Different

#1756

²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

²⁹ That no flesh should glory in his presence.

³⁰ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

³¹ That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians Chapter 1)

Today's Puritan Audio Devotional:

Thomas Watson's choice excerpts on Scripture
Play Audio! Download Audio

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We soon grow dull, cold, lifeless, and inactive!

(James Smith, "The Great Comforter" 1858)

"It is the Spirit who quickens; the flesh profits nothing." John 6:63

All real religion begins with the quickening of the Spirit. When we experience this . . .
  we begin to breathe after spiritual things; 
  we open our eyes in a new world; 
  we hunger and thirst after righteousness; 
  and at length taste that the Lord is gracious. 
We then have . . .
  new thoughts, 
  new desires, 
  new hopes, 
  new fears, 
  new joys, and 
  new sorrows. 
The eye fixes on Christ, 
the heart goes out to Christ, and 
the chief desire of the soul is to be like Christ. 

The Spirit not only quickens us at first--but all through life we need and are dependent on the Spirit's quickening. He quickens us to pray, and He quickens us in prayer. It is His quickening which puts . . .
  life into our graces,
  energy into our prayers,
  confidence into our expectations, and
  enables us to resist Satan, steadfast in the faith.

If His quickening power is withheld--we soon grow dull, cold, lifeless, and inactive! We have . . .
  no power in prayer,
  no enjoyment in ordinances,
  no liberty in speaking to the saints,
  nor profit in reading God's Word. 
Every duty becomes a task, 
every privilege becomes a burden, and 
every cross appears insupportable!

While under the quickening operation of the Spirit--we can do all things; but without His quickening--we can do nothing. 

Often, very often, have we to cry out from bitter experience, "My soul cleaves unto the dust; quicken me according unto Your Word!" Psalm 119:25

Quickening Spirit, daily quicken my soul!

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We have published J.R. Miller's helpful short article, "The Cure for Weariness".

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Feel free to forward these gems to others who may be encouraged or profited by them!

Dr. Morris-

      This writer, like most people I have encountered inside the church house, caught in the same satanic trap- snare- plight of not wanting to be "different" from those outside the church house. Our lives have been tainted by the need for acceptance of Satan's crowd... Our dress- language- idols. We had rather be popular- proud- peculiar, than show the born again righteousness of Christ which should be shown in any person who has experienced true repentance, lost that old life of sin and indifference. God inhabits the praise of his people (Psalm 22:3).

      Real Christians, different people, care little about the "acceptance" of an unsaved world. Every minute of every day, I want acceptance of a holy God. We find this in prayer. It is a lifelong learning experience that, when you have notoriety, education accomplishment, success in business, houses and lands, even family and friends, you have what THEY can do. But, when you have a daily minute by minute experience with the holiness of God through prayer, than you have what God can do.

      Look around, look at the news, look at what is happening to our world, WE NEED, WHAT GOD CAN DO.

Mind Over Mattress

#1755

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass  withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: (Peter 1:24).

No airplane can do what a sparrow does. God gave man the intelligence to build an airplane. But, a plane is a very poor substitute for the maneuvering of a sparrow. AND, "God knows every sparrows fall" (Matthew 10:29). 

This writer doubts very seriously if God knows pity on the fighter pilot who shows no pity on his adversary.

In the lifetime of this old man, in spite of the wisdom of man, I have daily seen the portrait painted, pertaining the survival of mankind. Today, a few days after the Summer solstice, 2015 (the two moments during the year when the path of the Sun in the sky is farthest north in the Northern Hemisphere (June 20 or 21) or farthest south in the Southern Hemisphere (December 21 or 22)). The US Supreme Court handed down the most diabolical decision ever made in the history of America, Destroying the sanctity of marriage, the first established sacredness of God, after he designed human beings of different sex, man and women. 

Satan, always ready to take advantage of a situation, using the agenda of perverts, using the agenda of population control, has now forced upon the American people, forced acceptance of same sex marriage. We will see how long it takes the Liberal Theologians, the social religionists, those that have always found that with Christianity, as well as with the business world, as with international diplomacy, you go along to get along, the mantra of political correctness. 

Just yesterday, I lunched with two officials from a Baptist children's home. We discussed the phenomenon of orphans and foster care. I expressed to them the supernatural phenomenon, that I have observed my entire life, the bonding of children with their biological parents. We read and study about abuse in a home. Abuse of children by parents. And yet, there is an indescribable bond dynamic between a child and parent. As they said to me, "No matter how bad the home, no matter how good the foster home or the orphanage, the child still wants to return home."

"No matter how horrible has been the abuse of a parent, physical- psychological- sexual, the child will not talk of it, and still wants to return home." It makes no difference how many men another man will marry or, how many women another women might marry, no two men and no two women can produce a child. And certainly not a child with a bond between them. 

The most mixed up young man I have ever known in my long life, and many such young people have worked for me, both in the military service, and in civilian life, the most mixed up- confused- seething in decadents, was a young man raised by two lesbians. This pretender president, these pretending politicians, want to talk about love. If you want to see real love, parents for a retarded, or terminal sick child. If you want to see real love, as I have several times in my life, a husband who cares for a terminal sick wife, or a wife who cares daily for a husband with Alzheimer's.

