Lutoria Waddell

#1765

"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." (Song of Solomon 2:15)

           

            The greatest value in the pilgrimage of life is your contact with those with whom you can peer into their soul. God deliver me from politicians, pastors, physicians, even poets who have never peered into the souls of others.

            Recently, like most by-standers, I have paid limited attention to these political phonies who claimed they want to represent the common man as president of our nation. I'm talking about the republican contingent. Like Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, they have not one iota of imagination as to what the average hardworking, God fearing, tax paying American faces in his daily struggle for survival. Where would Mr. Trump be if not for the magnanimity of his inheritance, the Bush's and their inheritance from grandfather bush who hobnobbed with Hitler. I just want to vomit when I hear these frauds talk about their concern for my country, the country to which I have given all and they have given nothing. The anxiety of these 17 pretenders in restoring some essence of sanity to the nation. Like Bill and Hill who should be in jail, these people have no understanding or concern about the souls of man (perhaps that former preacher-governor of Arkansas, who said he attended a seminary, might know something about a soul.)

            My folks own most of the land on the dirt road, where I was born... no power, phone or water lines (this road has now been paved, is named for my father, the Joe Morris Rd.) Across one area of the farm was an old house in which lived Ms. Lutoria Waddell. I had never talked with the woman, had only seen her sitting on her front porch. My mother would stop and leave some food for her. I remember that my father had taken an old mattress to her house when some women at the church had told him about the mattress on which Ms. Lutoria was resting when they visited her when sick (at that time in my early life, before my travels around the world, before I saw hospitals in Africa, places where people slept on mats.) Back then, 70 years ago, we plowed with mules. I must've been around 13 or 14 plowing with mules across the road from Ms. Lutorias house. When I stopped for the mules to rest for awhile, I would go and sit on the steps porch and talk with her. I found in her, a tender soul. She was the first one to get me interested in silica... the most abundant element on earth, the element of sand and stone. She was the one who adjusted my interest in "grounding," the value of grounded magnetism to our bodies functions. To this day, I am convinced that our early ancestors had few sicknesses because they did not wash their bodies as much as we do now. The dirt (silica) on their bodies in contact with the largest organ of the body, the skin, removed the toxins of disease. Some smart scientist have now decided that the feet, coming in contact with dirt, is the best physical-physiological treatment the body can know in its conflict with pathology. Ms. Lutoria told me that I was wise to plow barefoot, my feet in the God given earth, provider of all mans needs, "grounded" with the magnetism of the earth.

            This tender soul was in her early 80's, the product of a tough life. Back then, when her husband died, a widow got a child's share of his estate as well as a life tendency in the home. So, from her share of the farm, rented out, she tried to live. There was no social security, welfare, etc, at that time in our countries life. One man from the church would prepare her garden and she did have a few laying hens. Her only son had been killed early in World War II. The 10,000$ insurance policy had been used to pay off the farm, repair her house and wire her house after the power lines had come in and she had electric lights. She had never owned a store bought dress... made a few dollars sewing and mending for people. She had three daughters, they had all left home to work in Baltimore... seldom returned home because they could not bring a husband or friends home to a house without plumbing.

            Ms. Lutoria loved to read. One of her neighbors would bring past issues of "The Grit Magazine." She had memorized most of the bible, had not been to town in many years, nor seen a doctor in many years. I stopped by to see her one time, she was eating her meal, nothing on her plate but butter beans, but I never heard her complain about her plight in life, that her old house leaked, that she was rough with arthritic pain. She was always so happy to see me, I truly believe she had peered into my soul.

            The only thing that people in that community would remember about her today, is that when her old house finally caught fire and burned down, she had come charging out the front door carrying her most precious possession... her sewing machine. My mother had told me that she had been placed into the poor house (county home) where she did not live very long. The county buried her in a cheap cardboard coffin, but did bring her back to lay her besides her husband in the family graveyard. I understand her daughters and grandchildren did come down to the graveside service, stayed in town in a motel, where they had running water. My mother said that Ms. Lutoria had grandchildren who had never seen her, so they opened her coffin at the graveyard. I can only imagine and imagination is one of mans greatest assets, the joy that would have entwined Ms. Lutoria's soul if she could have seen her own grandchildren. The mystery of life, why the pilgrimage of some human beings should be so tragic. Perhaps this is what writers such as Shakespeare was attempting to bring out when he wrote his tragedies... what Jesus was attempting to teach when he talked about the tragedies of many lives.

            How long will Americans be embarrassed-insulted with news about the mayhem involved in the abortions of planned parenthood. The selling of body parts for transplant from those who just happened to die conveniently in a hospital. Most hospitals can hardly wait to open the body of a deceased family member IF they have permission ahead of time to transplant body parts. I understand many persons, almost dead, are opened before death... of course without benefit of anesthesia. Body parts have become a money making business. We have become a profane civilization. There was a time when missionaries would have been sent to convert such heathens. The soul of man does not have mass, identity. Before my warn out body is cremated, it is worth nothing except maybe 80 cents for the chemicals that could be retrieved. The most valuable part of my existence, that which makes me what I am, my personality... that for which Jesus died, will take flight at my death accompanied by my guardian angel. My soul will never die.

            I was 7 years old when my paternal grandmother, Martha Lucas Morris, died. I still remember what one of the presiding preachers said at her funeral. Ms. Martha lies here in front of us, in this great church, but her soul is in heaven. I have that personal insurance with many, in whom I peered at their soul, including Ms. Lutoria Waddell. Now we understand the graciousness of death.