#1925 Cracker Jack Box with Prize

#1925

Cracker Jack Box With Prize

"There's a sucker born every minute" - PT Barnum

Before Noah's flood, descendents of Adam and Eve had gone completely crazy...up to their nostrils in sin.  One old man, Noah, gave them warning about a disaster to come.  But, as in today's world, they just thought he was a radical, a fanatic.  After all, for one hundred twenty years he was building a ship the size of the Queen Mary.  Why would they believe an old man, talking about a flood, building a ship on dry land, when they had never seen rain?  (The Earth before the flood was a big terrarium, moisture from sources other than rain.)

When the skies opened, the Earth opened, and water came down and rose up to their nostrils...they took another look at that big ship with the people and animals God chose to save onboard, even then, with Noah standing at the door begging them to save themselves it was just a big Cracker Jack box with maybe a prize. 

Afterwards, men still seeking a prize at the top of a popcorn box...Tower of Babel, God created all the languages of the world.  AND, in every language, every area of the world, men have continued to attempt deception with some cheap sweetened popcorn and a cheaper prize. 

When we were children, even children who went to Sunday School, we even wanted  "something for nothing", a prize, victims of smart business men.  Just think, a few pennies for sweet popcorn, almost negligible prize.  As with today's food stuffs, found in most grocery stores, the package-box costs more than any food in the package and probably the cardboard package has more food value than the food in the package.  But, God's food is not as sweet and tasty as synthetic junk, and there is never the promise of a prize.  Our youth learn everything at the indoctrination center which they call a school, at the local clinic which they call a doctor's office, accept the fact that the body is a temple not a dumpster.  Schools refuse to discuss preventative measures, such as supplements to keep young bodies, eyes, teeth, guts, healthy.  The doctor never says anything to you about what you are putting in your gut...your gut the most revealing part of your brain.  When you see sickness-senility-old age externally, can you even imagine what the body looks like internally?  In an autopsy, the lungs of a smoker appear putrid yellow: healthy lungs should be pink.

What type prize does one expect from pouring alcohol inside the body?  What type prize does one expect from pouring carbonated drinks such as Coke or Pepsi, especially with the artificial sweetener-poison-aspartame, inside the body?  Put a metal nail in a container and fill the container with Coke, the Coke will dissolve the nail.  Is this the prize?  It is the little foxes that spoil the vines, microbiology that kills the body.  Oh, the danger of small things.  (Rat poison is mostly corn meal, but it has just a small amount of arsenic.)

The one four letter word no longer used in any medical and other sick care literature, the word cure...doctors and owners of drug stores do not build mansions on pill hill by curing people.  The government, foundations, healthcare schools are all taught to just treat everything with more and more expensive exotic chemicals.  The aim is that every individual should be taking several pills.  The care of your precious body...its physiology- neurology comes from the kitchen not the drugstore.  The prize of a long healthy life lies in the prevention of most chronic diseases.  Of course, there are matters requiring necessary surgery, perhaps even other technology therapies.  But the prize of a long life, free from debilitating disease and pain, lies in preventative care and only you know your body.  God's food, grown from God's good Earth, free from poisonous killers of insects, cooked just enough to make it more digestible, is just one of many answers to that despicable president and his "affordable care". 

Everyone wants to please everyone.  Do you notice that even at the doctor's office when people are so sick with colds-upper respiratory problems-other pathologies they will always respond to the question, just as at the church house door, just as at the family reunion...How are you feeling: "I am fine"?

In everything, use the common sense which God has given you, whether buying a car, buying a house, buying clothing, buying food, forget the prize-glitter-packaging-even expensive advertising, GO FOR VALUE.

There is no more expensive prize involving life activity than the prize of graduation from any type schooling, the prize of well-behaved children, and the prize of following the casket of any loved one to a grave knowing that person had put first things first. 

Near the end of a long life of observing people and absorbing knowledge, I truly believe that the Creator of the universe, who chose me for life, expects all of us to aim for the prize at the end of the journey.  I truly believe that God expects his believers-followers to honor his word by giving of our resources to matters that glorify Him.  Some believe in giving the tithes to the storehouse (their local church), I believe that giving is a matter between God and myself.  There are too many religious leaders living too well off money given for God's work: there's too much hanky panky in denominational activities: too much gold in and around St. Peter's at Rome.  God holds me responsible for working and for giving.

This writer worked his way through eight years of university education, all those years, living just as frugally as I live now (secondhand clothes, modest food buying...) I worked every summer selling books door to door, saving almost all the money for school.  I was the top salesman for the company and had enough excess above my school costs to buy myself a new car.  I purchased the 1952 Chevrolet from the dealer nearest our farm (Blaylock Chevrolet, Freemont, NC).  I had my father to go by and check out the car which I had selected.  I still remember, will never forget, when the owner of that dealership said to my father, "Joe, where did that boy get the money go buy this car?"  My father replied, "He worked for it."  I was not a boy; I was a man, a university student which this dealer nor any of his family had ever accomplished.  I have often wondered if this Chevrolet dealer ever realized the way he insulted me and my father, two real men.  I wonder if this dealer ever realized that I earned two doctorates, lost my eyes as an Army doctor.  You see, this automobile dealer's prize was his pride in "belittling" a hardworking dirt farmer and his hardworking son. 