God, in his infinite wisdom, we need not ask why... It is his business. Will have some people live a long time... Cant live, wont die. 

One of my friends, his wife at home, small children in school, he holding down a regular job at Sears, had a bed ridden wife. A neighbor or family member would go into their home and check on her during the day. But it was up to him to care for her otherwise (bathing, medicine, physiological stability). It was up to him to clean the house, clean the children, cook the meals, he had a full time job night and day. But he loved her and his children to much to let up one minute. As in our relationship with God, it is a love affair every minute, 1440 minutes in a day, everyday.

You don't think about vacations or retirement. 

I still remember the time before nursing homes, hospice care, even the present day methods of sanitation. It was the challenge of a husband- wife, other family members, concerned neighbors, concerned church members, to keep life worth while to those in a rapid retreat from life. 

This employer has had his fill of young people, who know nothing but cheap love- cheap sex- expensive addictions. I have known too many who, would rather lay on the bed and sleep after a night of carousing, boozing, addictive happy hour behavior, instead of getting up, going to work, and making a living.

This world traveler has seen, from one side of the world to the other, flora (weeds- bushes- trees), growing from cracks in rocks... Roots just stretching down towards nourishment. Loving life, reaching towards the sun. This is real love... Love of life. 

Every night of my life, I sleep on a very old, four poster bed. This is the bed in which my grandparents and parents slept... Normal people, male and female. Human beings who had enough love for life, to produce children, and more important, to raise their children.

The Supreme Court can issue as many edicts as it wishes. But no court house will ever change the love bond existing between parents and children, God and his precious children, precious human life, his chief creation.  

Motives Matter

#1754

“A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives - of approving of some and disapproving of others.”

-Charles Darwin

In other articles this writer has talked about the years of work involved getting his eight years of professional university education… working at night, going to class during the day. Now an old man, I remember how I would run from job to class.

During my years in Memphis, one of my jobs, selling pre-need burial plots in the large Forest Hills Cemetery (this is a large cemetery near Graceland where Elvis was placed before moving him to his home.)

After church, every Sunday, when I went to the cemetery to show property, I would notice one woman, rain or shine sitting on a bench near one tombstone. She was always there in the rain holding an umbrella. I finally went over to her and asked her if I could help her in some way. I saw the tombstone, a man’s name, his military rank, and the day he was killed in World War II. She said, “I come out and spend every Sunday with him.” I said, in my student activities in the VA hospital in Millington, “Why don’t you go out to Millington VA and tell them you would like to visit with the veteran there.” So many of them do not get visitors there and they would be so happy to see you.” I notice that I did not see her at the cemetery the next Sunday. The next time I was at Millington, I ran into her. She told me that she had never been so busy, all of her time from her job, volunteering with the veterans from that hospital. Most of us spend our lives wishing we had pure motives in dealing with others. There’s not much we can do for the dead, only the living. I have spent far too much time in my life wondering if god is keeping an account with those who had impure motives towards me. The fact that I know almost without hesitation that everyone wants a piece of the blind man… just how far they can get their hands down his pockets. It would be so good to have contact with a few who have pure motives.

For many years I would go to the local YMCA every day, for a workout. I needed the exercise as well as the contact with other people. It got to the place to where the YMCA did everything possible to keep the disabled away from the facility… made everything just as difficult as possible. For instance, they put push button security systems on every door. A blind person cannot operate these systems just as much as a blind person cannot operate a cell phone (AT&T and other cell phone corporations do not care about the blind people either.) I would have to wait for someone to go in and out of a door or beat on a door with my cane. As a local restaurant owner told me one time, “we don’t want disabled people, they make normal people feel uncomfortable.” One of the very few times I reported this discrimination-bigotry-injustice to the U.s justice department, Americans with Disabilities Act, they actually took action. They sent a lawyer down for a hearing. Totally blind, I did not know who was in the room besides me and the lawyer, but I do know that the “Y” was well represented. I heard one of the trustees (a political appointment) say, “If Dr. Morris will not go to the media about this, and we will make changes of our treatment of the disabled.” Of course, nothing was changed and I lost my membership. 

What I should have done was fix me a sign about the “Y’s” treatment of the disabled and protested out in front of the building, so the news media and everyone else could find out about it. You see, those good people “do-gooders,” who had established the YMCA had good motives… helping people. Now, the YMCA, hospitals, civic clubs, tax exempt charitable groups and much to my sorrow, I must say, most churches have become just concerned-MOTIVATED by their bottom line. They are no longer motivated by a god given desire to do good, for the sake of goodness. Our world is filled with people who cannot know the joy, an internal “neurology” which gives smiles and pleasures… the knowledge that you have done something good for someone without expecting anything in return. In that same room in the VA hospital in Millington, where four WW2 veterans who had lost their arms and their legs… All four were on special beds, just trunks with a head. Now, they could not ever in their remaining life, do anything for anyone. They had given their arms and legs for their country. I don’t know of a family who would be able to care for someone in that condition. One can easily understand why in their despondency-helplessness, they did not live very long. It is much the same way with our friends and family members who spend their last months on this earth in a nursing home. Most do not live very long after going to a nursing home and their government and their families are so afraid that they will live and continue to take precious money. Most people I have known reared in foster homes or children’s homes (one time called orphanages,) the children called inmates, have had a far different outlook on life. They felt there was very little love or genuine motivation in their care and development.

