Veteran's Day - 2015

#1791

Open rebuke is better than secret love.

 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:5-6)

The real Christian does not believe there is a maverick molecule in the universe.  God is boss, in charge of everything.  He knows the cattle on 1,000 hills (Psalms 50:10), he knows the location of every jewel, every element, all the gold in the crusts of the earth.  He knows that if the crusts of the earth were gold, men, His chief creation, would kill one another for a handful of dirt.  Nothing surprises God.  Like a worm, looking at a man, we do not understand God.  But, why would you worship a God you can understand?  That is the reason so many of our fellow human beings worship false Gods, false idols, trash from the talking box, millionaire sports figures running up and down a field.  The finery of a home, letters, military rank, political designation after a name.

This writer, blind veteran, was in London, England with a well seeing guide in St. Mary's Catholic cemetery looking for the grave of his favorite poet, Frances Thompson. (Love is a many splendored thing.)  Having felt his tombstone we were moving back towards the entrance my guide said, you will never believe what's heading our way.  I had just recovered from almost falling into an open, newly dug grave and we were talking about how dangerous it was.  We went over to read another large tombstone, but he told me that a cemetery worker was pulling a cart on which was a casket covered with an American flag.  He said right behind the casket is an old woman in a wheelchair, being pushed by evidently the driver of the hearse.  Walking next to her wheelchair, a Catholic Priest.  They were heading to the open grave I said "this must be an American Veteran, let's go back."  The Priest had already closed his book, grave diggers were already throwing dirt on the casket, the Priest said to me, "He is a World War II Veteran, met and married this lady here in England and they lived here their entire life.  Both are dying in separate nursing homes, she is not very cognitive but I am sure she is happy you are here."

I reached down and took her gloved hand and squeezed it, I said, "I am American".  She handed me the American flag.  When you say you are "an" American, it means something different than just saying "I am American".  There are many types of Americans, those who say "I am an American", those who just want what they can get out of the Country, not what they can give to their Country: those who just want it's benefits.  But, a real American gives as well as gets.  It became obvious to me that this Veteran, buried in this London cemetery, without any type Veteran's benefits, had given.  On the heading of the flag was written "Battle Flag" and the date of the Battle of the Bulge", this tattered flag, evidently, had survived the Battle of the Bulge of WWII in which this soldier participated.  I later sold this flag, along with all my 48 star flags, but there is no price that anyone could pay for the story involved in this one flag, this one Veteran's life or the sorrow of the widow who buried him that day.   

Your writer is a world traveler, every continent, though blind, passport stamped in 157 countries,  near Agra, India, I went to a carpet weaving place.  One family will spend months weaving one carpet, sitting on mats on the ground (very poor lighting, most are blind before they are adults) multiple spools of silk thread above, they work all day long on a pattern on which only they understand.  There is always a family member on the other side of the carpet passing the needle back through after having made knots, etc.  You can tell the back of the carpet from the front because of all the knots and entanglements but the front of the carpet is a thing of beauty. 

Such as our life, the Christian believes planned by God before the foundation of the Universe.  He knew there would be knots and entanglements, U.S. Veteran or not...parents who produce and raise young warriors to defend their Country, we all have much to give. 

In the American experience, next to slavery, the greatest shame of our Nation is it's treatment of handicap citizens and disabled Veteran's.  But, as this disabled Veteran has said many times, it is hard to support a government that takes your future, then your security, and lastly your dignity.  But as one of my wounded uncles whose wife was the sister of my mother, said to me after he had returned from the South Pacific of WWII (a man who went on to live a very successful life), "War changes you, but the new birth in Jesus Christ changes you more."