#1924 Ground Fog Over Utopia

#1924

Ground Fog Over Utopia

 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.  (Psalm 49:17)

In a court trial, jurors like for a witness to look straight at them.  Advertisers, and indeed, most preachers, physicians, powerbrokers, and particularly politicians just think that most people will believe anything...that most people just want to believe anything, whether it makes any sense or not. 

This writer a committed-convinced-concerned Christian, in the church house most of my life.  (I was told that my mother started taking me to Sunday school and church when I was only two weeks old.  My wonderful parents, from two of the state's first families: just hardworking, God-fearing, taxpaying, dirt farmers, raised within two miles of one another, family homes still there, had been brought up in the family church to which all of my relatives, on both sides, were members.  I never fully appreciated the fact that this young couple's first child was so important in the life of that church.)  Even so, with all my sincerity, both in the pew and as a frequent speaker in many pulpits, I always felt that most church attendees were of the mind, that they were just watching a magic show, in which the preacher was going to betray himself with some sleight of hand...that he really did not believe what he was preaching.  After all, is it not just too good to be true?  That the Creator of the world and everything in it, would extend to sinful mankind total forgiveness by the sacrifice of his own son: an absolute free gift: no ambiguity...from just belief in his son, the free gift of eternal life with all the splendors that man can even imagine.  AND, I am looking directly at you, as I have made this statement.  Our promise of Heaven, with its liberty from all earthly problems, is almost as good as the recently advertised Publishers Clearing House "$5000 a week, each and every week, as long as you live."  CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE SUCH A PROMISE, OTHER THAN IN GOD'S HOLY WORD?  The five thousand a week continues on forever, to your descendents. 

This writer, many years a church member, having spoken in more pulpits than many preachers, like most of you, has a real hunger and thirst for honesty.  We like to see genuineness in anyone, whether someone selling us a car or a pair of shoes.  I have such a concept-even demand for honesty with those at the schoolhouse, courthouse, and certainly the church house.  Foremost in a schoolteacher's mind, first grade or graduate school, should be the desire that the student learn.  Foremost in the doctor's mind, whether prescribing eyeglasses or the most intricate cranial exploration, the desire to help and "do no harm".  I am sickened by pastors who want to put on a production in the church house: walking onto the platform in the grandeur of their robes after the first hymn starts.  Dr. Gene Scott, University Cathedral, California, actually appeared on stage, after a curtain was pulled.  If I were a pastor, I would be out in the sanctuary as people came in to worship God, which I honor, thanking them for coming to church, showing my concern for them, instead of just expecting them to allow me to impress them with my brilliance and judgment of them from the pulpit. 

Most young people, raised in churchgoing homes, when they leave the umbrella of parental supervision...having good minds-able to evaluate "values", leave the church: most never to return.  The youngest children recognize hypocrisy.  From the energies and actions of most "so-called" professionals, I find that most young people have the same feeling as Ferdinand Magellan, who more or less proved that the Earth was round: perhaps, just maybe, Magellan was wrong, the Earth really is flat...opinion molders, powerbrokers, political types are just expecting we mere mortals to believe that the Earth is round, even though, with our own eyes, we can see the Sun, the Moon reflected from it and everything else  which God has provided for his own, which he chose for his own, in the council chamber of eternity, before the Earth was even formed. He knew my name.  And, in spite of everything, has not forgotten me.  And, even though I have failed him many times, he has never failed me.  I AM LOOKING DIRECTLY AT THE JEWELRY, DO YOU BELIEVE ME?  When I watched the Jews at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem (the large stones-foundation of Solomon's Temple), when I heard them cry: I knew their faith was real. 

I knew one lady, never married, had sat in the same pew at the Baptist church for seventy-two years, since she was a girl, had worked at the same store, selling cloth, my mother and noone else suspected her of anything, she was a valuable employee, trusted because she was trust worthy.  She measured the cloth from her nose to her stretched out arm, everyone knew she could measure a yard of cloth, would tell you the truth about it.  In grad school, Memphis, great Baptist church, Mrs., Garrett and her daughter, Louise, enjoyed the company of young men, oh, such a cook.  AND, she would invite me and others to her house for lunch.  (I think she enjoyed seeing us eat, as well as enjoying male company.)  She worked at a large store there called Lowenstein's, had sold women's clothing for years.  It was time for her to retire, the owners said, you just continue to come here, sit around and visit, your presence is worth every dime we pay you, to all of our longtime customers.  When land fog is erased by cleansing sunlight, the utopia underneath is there because of integrity...not a cheap commodity. 

Since I have not made enough of my church friends mad, I will go a little further.  Every radio and television church program, these days, it is a matter of money.  The latest ploy, "We have a large donor who will double anything you send...so if you send $10, it will be $20."  I am not trying to impress anyone, God knows my heart, I have always given more than I spend, except on real estate, securities, etc.  Most of my gifts have been $100k, many of them.  One college president said, "We will use it as an incentive to double other gifts,"  These are my exact words to him, "If anyone wants to give to your school, give as I have given as unto God...let them live as frugally as I live in order to give.  Let them sacrifice-pray for blessings.  Depending on being blessed themselves, as I have been blessed.  At a seminar one time, one old doctor (Dr. Day), said, "With a difficult patient I will pray."  Some of those young-smart-conniving Jewish boys around me began to snicker.  The poet said, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." 