“Motives Matter,” teachers at the school house, church members at the church house, doctors/nurses/lawyers or even volunteers anywhere. Even at your job, you do what you do, with purity so that you can enjoy the words of noble thinking. 

Next, Christian Flag

#1753

There's a royal banner given for display

To the soldiers of the King;

As an ensign fair we lift it up today,

While as ransomed ones we sing.

Refrain:

Marching on, marching on,

For Christ count everything but loss!

And to crown Him King, we'll toil and sing,

'Neath the banner of the cross!

In the countryside were this writer was raised, hard work-hard times, just God fearing, working, tax paying believers. We did not have time to embellish our thoughts with the history that surrounded us. We knew that God was the designer of sacred geometry (everything in balance, sacred biology, life of every animal and plant precious in his sight and useful for man kind). Everything had a purpose, God makes no mistakes, there is no such thing as a rebel molecule. 

Most of the farm land was owned by relatives, and it had been handed down for many generations. I had often asked my parents about a certain area of dead, wild, bushes in the middle of a big field, which over the years, tenants of the land had just plowed around. An area probably about forty feet squared, over many years, many storms, trees once there, large bushes, just a big snake pit. 

Some years ago, a cousin who had inherited the land, decided to either find out what was there, in this discarded graveyard, or just return the area to a productive part of his land. When he began to cut- burn, he found that there were two remarkable tombstones in the area, tombstones of our ancestors, veterans of the Civil War. Two of my great-great-grandfathers sons, Nathan and James Morris, both of whom killed the same day during the Civil War. It was strange that these two were not buried with other family members in the family graveyard. 

It is quite possible, my ancestors were large land owners, they could have afforded to have the bodies brought from Virginia were they were killed. It is also possible, since my ancestry dating from first landing and founding of Morris town NJ in 1677, were not active in the Confederacy. Perhaps this is the reason that the family church, then (1874) and until this day, is known as the "Union Grove Church," and effort at reconciliation. It is quite possible that these two sons, more than other family members, were sympathizers of the southern cause (some historians have called the North-South conflict a matter of slavery, others a matter of taxation). whatever the cause, these two sons chose to fight with the Confederacy, and died as confederate soldiers. 

I am surmising that their loving, grieving family, chose to bury them separate from other family and neighbors, for some unknown reason, we will never know. Young men of the South, fought and died for what they believed. Just as for some unknown reason young men of different factions of the same religion (Islam) fought and died in Iraq, and Afghanistan. One of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, involved Iran and Iraq, Muslims killing Muslims. We do not know what type of flag they fought under. 

The flag of the Confederacy, seems to be more a matter of concealed altruism, in more modern simplistic minds, who just want to be rebels. 

Rebels have never conquered anyone at anytime. There must be more to idealism than rebellion.

Do we really think removing any physical-outward symbol, cleanses any thought?

Stinking thinking, is still stinking thinking. 

If the presentation- Parading of the stars and stripes, the American flag, does not stir your mind, then their is something very wrong 14 inches away at your heart. 

The thing that bothers me most about the removal of the Confederate flag, and whatever it symbolizes to some people, is just how long it will take for the same "book burners" to remove the Christian flag from Christian churches and Christian sinners around the world. 

We believe there are about 300,000 Christian churches in America today... Some great mega edifices, some just store front places to worship. Some churches are very evangelical, some very modernistic... Just country clubs with steeples. Almost all Christian churches, because we uphold the liberty of our patriotic, as well as our Christian liberty, have somewhere in the building, usually at the front, both a Christian and American flag. Many of my Christian friends, who did not wear the military uniform, have their casket covered with a Christian flag when they die.

How long will it be until these same élites who want to control everything, according to their own bias thinking, want the Christian thinking removed from Americana. 

Then, how long will it be before these Elites, who usually have no political or religious loyalty, will want "old glory" removed from the American public square, and anywhere else that it might offend them. 

The road to Hell is paved with empty religions, just formalities and rituals. You can get the same in a civic, or fraternal group. 

Christianity is supernatural, when a Christian, in a supernatural way, you become a new creation. This is the problem with the present day church, present day believers, who pretend to be Christians. Most have never had a supernatural experience. 

When you have a supernatural experience, the Holy Spirit of God (Birthed in your heart), the Christian flag means much to you. 

For those who have known the thrill of the stars and stripes, even on an embassy in a foreign country, or on an American ship in a foreign port, there too, is a supernatural thrill.

Perhaps Nathan and James Morris in that forgotten graveyard, knew loyalty to the Confederate flag. At least, they are buried in the land and near the family the loved. 

Measure Twice, Cut Once

#1752

"He not busy being born is busy dying."

Bob Dylan

For over 50 years, this sightless veterans best friend, has been the radio. Not only does the radios sounding in various rooms, help me get around, but I have learned so much just from listening. I can no longer get healing from the beauty around me.

