourished the ground around the Sea of Galilee. They saw Him take a small boy's lunch and feed thousands-walk on water during a storm-raise His friend Lazarus from the dead yet, they were scared-deserted-denied Him during his time of greatest need. Have you ever thought about Pilate, whose thoughts were mostly with his 15 year old wife, threatening the Creator of the Universe? Actually asking the question, "What is truth?" when he was talking with truth (John, 18:38: John, 14:6). IF they had believed, they would have been at his tomb, awaiting his resurrection. It was at Pentecost, 50 days later, that they received His Holy Spirit in their lives and they were never the same after that, ready to suffer anything. Luke hanged from an olive tree, Mark dragged through the streets of Alexandria, Peter hung upside down on a cross, Thomas killed by a Hindu sword in India, Bartholomew skinned alive in Armenia, etc.

Like the disciples, you can always tell a spirit filled life. It cannot be hid, the bed is too short-the blanket too narrow, something always sticks out. The spirit filled life is the grammar of living. God has the capacity to start over within us and, in the spirit filled life, sees the righteousness of Jesus when He looks at us. This is your answer for the shipwrecks of living. Whatever the "Flotsam-Jetsam" that has washed up on shore.

This world traveler has seen the tranquility of Bedouins tribes in the deserts of Africa; the tranquility of Eskimos (Inuit's) in their villages around the North Pole. Their mental capacities have not been blasted by the trash of television, modern food stuffs, irascible aspects of climate changes, addictions, social and capitalistic progressions. Like those on the Titanic, God does not need us, but we need Him in every area of our lives, whether shipwrecked or not.

Dead Man's Suit

In a suit, even if you're having a nervous breakdown, you still look like you are in charge.
Paul Feig

The total uniqueness of God, the uniqueness of the Christian faith, lies in the uniqueness that God understands that we need to trust Him, not why, but who, in all things. The poet said, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of."

In other articles, this writer has described in detail that he is a conservative... conservative in everything. Many have called me frugal, even a tightwad. In college, my nickname was "iron pockets" because, I was careful in every penny I spent. I am now considered a very wealthy man, but nothing has changed in my spending habits. Show me a man's habits and I will tell you much about the man.

I do not own one article of clothing that was purchased new. I buy everything used. The pair of shoes I have, at this instant, were purchased at a thrift store for the sum of one dollar. I do not have a shirt that costs over 25 cents. I believed God when he told us to "deny self." "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke, 9:23). The money you spend on things, even expendables, such as clothing, you can never invest AND, you only make money with money AND, you are able to give for God's work with "blessed" money.

Ernest Mansour, owner of a clothing store in the town wear I live met me on the street and said, "Doctor, come into my store, I want to show you something." We went towards the back and he pulled out a beautiful suit of clothes. He said, "Try on this coat." I said, "It fits perfectly." He said, "Go into the fitting room and try on the trousers." The trousers fitted perfectly, waist-length-everything. I said to him, "This suit fits me perfectly, but I can't afford this expensive suit." He said, "Doctor this suit is a gift from me to you." Then he said, "I might as well tell you the truth. One of the flight officers out at the air force base came in and bought this suit. His next flight, his plane crashed and he was killed. I can't ask his wife to pay for this suit and I knew that he and you are the same size." Ernest new my size because he had fitted a tuxedo to me, which I had purchased from him second hand. Back then, a lifetime ago, I often needed formal wear when I was speaking or participating in a gala, political or professional event of some type. I had decided to purchase a tux instead of continuing to rent one. Of course, I was very happy with the "dead man's suit" because until this day, it was the only new suit I have ever owned.

I was raised at a time before sports jackets-blazers. From youth, real boys-real men wore suits, you only had one, your Sunday suit. I knew old men, relatives, who never had but one suit their entire adult life. Men did not gain weight, today's world, men like women's weight fluctuates up and down, as 30 billion dollars is spent each year on diet methods. Men wore their suit on Sundays, to funerals-graduations-court appearances-special occasions. Even after their hair turned white, you recognized them more from their suit than their appearance.