#1923 Dodgeball

#1923

Dodgeball

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." (1 John 3)

How well I remember my first trip to South Africa, this was a propeller plane with a stop at Rio de Janeiro.  Now, jets can fly from South Africa to Europe or America with only a fuel stop at an island midway the Atlantic, Ascension Island, there for that purpose.

Returning to America from South Africa once, and I did this many times, the stewardess instructed us to pull down the shades to our windows.  It was at night and I thought what type craziness is this?  She told me that planes from South Africa were not permitted to fly over certain other African nations.  Can you imagine anything so silly, a jet thirty-five thousand feet in the air?  Most of these smaller African nations, did not even own a plane, much less a missile that would reach that distance.  I thought this is so true to life, people playing games, such as dodgeball.  Pretending and hypocrisy, thinking they are fooling SOMEONE, just playing games with EVERYONE.

In the schoolyard and at 87 I can still remember the schoolyard, in the game of dodgeball, we tried to pick out the slowest moving girl or boy to first hit with the ball and eliminate from the circle, the weakest-slowest has always been the object of the bully or the aggressor. 

I still remember standing on the edge of the great Kalahari Game Reserve in the nation of Botswana, there was a herd of thousands of wildebeest, over to the edge, at the fringe, in some bushes, several lions, not a pride of lions but about three.  You could tell that they knew what they were doing, as is always the case with an aggressor.  When some of the wildebeests saw the lions, of course they freaked and caused a stampede.  The only animals left behind were the newly born and the disabled...who of course, could not keep up with the crowd.  Of course, the lions feasted on these unfortunates who were left behind.  And so it has always been...even until this very day.

I often wonder what is preached from the pulpit of black churches, and for that matter, even most white churches.  Seventy-two percent of all black unborn babies are aborted...killed before birth.  Hospitals are filled with abused children, who were chosen for life and yet were not valued as should be an infant.  The horror story of what goes on in the Middle East, of what went on during hurricane Katrina, old folks left to drown and die in hospital beds as the water rose.  In the Middle East, I understand they just cut the throats of Christian elderly in nursing homes. 

One of my friends is the superintendent of a children's home, which I support.  He tells me of the tragic lives of many children which eventually come to the orphanage, after they have been abused, used for immoral purposes, etc at foster homes by people paid with tax funds to care for them.  He told me that some of the really young girls were commercialized as sex partners.  Can you even imagine a girl recovering from such abuse?  And yet, we know that in most Muslim countries young girls are regularly sold to old men.  I don't know what is necessary but one day America will awaken to the fact that in order for Christianity to survive, radical Islamism must be eliminated.

There are things I attempt to eliminate from my mind, things I saw when I still had a small amount of sight.  It is illegal to photograph anything at international border crossings, I was waiting to enter Afghanistan from Pakistan, in my bag of cameras, I own a very small camera which fitted into the palm of my hand, and I did break the law by using it to photograph refugees attempting to cross the border.  There were families with the mothers and fathers  hauling everything they owned in bags across their shoulders...their children, dressed in rags, barefoot on the icy roads.  Yet, when the Islam call to prayer came, as it does five times a day, they knelt on the ice toward Mecca in prayer.  Even on a bus, call to prayer, the driver would get his prayer rug and get out beside the bus in a position of prayer.  If people can so honor a false religion, how can I not but criticize-judge-postulate about the laxness of modernistic-socialized American churches and their dodgeball pretensions at worship.  Most are just playing games with God, the church, and we have such beautiful edifices, country clubs with steeples.

And as in our political and spiritual lives, so it is with our physical-physiology lives.  There are only two things that matter in living: nutrition and water.  Our cells must have nutrition and our bodies must have water.  Yet, in our hunger for the synthetic-counterfeit we expect our body to metabolize junk, so-called food...aspartame poisoned drinks.  And then, silliest of all, we exercise by walking and running in the fumes of vehicle exhaust...breathing in poisons while proclaiming damnation to the smoking of tobacco. 

Most of our tax dollars are abused by politicians who seek to indoctrinate our young people with something, which at one time, was called education.  Other dollars are spent by the same politicians, who claim to protect us with law enforcement.  SUCH GAMES, this writer owned one office building in which just one "so-called" female psychologist operated a counseling service.  She had fourteen rooms filled with expensive electronics and beautiful furniture; she had assistants who would never talk with me about anything...only say, "I understand you are a doctor."  Turns out, that this woman and none of her assistants were licensed to do anything, it was a spectacular Medicaid, government money grab-fraud-hoax, beyond all comprehension.  When I retrieved some of the raw data (the woman and her assistants abandoned the entire operation, cutting off all electricity, all equipment, etc) some of the material was read to me, all of it contained the same "canned" remarks, "This child a victim of sexual abuse..."  So, an entire operation abandoned...raw patient data records, thousands of dollars in electronics, even piles of medications.  My helpers photographed the entire chaotic mess, I wrote letters to every law enforcement person who I thought could read: Sheriff, SBI, NC AG, etc.  I sent same photographs and explanations to news media.  (WRAL, WECT, Star News, etc)  I never received even a phone call from anyone, it was all left up to me, an old, blind, veteran.  It took one year for me to clean up behind this mess which cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, and me, many thousands of dollars.  (The local police department did assist me in the collection of one "bounced" check from this woman.)