Mother Angelica said, "One thing about getting old, you look back on things you thought would never happen, which have happened, but you realize more and more that God does not make mistakes.

In my 85th year, dealing with young people, I realize that the messages I send to the future is in the lives of the young, a time I will not see. I once heard one of my favorite uncles say about his young daughter, "I wish mama could have lived to see her." Our ancestors were g
iven a view of the future, sighted by their faith. My parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, new that in living their own responsible lives, they were directing their decedents to responsible futures. Lives and lifestyles, much better than theirs, as far as comfortable living is concerned. Although I think it would be hard for my grand-parents to realize climate controlled homes, talking boxes, and certainly mans in-humanity to man. Even the callousness of next door neighbors.

Joel was my mothers first cousin. I was so young during WWII I barely remember him. But I do remember that Joel was a very kind young man in a very un-kind world. Like my mothers only brother, other of her cousins, Joel fought the Japanese in the South-Pacific. My mothers brother and others returned un-harmed by war. But Joel returned sick.

He never recovered.

His wife had worked during the war, and after, in a dime store in town. Woolworth's. Her work kept them alive.

Joel got his medical attention at the VA hospital in Durham. He died there. Another cousin, Pauline, who worked at a tobacco factory in Durham, would go by to check on him. One of the other veterans told her that Joel laid in the bed for over one day after he died... Such is the care of  veterans. We hear so much malarkey about care of veterans. This old veteran has had the sign read to him at that VA hospital in Durham, "The price of freedom is visible here."

22 soldiers commit suicide every day. The VA would prefer that all veterans commit suicide, it would be so much cheaper than caring for them, just a cheap casket with a flag.

Perhaps the greatest lesson of my life, has been tolerance. I never could understand pretenders in the church, pretenders at the court house, and even pretender patriots. Then, one day, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. We are only suppose to love the sinner, God will take care of the sin. Remember, God destroyed the human race at one point in history, saving only one man and his family to supplant the Earth again. (Noah, Shem, Ham and Apathetic and their wives). 

The Earth was about 5,000 years old at that time, and had about the same population as today. Just think of all those dead people. A beautiful world filled with sin. They scoffed and ridiculed Noah as he built that great arc of deliverance, a ship about the size of the Queen Mary... Dimensions given by God, ratios still used in today's ship building. 

My seminary professor son, another Dr.Morris, has just returned from a mission trip to Asia. He found, just as I found, in many trips there, that most of the world is eaten up by un-belief... Not even loyal to false religions, in-transient in Atheism. 

Think of America, one third of all children live in homes without their biological father, news everyday about same sex marriage... Sexual relationships that could never produce children. A new heathenism, comedians at funerals... as if, supposed angelical, do not laugh and clap enough at a worship service, now, funeral services, were families can be entertained instead of grieving for their loss. which shows again, even emotions are fakery. Cosmetically produced, smiling but not happy, that same nauseating phrase, "Have a good day."

I wonder if young people understand the expose of the Facebook page. What might comeback to haunt them later when applying for a job. 

Thank God, all feelings are not fake. Many feelings fact. One do-gooder group supplied a prison with mothers day cards, (cards to send to their mothers). They used all of them, then had to send for more. The group did the same thing for fathers day. Not one prisoner asked for a fathers day card. My own father always drove me crazy building things, when he built a hog trough, you would think he was building a grand piano, always measuring twice before he would saw. Now, I understand, this writer was a poor father, he, a much better one. We can be so thankful for our heavenly father. +++++++++++++++++++++++

Anxiety

#1751

Are you not put to shame by every little bird that sits upon the bough and sings, though it has not two grains of barley in all the world?

(Charles Spurgeon, "A Good Start!")

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life--what you will eat or drink; or about yourbody--what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns--and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire--will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For thepagans run after all these things--and your heavenly Father knows that you need them." Matthew 6:25-32

Undue anxiety is very common among the unsaved--I suppose they cannot help it. Yet Christiansmust help it; for the Lord's precept is plain and binding: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus!"Philippians 4:6-7

Fretful anxiety is forbidden to the Christian! 

It is needless. "Look at the birds of the air," said Christ: "they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" If you have a Father in Heaven to care for you--are you not put to shame by every little bird that sits upon the bough and sings, though it has not two grains of barley in all the world? God takes charge of the birds of the air, and thus they live exempt from anxious care--why do not we?

Our Lord also taught that such anxiety is useless as well as needless; for, with all our care, we cannot add a single hour to our life!

Can we do anything else by fretful care? What if the farmer deplores that there is no rain? Do his fears unstop the bottles of Heaven? Or if the merchant sighs because the wind detains his ship laden with goods--will his complainings turn the gale to another quarter? 

We do not better ourselves a bit, by all our fretting and fuming. It would be infinitely wiser to do our best--and then casts our care upon our God!

Prudence is wisdom--for it adapts means to ends. 
But anxiety is folly--for it groans and worries, and accomplishes nothing! 

Besides, according to our Savior, anxiety about worldly things is heathenish: "For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them!" They have no God and no providence--and therefore they try to be a providence to themselves. Let the heir of Heaven act a nobler part than the mere man of the world--who has his portion in this life, and lives without God and without hope. 