I was just a child, left in the backseat of the car, my parents went up to the graveside service at the old Nahunta Cemetery. Back then, the only people who had funeral home or graveside services were those who had never become a church member. Nowadays, families have become so cheap and funeral homes so greedy, that until recent years church member's funerals were always held in the church where they had been faithful, now, things have changed. But, on that day, at the old Nahunta Cemetery family and friends had gathered around for a graveside service for an old reprobate who had died and, they always opened the "box" so everyone could see the deceased (Viewing the dead is still the most asinine practice in a civilized culture. I have known people to line up to look at dead people. I understand there is a black funeral home that allows a drive thru viewing window. There is nothing more uncivilized than stalking-staring at a lifeless individual... TAKING AWAY ALL THEIR DIGNITY). As a child, the thing I remembered most THAT DAY, I heard one daughter cry out, "I will never see my daddy again!" And so it probably was, because her only hope of ever seeing her daddy or anyone else would be if she and they are in heaven AND, no one had ever seen her "Daddy" inside a church or showing any profession of faith, in fact he mocked the church. I remember my mother saying, as she returned to our car, "It was the first time I ever saw him in a suit of clothes."

One of my best friends died. His wife asked me to take his best suit down to the funeral home and to make sure he was dressed correctly. I had never seen an undertaker dress a dead body, I did that day, watched him dress my good friend. The first thing he did, was to cut up the clothes, cut the suit coat right down the back. You see, it is a matter of putting clothing together on a dead stiff body. This is the reason, my friend, the mortician, had told me that he always purchased all the strange sized suits and shirts from the local stores. The size does not make any difference on the dead man. You run the shirt sleeve up the arm until the cuff appears out of the suit coat. The shirt is put on in pieces, so is the suit. You have heard people say, to someone well dressed, "You are put together well." Now we know where that comes from. The deceased must be put together well for the final staring of the family and friends. The mortician tells me that it doesn't matter, few people touch the dead, mess with clothing. But, I have heard, that often, it is different with a black funeral, a black mortician, where family members get more aggressive in their farewells.

Yesterday, this very town, some dispute involving four thousand dollars. One man walked up to another at a gas station, victim filling his gas tank and the other man shot him dead. Then reached over into the car where the gasoline was being pumped and shot the man's wife, not killing her yet, but killing the unborn baby within her body. Her three small children all under the age of 8 were in the backseat. Does anyone believe that all dead people are alive? God tells us that the unsaved are dead while they are alive. That dead, unborn baby, like the dead father, had a body built by trillions of cells. Each cell, total personhood of the individual, has enough DNA information to fill one thousand typed pages. If a single cell's DNA was on one strand it would reach to the sun and back. Every single cell of the trillions in the body, whether the unborn baby or the adult father, gives a complete history of ancestry.

Like the trillions of snowflakes which fall to earth, no two alike, this gives one just an indication of the magnificent greatness and design of the God who we worship. And to think, there are still those unbelievers who believe they are alive, dead people walking in dead clothing.

God's Biochemistry

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (Cor, 1:20-21).

Unbelief is the basis of all atheism, weak-pitiful mankind depending on self instead of depending on God. Most of the people I know want God in their image instead of them in the image of God. Christians beaten down by a pagan world, God becomes an antiquated idea. Even the inconceivability of real men having real wives and children. No one, even the wildest science fiction writer could have convinced my parents-grandparents that in this writer's lifetime, people of the same sex would get married, some in a church. Most of the people I know have their hand on the doorknob of the door of faith but never open the door enjoying the grace, salvation of the Creator of the universe. " I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John, 17:4-6).

Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World said we will teach people to love their slavery. For the 21st century Christian, those whom you would change, you must first learn to love and you must let them know that you love them. This applies to the physician, the pastor, the professor and most of all to the parent.