Look around you, what you get from the taxes you pay can be written on a very small piece of paper.  The world, our nation, most of our associates: your schoolhouse, courthouse, church house...everyone just playing the game of dodgeball.  Careful, don't get hit.  

#1922 Merriment and Mystery

#1922

Merriment and Mystery

"Paul Revere’s Ride" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year....

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,--

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  There are not many things in life we have control over.  No matter how many vehicle accidents we pass by, "it is not going to happen to me."  No matter how many times we hear the fire truck-ambulance, "it is not going to happen to me."  Last year, Americans spent $1.5 trillion dollars on "sick care".  The more money we spend on doctors and at drug stores, the sicker we get.  In this article, I want to discuss mysteries, which I want someone to explain to me. 

We live in a nation of merriment, as was the case with the Roman Empire, before it fell, the powerbrokers-politicians-ruling class making sure, the working class kept their minds free of their actual problems.  This was the reason for the building of Circus Maximus, still standing, seating one hundred fifty thousand spectators.  (Seating more than most modern arenas.)  Can we even imagine such at that time in history?  But just think, even before that extravaganza, the great walls around Babylon, walls although high, so wide, that chariot races took place on them.  The mystery of the ages, that most of the world's population was slaves even when Jesus walked the Earth, that man cannot determine his future...what is happening to him.  Most people are just content to be pawns of others, just as long as there is enough merriment in their existence to make life tolerable.  Who do our politicians, so-called leaders, think they are fooling?  And, it is a mystery to a few, that we will have a President Trump.  Many people are tired of criminals...another mystery, those with the supposed education, should have figured it out but those with the money, education, talent are the victims.  For example, one of my friends has a son who is student at NC State University, after the Trump win, the female professor came into the classroom, having evidently suffered all night, she was still in tears, told her class they should sign up as having attended but she was unable to lecture that day, she could not recover from Trump winning the election.  And to think, that we as taxpayers are paying for such mediocrity at a state tax supported university.  I understand there were actually grief counselors at many universities to accommodate academic types (students and professors) who could not accept the elected winner...choice of the Electoral College. 

Work of any type is a calling.  We are not stuck where we start but I am so thankful that I grew up knowing the honor of hard work.  I saw hardworking parents, grandparents, relatives, neighbors.  Of course, this was before the time of television, national addiction to sports and sports teams.  Today's world, grown men and women taking every holiday possible to sit around in la-z-boys and watch millionaires play ball.  Government workers, college professors, even school teachers and pastors use every excuse for a holiday.  It sickens me when I hear a preacher talk about taking Monday off because he preached for thirty minutes on Sunday.  The great preacher, George Whitfield, preached four sermons everyday, travelling place to place by horseback.  He preached to thousands in every state, it is believed that eighty-percent of the American colonials heard him speak.  The people who heard him speak, mostly farmers, knew that livestock must be fed everyday and the cow must be milked everyday.  I never knew my parents to take off any day...even Christmas.  Ours was not a world of merriment-entertainment.

The mystery of the ages, for people with nominal intelligence; people who can read and write, how and why you spend the few years you have on this Earth, and in so many cases very limited years.  (There are as many short graves as long graves in the graveyard.)  Not busy doing the work which God placed us here to do, but finding excuses for laxness-merriment.  Then, at life's end, whether you are a young corpse or an old one (dead is dead) to spend a very certain eternity in splendor or in horror.  So many mysteries as we study actions of men...supposed concerns for souls, supposed concerns for health-welfare of others.  It is much like President Obama who wanted to do so much for his race and country...yet, spends most of his time on the golf course.  It is like the church, so concerned about heathen in foreign lands.  But when these heathen come to this country to find jobs and work, an example of real family life, these heathen, send back to their families six hundred billion dollars from their pay (more money than is given in foreign aid by all countries).  Another mystery, needing interpretation, iconography, figures and paintings of religious types, as with merriment, we expect some response, some comfort from these idols.  It is time to realize that mystery in all things lies within the human heart, the greatest distance on Earth, the fourteen inches between your heart and your brain.  

#1921 Gourmet and Garnishment

#1921 

Gourmet and Garnishing

 "Humpty Dumpty" Mother Goose

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, 

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; 

All the king's horses and all the king's men 

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Lord, I don't want to make everyone as unhappy as I am.  I just wish that even family, friends, neighbors could understand my concern about their unconcern.  

In other articles, my own personal life has become much too personal, perhaps, even self-serving, I just want others to know why I have the obligation to share many experiences with you.  God help those who have never had the desire to share life's sorrows as well as life's joys.  God help those who have never wanted for anything, who never got rid of the old man of sin and rejection and became a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17) filled with the righteousness of Christ...attempting to see what Christ would see, what Christ would feel about those who did not win life's lottery...those with the DNA of the African, DNA of the Native American Indians.  God help those who overcame poverty, addictions, and the many other challenges which God used to glorify him.  This old, blind, disabled veteran will never understand how so many take life so casually, as if they are on a "merry-go-round" from which they can disembark at will, you only go around one time, and it is so fast.  I will never understand those, who think that God is made in their image, not they in God's image.  

I don't claim any special incite along with my lack of eyesight, but I truly believe God had in his plan for me, and we are all chosen for a special place in his plans, a reason for my existence, I think he wanted me to see special people, as they are, as I sold Bibles door to door every summer, to pay my way through college.  Why would he have made the arrangement for me to travel the world?  Every continent, studying people with whom I could not relate because they were all so different: yet, so much alike.  