Our distrust of our God is both childish and dishonoring. I was driven through the streets one day by a friend in a four-wheeled carriage, and he, being a good driver, must needs drive into narrow places, where it seemed to me that we would be crushed by the vans and omnibuses. I shrank back in my timidity, and expressed my unwise alarms so freely, that with a smile he laid the reins in my hand, and said, "If you cannot trust me--would you like to drive yourself?" From that ambition I was wholly free, and I assured him that he might drive as he liked, rather than make me the charioteer!

Surely, the great God might well put the same proposal to those who are complaining of His providence. If we cannot trust Him--could we manage better ourselves? 

If we are Christians, let us believe in our God, and leave the governance of the great world to the Lord God, our heavenly Father, who will surely cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him!

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Anxiety

The question and mystery of my lifetime, should I prepare, work hard, go through all the trials and turmoil of living a responsible- productive- accumulating life, or just throw up my hands, and say, "God will provide." I truly believe that God equips us to have the intelligence to do the best we can with what we have... To make preparations for what we can. The Roman soldiers carried barley and other food with them. Soldiers in Americas wars, revolution- civil-Spanish, did not have the "backup" of those in more recent 20th century wars. Even the modern farmer provides irrigation.

There is no way that we can discount the providence of creator God. This week, Elizabeth Elliot was buried. She, like most missionaries, depended on the sovereignty of God. In this sightless mans daily life, as I face the anxiety of making a living, the anxiety of problems on every hand, the anxiety of old age, with Gods anointing, I press on. 

Life Is Not A Jungle

#1750

             
"Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise..."

            Listening to news broadcast-forecast-talking heads, you begin to question your own sanity. The human life is more than living on the Cathare salt flats in Africa, where the wilder beast must outrun the lion. The human eye, in total darkness, can see a lit candle one mile away. Yet, with all our knowledge, the bottomless ocean of technology, we can not recognize when we are being played for fools. The news media will just run with anything... even a white woman who thinks she is black. Even two criminals who break out of prison, story after story of not being able to find them, when the technical world could not find one airplane filled with passengers. Most news is so controlled, so toxic you're better off not dealing with it. Wait for the pendulum to swing, seek better thoughts for your mind, from a good book-music or our marvelous outside world, where birds still sing. Corrie Ten Boom, victim of the holocaust said,  "there is no pit so deep, that gods love is not deeper still." Most of our problems arrive when we forget gods love. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13:5) When we see the insanity in world news, the craziness of things going on around us, we must remember that the creator of the universe is still in charge. He gave equity to everything... every chemical equation can be balanced. Every law of physics can be balanced, from the north pole to the south pole, magnetic accomplishment of divinity. The writer C.S Lewis said, "Pride gets no joy out of having something, only out of having something better than someone else" Pride, one of the 7 deadly sins leads to our problems-concerns-depression. We all know those who take pride in cutting other people down, we all know those who take pride in never forgiving or forgetting. A doctor friends wife never let him forget his mistake in a bad investment. I don't believe I've heard them in one conversation where she didn't mention the bad investment. When one is moaning with pain, he forgets pride. When one has unconsoling grief, he forgets pride. One of the marvels of gods creation, tears from the eyes. The same Lachrymal gland will produce tears of joy or tears of pain. The tears of joy have a different chemical composition then the tears of pain...same eyes, same glands. It is beyond comprehension that anyone who has the ability to study the human body... the animal body amino acids-enzymes-bi lateral symmetry could even consider destroying the chief creation, the human body, the abortion of a baby.

            This world traveler, Africa, saw a pride of 23 lions sleeping with their feet in the air (the way lions sleep.) They paid no attention whatsoever to our little land rover, as my guide said, one lion or one paw and wed be nothing. It is not necessary for the king of beasts to prove anything. When will Christians and the Christian church have this confidence in the creator of the universe?

            The American people, so blessed, hospitals...drugs to relieve pain. I still remember a man in the community where I was raised (poverty stricken Eastern North Carolina) a family so poor where they could not afford a hospital... we could hear this man dying from cancer, screaming in pain, far from his house. I remember my own grandmother dying of cancer in a hospital, screaming with pain. There was no pride in the sick or the consoled. Just refuge in the inevitable and praying for the inevitable, man-kind has a refuge from the jungle and we are so leery about recognizing it. 21st century Americans, particularly 21st Christian Americans are better than the "slop" we are fed from the talking boxes. There was a time when a person who thought they were someone else was put in a institution. Today, they become a celebrity. There was a time when a black faced comedian (Al Jolson) was criticized. This was before LBJs war on poverty and the civil rights movement. Has political correctness so tainted our senses that we can pretend anything...  white becomes black, bad becomes good, right becomes wrong and even the sinner can prance around the church house immune from thoughts of Gods "all seeing eye."

who cares

#1749

Who cares about the disabled? Who cares about abuse, abuse of children, abuse of the handicapped and the disabled. There was a time when government exercised oversight, over those with a license to give service of any type. Now, any complaint, hire yourself a lawyer.