There is nothing like the power of images in changing people. Truly, "one picture is worth a thousand words." You cannot understand the horrors of abortion until you have seen one. In another article, I have described my images when I saw an abortion in the operating room of a United States army hospital where I was on staff... those little hands, little feet taken from the womb of a "mother." In my lifetime, when I was in school, we were embarrassed to even speak of abortion. Now, people sneeze and wheeze toward any healthcare facility, wanting an antibiotic or drug for anything. I can tell you that all today's major diseases were unheard of just 60 years ago: Cancer, Parkinson's, Diabetes, Autism, Vascular Diseases (the greatest cause of death), etc.

Like your automobile garage, like shopping for everything, eBay, Amazon, etc. life's activities have become a recipe book, your a slave of nanotechnology. Your doctor, he is more a dunce than a dynamo, spends more time with his hands on his computer keys than he does your body. For him, it is simply a matter of symptoms here-drugs there. When did your doctor ask you what you eat, nutrition. No one talks of cures, only treatments. In Europe, 50% of the population will die of Cancer. Just recently, the Society of Oncology in Spain, stated that 50% of all babies are born with cancer (Sputnik International, 2015). We were not there when 5,000 Jews were gassed in the death chambers at Auschwitz every few hours, everyday. Some do not believe that this Holocaust actually happened, but we are here now, when 3,000 babies are aborted each day. The Holocaust of OUR lifetime (56 million since the infamous Supreme Court decision of 1973). Just this week, I am celebrating the birth of my first great grandchild (Olivia, 8 pounds, 4 ounces). Her precious parents, grandparents, great grandparents so happy over this precious child. In 1964, Psychiatrist Eric Berne wrote the book Games People Play. This writer is so tired of people playing games... just going through the motions, whether "sick care", patriotism, political deceit or pretenders in the pulpit or pew.

I have written at length about my online selling activity. I started many years ago with marvelous items I have brought back from world travels (Dr. Morris has made 8 around the world trips, traveled every continent, passports stamped in 157 countries). I then sold my Civil War and large antiquarian book collections. Able to employ college students, etc., we enjoy going to yard sales, thrift stores, where we buy items which we can sell for profit... raw capitalism. Money from this business as well as my other enterprises has helped me to help others with college scholarships, church progress, no secret to anyone.

This past Saturday, one of my assistants told me there was a church yard sale to benefit Haiti (Grace Baptist Church, Highway 40, Wilmington, NC). The sale was held in the large church's fellowship hall. In the past, I have met members of that congregation, an independent Baptist church. I do not sit in judgment of anyone, certainly not a church, but I was amazed-surprised that my driver and I walked through the facility where much "stuff" was displayed (none of which I could resell) and not one person in that large hall spoke to us, not even to a "Good Morning." (More amazing, since it was cold, I was wearing my veterans cap, medical caduceus, rank, patches showing DAV-Korea, etc.) I was wearing a very nice overcoat. On all my coats-jackets, I wear a Christian cross. I want everyone to know whose side I am on. As my only child, son, PHD, Seminary Professor said after I told him about the incident, "low hanging fruit" (Psalm, 92).

That day, at the next yard sale, I was immediately recognized as the blind doctor who talks on the radio (Lieutenant Colonel Morris is a totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, 85 year old Medical Officer Veteran). The matter I am trying to impress, God is honored by our Christian attitude-testimony, even in a church facility. As a poet said, "If iron rusts, what do you expect gold to do?"

The writer has two grandsons, an attorney and an engineer. Like their Seminary Professor father and his wife, both former SBC foreign missionaries all living in Fort Worth, Texas, were here visiting me. I invited several people to lunch. One pastor sitting across from me, while the grandsons were on either side of me said, "I hope you boys are as great as he thinks you are", talking about me. I wish, in God's Biochemistry, he could instill in me and others, the greatness he expects.