I was selling books, in a little place near the Black River called Council, an ancient black woman was sitting in a rocker on her front porch, and she certainly did not look like a prospect for buying anything...everything destitute.  But, as was my experience, so many times, she possessed within her persona neither haplessness nor hopeless, only holiness which only God, in his mercy can provide.

She was so enthralled by my presence, my personality, my wanting to share with her, some words she said to me, which I have used a thousand times in speaking before groups, "Son, if I miss out on Heaven I have really missed out."  She told me that she had lost her husband, a hauler of logs, in a terrible accident.  She said, "I was left with three small children, two boys and a girl.  The landowner who owned this house told me I could live here as long as I wished, all I was required to do, work on the farm when needed and help his wife at her house when needed."  She said, "My children and myself foraged all the fields for potatoes-corn-beans, anything that had been missed.  We dried the food in the sun and stored it in large paper bags hung from the ceiling so rats could not get at our food.  The boys roamed the woodlands picking up broken limbs and lighter pine knots for a large wood pile, so we could stay warm and cook.  This is the way we survived, by God's mercy and the help of friends who knew our situation.  My children and I were always in church, my children were always in school."

She explained that all of her children graduated from high school and with the help of the government and their church, went onto college.  She took great pride in telling me how they excelled in college, how both boys became medical doctors, her daughter a PhD professor at St Augustine College.  "Would you believe from this old house, this old woman, three children with doctors in front of their names?  Of course, in their prosperity they wanted me to move away from here, but I am happy here in my familiar surroundings, my friends, they keep my house stuffed with food and other things.  They come home to see me but have never forgotten the bigotry and discrimination abutted them."  

Most people, unlike this woman and her children, even, unlike this blind veteran, do not have the scar tissue to understand what has happened and what is happening in their world.  You must have some scars, some healed over tissue, to understand the world around you: most sit in light, the light of truth, yet wear blinders to everything going on.  EVIL ALWAYS DISGUISES ITSELF AS GOOD.  Can we even imagine the mental processing of Blacks or Indians who were so mistreated?  And we think, that since a few things have changed (we all drink out of the same water fountains-we all go to the same toilets-we all ride in the same transportation-allowed to eat in any restaurant we choose-can spend our same colored money at any store we choose) that magically, our brains have become rewired by laws "supposedly" of justice.  

There is no sewer of injustice more evident to the senses of eyes or nose than that found at courthouses, statehouses, and certainly the nation's domed house of power.  In our nation's capitol even the statues of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson mean nothing.  Even the painting of Pocahontas being baptized, found in the Rotunda, means nothing.  "In God We Trust" on our currency, means nothing.  The power brokers of America, local, state, national are only interested in one thing and one thing only, reelection and staying close to the money pot.  We get so nauseated with "talking heads" who have an unholy alliance with the politicians, in a deceitful ability to never offend, always "politically correct".  I just pray to God that with a plain talking President Trump some of this deceitfulness will find a "hiding place".  I cannot believe it is just veterans, I believe most hardworking, taxpaying, God-fearing citizens, and victims of that boring gaze of bureaucrats found in every government office...the disdain-disgust-indifference with which they are treated will soon have reason to "run for cover".  

It is encouraging for those of us from poverty, who worked our way through higher education, to know, that those students living "grandly" from government handouts (more free stuff) will repay their government loans from the garnishment of their social security checks.  This 86-year-old, blind, Army medical officer worked his way entirely through eight years of professional education...surviving on spending $1 a day for food, there was nothing I could do about it, but can you imagine how it infuriated me to help staff Army hospitals where most of the staff were Nazi-German officers brought to this country after WWII.  Hitler's great program of rockets was being continued at Red Stone Arsenal, Alabama.  The closest Army hospital was at Fort McClellan, Alabama, I was assigned there, numb with unbelief, under the command of former Nazi officers wearing American Army uniforms...such names as Marx, Brauer, Gottlieb, etc.  I remember the officer I replaced, and what he said on his way out, "I don't know what is going on here but the inmates have taken over the asylum."  Now, as those in government, industry, even preachers eat gourmet food.  Those who wore the uniforms, live with the injuries, whose ancestors did not have the DNA to impress the masses, we just survive, and wait for the ax to fall.  

#1920 Horizontal Bunny Hop

#1920

Horizontal Bunny Hop

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex."  (Farewell Address President Eisenhower)

From the very beginning, both on the other side of the cross and this side of the cross, the consistent inconsistencies in mankind, even Jesus said, "...whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness."  (Matthew 23:27)  We live in a world of nasty livers, listen to the lyrics of their music, the fraud of movies, sexual innuendo of every type in television programs.  Even worse, news people no longer even attempt to hide their deceit.  No matter your party registration, if you have any intelligence at all, you should be bothered by the fact that the national news people (CNC, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc) are just bunny hopping with the democrat party.  Most people know that adultery-fornication-pornography is against the law but because, of political correctness, because, if it feels good do it, because, everything must be fair, we have a society bereft of all moral values.