80% of all abuse is denied. Most lawyers are fearful of involvement, so afraid of being accused of frivolity. Lawyers want something simple, requiring little work, little risk. This old veteran has gone for days this month without his blood-pressure medicine. Has gone for days this month without a nurse appearing (paid for by VA) to even change his bed. Who cares? Certainly not the VA. The VA would like for every veteran to commit suicide. Many of the younger ones are doing so. It is so much cheaper to bury a veteran than to care for one. The thousands of employees who work for the most inept agency in the government, just go through the motions. At any veterans hospital, they may have a fixed smile, but they are not happy. Certainly not happy to give you care. This blind veteran, was sitting next to a war torn, WWII aged officer, his body stilled wrecked by the wages of war. Sitting with our numbers, waiting for our numbers to be called, I said to the technician drawing blood, "That old colonel in front of me was a real hero." Her reply, "why don't you old men just go ahead and die" (VA hospital Durham NC).  

unintended consequences

#1748

"One of these days, the ground will drop out from beneath your feet
One of these days, your heart will stop and play it's final beat

One of these days, the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing
One of these days, their bombs will drop and silence everything"

There was a time, even from the "talking box," when their was reason, even sanity. There was such marvelous TV shows as Laurence Welk, Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans, the I Love Lucy show, even Uncle Mitty or Arch Bishop Sheen.

There was a reason why the most sinful even the most ignorant among us took pride in knowing their was goodness in the world... That everything was not on the back streets- red light areas of our town. Even to a world traveler, we knew that Satan had placed blackness in the souls of some people. In some third world countries, their were cages near the street, were fighting roosters were kept. The traffic activity-noise, kept the roosters, "pumped up," just as fighting dogs were kept pumped up by human beings, with souls, being mean to them. What possible satisfaction can a human being get from seeing animals fight one another? often to the death. But, likewise, what thrill can another human being get from planes or drones, dropping explosives on innocent mothers and children. And yet, from one side of the world to the other, Americans want other cultures to admire us. Even desire our form of liberty. Is Iraq any better off today, than it was when America first started interfering with their lifestyles, their religions? Did the thousands of young people who fought there, die in vein? As now we must do it all over again. If we are to satisfy the manufactures of war who are still supplying both sides in all military conflicts. This is Americas greatest economy booster. The building and supplying of war materials to everyone all over the world. Most of the nations fighting wars in the Middle East, do not have the technical abilities-raw materials, to build a bicycle. I know, I have been there. In spite of their religious inconsistencies, their un-American way of doing things, they just want to be left alone. 

In my world travels. I was on some remote islands in the south-pacific. Somewhere, that these sightless eyes cannot find, I have pictures to prove this... Natives, dark skin with blonde hair- blue eyes. There were cultures of these tribes on several islands, completely different from other natives of other islands and their people. My guide told me that a Scandinavian ship had wrecked their many years ago, and in the course of biology, the native women had been seduced by the blonde Scandinavian sailors. In today's world, this type matter of geography and biology does not seem strange as you question your own sanity involving same sex marriage, in their movement- agenda, in those involved in perversion, to stay on the front page on every news outlet. 

The fiction writer can look into the future, can prophesy and dramatize present day events but just think of the scar tissue involved in explaining unnatural- immoral lifestyles to children. Children born of natural honor and love. 

This old blind writer- veteran, often thinks that he is not the only one running blind. Many of us tried so hard to live decent- responsible lives. If only we had the opportunities afforded young people today. I still remember the first Christmas I came home from college. I was hitchhiking, almost totally frozen. Two men, a truck, loaded with Christmas trees, stopped to give me a ride. I crawled up in the back of that truck, with all those Christmas trees. On that truck ride, I don't know which was shaking more, the trees or me. Today's college students, with their superior high-school preparation, grants, subsidies, allowances, do not know what it is to want for anything. But, neither do they know how much debt is on their head, as they look onto the future. Many of them have debt from school expenses, but more have the debt facing them from the tyranny of a country that has sold their future down the river. 

Keeping wars going all over the world, like a Cancer eating away at the body, its just slow death. In the human body, their is at least one trillion cells. It just takes one of those cells to go crazy, start a meiosis of insane division, and you have cancer... Slow mythological death, but always with the same ending. 

The slow certain destruction started in my parents lifetime. My mother spoke at my uncles funeral, an officer in the Spanish-American war, that war started with the sinking of the Maine in the Havana harbor of Cuba. WWI started with the sinking of the Lusitanian, probably by the British, to force America into the conflict. WWII started with an attack on Pearl Harbor, for which America had been for warned. We all know the foolishness- silliness of the 9-11 fiasco. Now, We see nothing in the future except endless wars, endless atrocities, eventual executions by terrorists, on the American soul. 

Americanism

#1747

What thoughts are conjured in the mind of any human being?.. Surviving the rising tide of evil. Sometimes you feel like the windshield, other times the bug. When we are young, we feel as abrasive- powerful as a windshield. As we age, the golden age, which should be the best, we feel more like the bug, being smashed and "flicked" around.

As a totally blind veteran, your government first took away my identity... Then, my security, and now, my dignity. When you don't have family, when just about everyone else is attempting to see how deep they can get their hands in your pockets, you wonder if it was all worth while.