After my mother's death, my driver would drive my car up into the countryside to visit my father, still living at the home place. My driver, would say every time, "He will be sitting on the front porch watching for you", and so he was, waiting and watching. We would take him out to eat, visit some relatives, etc. My prayer, from a very imperfect man, people who profess will not have those who possess watching and waiting for them. Whether patients, patrons, parents, mechanics or even matrons who know how to flex the computer keys. The Christian life is not complicated, just demanding and tough. Faith is 90% raw courage, the courage to fight battles even though the war has been won.

microDUNAMIS

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,

Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,

Toiling up new Calv’ries ever with the cross that turns not back;

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,

They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

James R. Lowell

This writer's idea for a happy life is to live everyday with passion and purpose. At age 85, I still believe in working everyday, a total routine in life. Going to bed each night anxious to get up and work again the next day. If I knew I only had a few days left, I would not change one thing about my daily routine and, the small things that keep me going. Even to a sightless person, small intricate voices, birds or insects, the sound of wind or rain, God making his presence known in so many small ways... that still small voice.

I was in Egypt, Luxor, valley of the kings, I went into the 14th century tomb of Tutunkhamun, Pharaoh of Egypt. Most of the tombs in the valley of the kings had been exploited by grave robbers but, Howard Carter, English Egyptologist-Archeologist opened that tomb which had not been robbed. I have been to the museum in Cairo where most of the gold objects of that tomb are displayed. It was the archeological "find" of the 20th century (1922). My God told me that most of Carter's assistants who first entered the tomb had died from germs they contracted there. Carter himself never recovered from that archeological discovery: Disease microDunamis, which had been hiding for centuries. I was afraid to touch anything, made a hasty retreat from the glories-magnificence of that tomb.

Just as Galileo must have rejoiced when he saw the planets with his small telescope viewing from the Tower of Pisa. Zacharias Janssen must have been mesmerized when he observed microbiology with his invented microscope. With the bottomless ocean of technical knowledge, billions of dollars spent by "so called" scientific minds who are members of well healed foundations and university faculties. Our stupidity and not recognizing the dangers of small things is beyond comprehension.

When did you hear any scientist talk about the depletion of the animal immune system, because the immune system is so busy counteracting synthetics and other unnatural garbage entering the body. The new baby's immune system is immediately destroyed by vaccination-intoxication, the priceless immune system given during gestation by the mother. Vaccines are toxins-poisons and most children fortunately become victors over them. It is interesting to observe what many people with common sense already know. How and why we have such a increase in Autism... innocent-happy-healthy children immediately handicapped by science.

We know that aspartame is a poison (a real good roach poison), yet the largest corporations, government agencies such as drink manufacturers still produce it. It is beyond my comprehension that people drink diet soft drinks. It is beyond my comprehension that citizens still allow municipalities to put fluoride-chloride in their public water systems.

When will doctors-dentists-nurses and other healthcare professionals realize the wasted years and time "riveted" in their time and knowledge. Most of them know better, it is just common sense. You do not use poisons to produce-promote health.

When will the intellect look over the massive horizon "obedient trance." Television, with its moronic motions, subliminal perception, paralyzing of the senses. Relieve us of the trance. People with eyes have told me that some sit in a trance even during a commercial... oblivious to everything around them. Almost as much money is spent on commercials as was at one time spent on movies. Large corporations, fascist governments have learned that they can capture the minds of human beings without firing a single gunshot-dropping one bomb. It is these little optic wavelengths, atomic  impulses, captured by the eyes, traveling through the brain to the calcarine cortex in the back of the head which determines the future of mankind. The Apostle Paul was right, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12).

For many, the rulers of darkness come in the form of idles... the idle of recognition, or riches, or power.

Sin is not just unacceptable behavior in a community. We must come naked to the cross, pleading for mercy and for the forgiveness for all of our rotten sins. We do not want justice, but mercy. Like termites, it is the small things that have brought down our house. Our personal opinion has nothing to do with sins, small or large. It is simply a matter of fact that sin insults God.

It is not necessary to have a microscope, even a knowledge of microbiology to know without a doubt that it is the "little foxes that spoil the vines (Song of Solomon, 2:15). The Northwest is dead from radiation. Radiations from the catastrophe of Fukushima, thousands of miles away. Radiation accumulates. Think about what radiation does to your food, but think more of what artificial flavorings, MSGs (Monosodium Glutamates) are doing to your body. With all of our knowledge-technology-time and talent why is the human genome so anxious for extinction.