This writer was in his own car, returning from a trip to a veteran's hospital, where I had been for treatment.  My driver stopped at a gas station to fill up my car with gas, he went inside with my credit card to pay for the gas, another car drove up next to me, filled with young black boys and one white girl, the radio was loud enough that it could be heard faraway, all of them jumped out of the car, jacked-up on some type drugs, using language which no one should hear, running into the store.  My driver came running out, jumped in my car, and said," Let me get you away from here."  This girl was some parents' daughter, these hooligan boys were some parents' sons. 

When will politicians-pastors-physicians and even parents, learn that the world is controlled by the mind of Satan?  When will Americans awaken to the fact that politicians are more interested in the control of the taxpayer's money than they are in the taxpayer?  When will church members realize that pastors are more concerned with the control of tithes and offerings than they are in the hardworking, God-fearing members who give their money to God's work?  Politicians and pastors are not concerned with those from which money comes, but in the money and the control of the money. 

My best friend, as a totally blind Christian, is the radio.  There are many marvelous ministries of messages and music to which I listen.  There are many churches and evangelical programs to which I listen, I have noticed, in the past twenty years, that a large part of each program's time, some in segments of fifteen or thirty minutes, some even one hour, more time is spent asking for money than is spent on the message.  It is a common practice now that in each message, divided halfway, to put in a plea for more money.  Fundamentalist-evangelical churches are so afraid of government interference, but, I noticed that every time a ministry asks for money they always impress upon us that the money given is tax-deductible.  If a church or a ministry of any type, cannot see its way clear to pay its bills, without asking the public for funds, WHY START THE PROGRAM?  If the money you give to God is given as a tax write-off, you have not given God anything.  The giving of money is one of the truest forms of worship; we give money because of worship (worth-ship) not seeking a tax deduction.  Certainly, a religious ministry should have some concern about the origin of any funds sent for its use. 

I made it a practice long ago not to give to any individual or group, secular or spiritual, where the recipients live better than I live.  God knows how frugally I live, only thrift store clothing, only secondhand house furnishings, food always on special.  I cringe with righteous indignation, when I hear the poor preparation of many "so-called" preachers.  I become stupefied when I think of the salaries they are paid.  Everyday, everyway, and anyone with any of the senses still functioning, can know this, we see people all around us on the broad road to Hell.  And, most of us are not the least concerned.  Pitiful the sermonettes I hear, but I realize they are for Christianettes.  Pitiful that I never hear concern about sin or salvation, the decadence taking place throughout the world, and the church's indifference about it.  "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"  (1 Peter 4:17)  There are always goals, secular as well as spiritual, we hear about the struggles to control the results of these goals.

I truly believe America has just witnessed the beginning of the end of indifference, both political and spiritual.  Our people may not be the brightest bulbs on the tree, the sharpest knives in the drawer, but those who can think and are thinking, have enough sense to know that there is poison in the well.  We know that the politicians are concerned only with their reelection, that religious types are only concerned with their easy life, that those with cushy jobs are only concerned with keeping the boat from rocking.  Perhaps, and it is a big perhaps, in a blunt speaking Donald J. Trump, the hero of the common man has finally been found.  If Trump cannot save this nation, then all of you content with the "bunny hop" should prepare for terrible times.  How many Christian-patriot-children's heads must be chopped off...Christian edifices must be burned...women and children terrorized before we realize that the enemy has us surrounded?  And, we are at their mercy.  So far, terrorists are winning, worldwide, six trillion American tax dollars have been spent in the Middle East and the Middle East is worse off than ever before. 

This writer comes from a Baptist heritage; I was raised-baptized-worked diligently all my productive life in Baptist churches.  Like the democrat and republican parties, they left me; the Baptist Church has left me.  Baptists have gone the way of Satan as did the Lutheran-Methodist-Presbyterian-etc. 

The last Baptist church in which I was a member, gave myself totally, until God one morning told me to never go back.  Had a pastor who left town in an affair with a girl about the age of his daughter.  One church member, a lawyer, paid this pastor's dues at the country club.  One member paid this pastor's bills for clothing at an expensive clothing store.  The last morning I was there, one of the deacons had to go to the "well-paid" church organist's apartment to awaken him from a drunken stupor; one lady was playing the piano for the church service when the organist, frazzled and frizzled, slid onto the organ bench, about halfway the service.  This is a good picture of today's modernistic-liberal-pretending Christendom.  With all my personal warts-calluses-imperfections, I will have my own personal communion-prayer-worship alone, and at home.  God knows where to find me.

#1919 Tabula Rasa

#1919

Tabula Rasa

(Latin- Blank Slate)

            "Ye Call Me" - unknown

            Ye call Me Master and obey me not,
            Ye call Me Light and see me not,
            Ye call Me way and follow me not
            Ye call Me Life and desire me not,
            Ye call Me wise and acknowledge me not,
            Ye call Me fair and love me not,
            Ye call Me rich and ask me not,
            Ye call Me eternal and seek me not,
            Ye call Me gracious and trust me not,
            Ye call Me Noble and serve me not,
            Ye call Me mighty and honor me not,
            Ye call Me just and fear me not,
            If I condemn you, blame me not.