I was born on a dirt road, no power, no phone, no inside water lines, as with everything else in Eastern NC, "just a Democrat party stronghold of poverty. From a country school with 13 in my graduating class, I was blessed by God to get to the university, and by working at night, going to class during the day, sometimes starving, I matriculated through 8 years of university training to have a "DR" in front of my name.

Then, the war, all doctors draft, and I am back at home, having jumped through every hoop and barrier, the government through my way, depending on the largess of government and others. Never any prospects for real family. Your real friends dissociate themselves from you, "out of site out of mind." You manage to survive, day after day, you refuse to be a victim, because you are a victor in Jesus Christ. He assures you over and over, "I am all you need." So, a man with a brilliant mind, at one time able to chase a blood sail throughout every pathway of the human body, I made a living buying and selling junk. It was difficult to forgive those who worked for me, those who stole from me, those who stared at me, but, I look forward to the time, eternal time, that I will be normal again. 

The Death of Business

#1746

"God grant me the serenity 
To accept the things I cannot change; 
Courage to change the things I can; 
And wisdom to know the difference."

Directions in life, are often determined by unintended consequences. The business model on which all commerce, anywhere around the world, is directed, involves "selling something." Small mom and pop grocery store, a beauty shop at the home or a barber shop at the crossroads, Your neighbors and friends, supplying a source for your need, and trying to make a profit. This 85 year old man well remembers his first self-help store, his first self-help gas station. It is from the sound busiest practices of the self-help- lower price model that Sam Walden built an empire that made his children some of the richest people in America. Only history will tell us what Wal-Mart, stores everywhere in every area of our country, has done to the small business man. The small business man operating with heart, a feeling of family with his customers has died, replaced by an impersonal Wal-Mart model.

It is very much the same with other heartless- hapless corporations such as Amazon and AT&T. The small book seller on Amazon, just wants to make a living, just as the small mom and pop grocery store. But, as this writer found in the huge Communist operations in Russia and China, the personal ingredient, has been taken out of the mega store- corporation. It is only the bottom line that matters. And the, excessive salaries of store and corporate officials. Next to Wal-Mart, the greatest offenders in the American experience, Amazon and AT&T. Even Monsanto and its attempt to control the lifestyle of everyone, does not compare to the poison of Amazon and AT&T. 

Appifiny of the Unwashed

#1745  All things by immortal power,
Near or far,	30
Hiddenly
To each other linkèd are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star; -Francis Thompson

Henry Kissinger once said, "The boundaries of history have been marked by the masses of the unwashed."

This writer never takes a shower, never turns a faucet in the kitchen, without thanking God for water. What water means to life, both animal and plant. The fact that water has made the determining factor of almost every event in history. 70% of the Earths crust is covered by water, and makes up 70% of any animals body weight, water determining all plant life (mystery of the ages, routes in the soil, and the magnetism involved in water traveling even to the top of the tallest tree).

I never get out of the shower, without thinking that my ancestors never knew what it was to have a decent bath... The unwashed. 

This world traveler has seen unwashed people, the world over In Africa- Asia, Hundreds of men and women in rivers, beating their dirty clothing against rocks, washing their laundry in a river. 

From one side of the world to the other, people spending their day, with great jugs many times on their heads, transporting water from a creek to their home. 

As with characters in the bible, as with our ancestral forebears, to understand them, we must put flesh and blood on and in their bodies. I fully realize that today and in the 21st century, their are children born who never know their  parents, or knew their grandparents. 

Please God forgive those who do not have "precious memories," who do not have "family ties" to hold onto. 

I have all the empathy in the world, for the unwashed masses whose life is a struggle, in remote corners of the world, which God has blessed me to visit. I must remember, however, my own family. 

In-between the ancient farm homes of both my mother and father, my grandparents, and great- grandparents before them, a distance of about two miles, a curve in the dirt country road. In the grave yard at that curve, are the tomb stones of these, "saints of old" who I want to remember. 

Their were very few photographs back then, most of their ephemera (paper products), destroyed in their activity and just survival of daily life. People just did not prize old things. Every time this world traveler was near a monastery, I thought of the monk who found the sisters in 

Saint Catherine's Monastery

 at  Mount Sinai, burning old biblical scrolls, just trying to stay warm.

We think that God is tough. My ancestors were really tough. Think of their horror story, before leaving England, flaying to keep their Christian belief. Crossing the treacherous Atlantic in a small ship... Sick, some buried at sea. Landing on the shores of this promise land, near Morris town, NJ 1677. Battered by the sea and the New England winters. Think of what they encountered with their very few possessions, clothing- food- tools- medicine. But they eek out of existence out of the soil of New Jersey, founding Morris town. Then the hard working farmers moved south to North- Carolina. 

To show how tough they really were (and only a few family members know this). In my lifetime, few automobiles, cousin Barney, who owned a car, drinking liquor, drove his car into the ditch right there at the graveyard. His family had built our church in 1874, still there- still beautiful. His own family "kicked" him out of the church for drinking. So many times I wanted to tell his beautiful Christian wife and children (now dead and in Heaven), that story.

how things have changed at the church house, the school house, the court house, and all my relatives houses. Places which have had such a tremendous influence on my life. 