From start to finish, no neutral ground, the world will try to make you think that history is not true but every experience; everything around us tells us that it is true.  And, truth is truth whether anyone believes it or not.  Real smart people just will not believe that the Creator of the universe actually wrote a book, the Holy Bible.  There is some awkward language; Adam "knew" Eve and she conceived.  The first born was Cain, the first born child in the world; can we even imagine how Eve made of him a spoiled brat?  Her second child was another boy named Abel, and Abel pleased God.  Cain did not like this, and so he killed his brother, Abel.  Just think the first two children born in the world, brothers and one killed the other.  (Now we expect nations to get along.)  Each of these boys was a blank slate.  Have you ever looked at a newly born baby?  Unlike these first two boys, babies are now blessed with extensive DNA, genetic entanglements of ancestry.  But, when you look at a newly born baby, you think, "Blank Slate".  How is it that in a time of about twenty years, pampering, experience, development of every type...spirits of rebellion, spirits of competition, talent, teasing, even treachery, we have adults in our midst. 

Chosen by God for life, most of us having the same homeostasis in body function-physiology-morphology what a difference in abilities: one, hands that can handle any ball, hands that can play any music instrument, or hands that can perform surgery.  The great atheist, Friedrich Nietzsche (God is Dead, fame) who could play the piano, could never understand why he could not play as well as his friend, Johannes Brahms.  In spite of everything, life's unequal playing field, the fact that many of us are not winners in life's lottery, God expects a positive return on his investment.  AND, there will be a final accounting. 

Have you seen so many beat themselves to death chasing wealth, believing there are pockets in shrouds; seventy percent of the public hates their jobs.  Get little pleasure from work or even living.  The first book of God's Bible, Job, he had it right, "And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." (Job 1:21) 

The greatest mystery of my lifetime, 86 years, and, man is the only animal that can blush, that there is no longer any shame about anything.  Just one day's news, the atrocities at Aleppo, the shame of Russian-doping athletes,

The first time I was in Russia, when it was the USSR, a friend traveled with me who was a New York City television reporter, we were amazed at the public drunkenness of just ordinary Russians, people were drunk everywhere, on the trolleys-up and down the streets, later, I said to him," If I could not escape living in this God-forsaken place, I would stay drunk too." 

Have we reached a place in our civilization that clean, "blank slates" have become so disoriented-disgusted with the world that we just want to escape?  Just think of a mother and father, going to prison, deserting their own precious children because of drug addiction. 

It is a basic fact of biology that group functioning is best...family life, teams, and congregations.  When the children of Israel, escaped the bondage of Egypt, after 400 years of slavery they left in groups of five, just think, over two million people led by Moses out of Egypt, across the dry land of the Red Sea, water piled up on each side, moving toward the "Promised Land".  There is always strength in numbers, unbelievers believe in counting numbers instead of making numbers count.  In a group, you have cohesion, cooperation; you look out for one another. 

At what point in our maturity did we begin to discriminate?  Many white children are nursed by a black "mammy".  In old Southern homes, before the time of baby food, a black would often chew up food to be fed to a white child.  The most elitist white families were cared for, cooked for, by the same black people they discriminated against.  How could "supposed" white Christians observe separate colored and white water fountains, toilets, doctor's reception rooms, and yet go to their separated churches and sing "Onward Christian Soldiers" knowing full well that most of their soldiers had deserted: while taking up an offering to evangelize black people in other countries: knowing full well of a black church across the tracks, in need.  Perhaps, it is the paradox-hypocrisy everywhere we look, that has caused seventy percent of young people, raised in "Christian" homes, to be antagonized by and later desert the church. 

Compared to most disciplines, psychology is a very new science study, I so remember one of my professors at UNC-CH, the actual writer of a much used textbook on psychology.  The science was new and I was sitting next to Dr. Guy Phillips, noted professor, as we listened to a PhD psychologist, describe his new science, he then showed film involving the human brain, of course, back then, the old fashion reels and projector were used.  One of the film broke and this esteemed psychology professor took out his belt and began to beat the projector.  Dr. Phillips said to me, "This does not speak well for his science."  The human brain, God's greatest creation, is magnificent beyond all words to describe.  Think of what the human brain has produced, when I was a young practitioner, sulfur drugs were important.  Now, most scientists know nothing about such.  When I was young, there were healing evangelists, and yet, the pontiff-Pope of the Catholic Church, still prays in a private chapel, as he has done for thousands of years.  In a world of technology, there are still people who forage for food, human beings who walk many miles to get potable drinking water.  In the complexity of the neurons, every homo sapien's brain, there is a Negro spiritual that comes into play, "Remember me when these chains get broken, set my body free, oh Lord remember me."  

#1918 Seeing Beyond the Decorated Tree

#1918

Seeing Beyond the Decorated Tree

"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel."  (Isaiah 7:14)

This now totally sightless veteran, who fifty years ago did have some sight in one eye, still remembers the enthusiastic glint when a grandmother talked about her grandchildren.  This world traveler still remembers the "yearning" gleam in a communist's eyes when I talked about capitalism and freedom.  I so wish I could see young children's eyes when they look at the decorated Christmas trees, I so wish I could see my own great granddaughter's eyes when she has her first experience opening a Christmas gift. 

Christmas is thought process, not a day.  Intelligent people realize that December 25 is just a guess, Jesus was probably born in late August, this writer was in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, forty years ago, and it was so very cold.  We know the shepherds would not have sheep in the fields during that type cold weather. 