I still want to meet a perfect man, other than my blessed lord. My own "warts," "sins," though forgiven, still bother me. But even though we fail him, he never fails us. 

Not only did those folks buried in that graveyard, never have a decent bath, how they suffered from disease, not only wants but needs, at the one room school-house, which even my own mother attended, my grand-parents along with NC education governor Charles B. Aycock, they had to go to the woods and cut wood for the stove. Also buried in the graveyard, aunt Catty, the teacher... Uncle Turner, who once a year would go into a nearby town, and buy ice for everyone's once a year treat, ice-tea and ice-cream (July 4th celebrated at the school house). In the graveyard is my mothers 2 year old brother, who died from a dread disease. Until her death, my grand-mother thought every young boy looked like Seth. 

There is a long line of those in the graveyard who I can remember from stories which were told to me. Such stalwart ancestors, who knew nothing but handwork-hard times, and the all preserving power of God, will keep those of us who had it much easier, from complaining. They never heard a radio, but heard the voice of God from beautiful birds in the trees. They never saw a television set, but saw the hand of God in the lives of the sick and lonely. They never tasted "fast food" but knew the thrill from healthy- green- real food. They did not worry about diet or exercise, because farm work, walking most places, kept them in shape. 

In a world of political correctness, were the price of a soul is so cheap, God help us to remember the values of real Americans, real "Christ like" individuals. 

Reality, Perception: Morality, Dilemma

#1744

"When you're weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I'm on your side. When times get rough
And friends just can't be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down" - Simon and Garfunkel 

The amateur photographer enjoys photographing sunsets. This world traveler has photographed sunsets all over the world, even with almost sightless eyes. The best sunsets are behind mountains or across large expanses of water. 

There are many things in life I can not explain, like people praying as they read self-help books. When I get to heaven, I will have many questions to ask God.  I want to question many ideas about nothingness to somethingness. I want to question about all matter being energy... Einstein shows us this in his equation. Energy = mass x the speed of light squared. We know that our entire universe is electricity, everything about the human body. For some strange reason, we just expect the human body to keep functioning in spite of its treatment, in spite of the nourishment we put in it, in spite of the stress and strain we put on it. The evolutionist has never been able to explain why everything wears out, all matter. 

Recently, two deaths in one day, men this writer knew... two very different men. 

I have joined, for many years, a group of veterans every Monday morning for breakfast. Rapidly we are dying off. The last, a veteran named Fred, who always boasted about never going to a doctor and he just fell over dead, no warnings. He was just beginning to enjoy his retirement. 

The same day, the death of James Forbes Nash and his wife in a traffic collision, returning from Europe where he had just received a prize for mathematics. 

The following day, A ship capsized in the Yangtze River, a storm just out of nowhere. 432 people died. (Chinese have souls too). This world traveler has crossed that river, been in a ship on that river several times. 

The writer C.S Lewis said, "Joy is a serious business." The only joy we can observe in the death of anyone, particularly a family member, is the joy of knowing that there is life after death... last breath here, first breath there. The Catholics would have you believe there is a buffer zone. A place and time between clinical death and heaven, a place called purgatory, where sins can be purged, by others, praying and giving, attempting to influence God. There is absolutely nothing in the scripture to support this. The sovereign word of God tells us that at clinical death, every opportunity is over for purging or repentance. Of course we are taught, in no uncertain terms, that those who live in sin are dead while they live. 

It is incomprehensible that anyone, with nominal intelligence, knowing that everyone will die (the mortality rate is still 100%, no options) And knowing just how short life is compared to eternity, knowing how unpredictable life can be ( Nash and his wife were killed in a taxi on their return from Europe, plane, to their home.) That one would want to be well prepared for exit- death. Everyone does not "fade away" in a hospice. 

Modern science will have you believe that, life is a matter of genetics, genetic intervention to make living better. In England, the popular notion is to have a nurse in the home with a child, for the first 3 years of a child's life. In the notion that the nurse can teach the child right from wrong, and prepare an individual for person hood. 

The Christian message, "Christ-like," the new birth, born again, the righteousness of Christ replacing within the individual. The old man of sin and rejection. The new birth means, that when God looks at you through his spectacles, he sees not you and your indifference, but in you, the righteousness of Christ. 

We are a new creation, different. The problem with most believers I know, they do not want to be different. THEY LIKE THEIR LIFE AS IT IS. Much like the lives of their family and friends who are not believers. They want popularity, to chase the idols of success- money- notoriety. Most people I know, much prefer the lives of "The Rich and Famous" to the servitude life of Christ. Only twenty percent of Catholics go to mass. Thousands of Protestant- Baptist churches, close their doors every year. 

The parel, golden age, the white haired saints still in the fuse, watching their church and its pastor compromise, and become politically correct... The church, a country club with a steeple. Compromising with "Gods word," in order to dance to the tune of Madison Avenue... God becoming just a bell hop; prayer becoming just a quick fix. There is no real joy or genuineness in just pretending. 

The Christian life is not complicated, just tough. Our faith gives us freedom. The grace of knowing that "whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's" (Romans 14:8). Can anyone think of a greater joy than this?