One large newspaper did a feature story about my travels at Christmas time: the various places I have visited at Christmas...such as the Antarctic, Holy Land, Greece, Spain, Italy, and many other places.  There is one truism about Christmas celebration; Christmas is only celebrated in countries which Christianity has awakened.  There is no celebration of Christmas in Muslim or Buddhist countries.  IF CHRISTIANS ONLY KNEW WHAT THEY HAVE TO CELEBRATE.  There are 300 prophecies about the first coming of Jesus in the Old Testament, every one of these prophecies-promises have been fulfilled.  Just think of how Christians should celebrate the soon second coming of Jesus.  Is today's church (the bride of Jesus), are today's Christians so self-satisfied pretending to watch for him, serve him, and above all, trust him, that Christians have forgotten the real meaning of his birth?  He came to save us from our sin; the sinless one took on himself our sins, so that we could bask in his righteousness now and eternally. 

For a long time, in my Christian maturity, I objected to unbelievers bringing their spending and spreeing, rocking and rolling, into OUR celebration of our Lord's birth.  How could an unbeliever have any concept of Christmas?  Now, I just accept the fact that most unbelievers realize that the only thing that separates them from us, a matter of their unbelief.  Just perhaps hearing the Christmas carols, over and over, may cause some seeping of the Christmas message into their soul.  It just might be that seeing all the Christmas lights, the red berries and the thorns of the holly tree might awaken in the unbeliever the thoughts of Jesus as the light of the world, the thorn crown on his head, his precious blood shed for sin. 

I was a little judgmental about a decorated Christmas tree inside the church house; I have seen Santa Claus dragged down the aisle of modern wealthy churches, just as I have witnessed the second greatest event in the history of the world, Easter, characterized by rabbits laying chocolate eggs.  It becomes a vital part of our Christian witness to explain the difference in traditions, fantasies, and rituals. 

I so remember the Christmas tree in the old country church where I was raised.  For many of the poor children who attended Sunday School at that old country church (built by my great grandparents in 1874) they would have had nothing to celebrate except just wishing and wanting from a Sears Christmas Catalog.  Some of these children had never seen an orange, I remember my own "daddy" showing them how to peel an orange.  I just do not believe our Blessed Lord frowned on my old Uncle Blunner (my grandfather's brother), always in his Santa Claus costume, beating on the front door of the church and someone letting him in, and he carrying a large bag of candy and presents for all the children.  This was the only Christmas which many of the children knew anything about.  I just do not believe our Blessed Lord was too upset when one of the old men in the church put a nicely wrapped gift on the Christmas tree for one of his friends.  When the friend opened the gift, which he was so happy to get, a rabbit jumped out and ran all over the church.  Surely God rejoiced in the laughter of the children and the smiles of the old folks. 

Jesus is at every crossroads of your life before you get there; your belief in him determines your circumstances, rather than your circumstances determining your belief.  Jesus will not be relegated to a bellhop...just called on when you need him.  Christians should not be too peeved when unbelievers infringe on our holy day.  Too many Christians are linked too closely with unbelievers in their frolicking fragility of their holiday.  The Christian, banker, businessman, doctor, lawyer enjoying a lavish cocktail party in the home of an unbeliever, one who has nothing at all to do with God and certainly not his son Jesus, should not be too aroused when the unbelievers start singing "Silent Night, Holy Night..." or even, on some other occasion, "Jesus keep me near the cross..." the line of demarcation between pretenders and the defenders has grown very narrow.  Beyond the tinsel-mistletoe-decorated trees, cakes and pies, toys and trivia, this season and every season the Christian's determination a testimony not only of a holy day but everyday as our Savior's day.  

#1917 Unfiltered View of the World

#1917

Unfiltered View of the World

"The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment."  - Herbert Marcuse

"This is the record of the ancestry of Jesus Christ who was the descendant of both David and Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, who was the father of Judah and his brothers, who was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar).  Perez was the father of Hezron, who was the father of Ram..."  (Matthew 1:1-3) and this begins the Book of Matthew, first book of the New Testament...God's message to the world, after 700 years of silence, the time between the last verse of the book of Malachi of the Old Testament and now Matthew.  To every unbeliever, and unbelief is your only condemnation before God, the Creator of the Universe, the world and everything in it, actually wrote a book, 2000 years on this side of the cross, on which his son died, the Bible is still the world's best seller. 

Now, twenty-first century, life pursuits of escapism, whether the pill bottle or soap operas from a talking box, the hearts and minds of most real human beings with which I come in contact is a need for truth.  Our prayer at this Christmas, as well as everyday of the year, in this time of just going through the motions, we plead, we beg for politicians-pastors-physicians-and even parents, those who are responsible for truth, we just want truth. 

We know this present world is not a utopia, communism promises utopia and we see what has happened to communism everywhere it has been tried...Russia, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Burma.  Manmade solutions always fail.  Satan always pays off with counterfeit. 

With the idols of technology, God's air filled with messages (texting, world web) have we forgotten that God already knows everything?  Should hacking be such a mystery: one billion bits of information stolen here, another million stolen there, thousands such as with Mrs. Clinton, somehow lost?  An unfiltered view of the disasters brought upon ourselves, just USA, $200 trillion debt in entitlements and other obligations.  A debt that can never be repaid, every child born in America, is born into slavery, while financial junkies take satisfaction in a nineteen thousand Dow average. 

Have we reached the place of no return, a return to sanity?  Are our lives totally out of control OR, totally in control of others?  Where is the freedom that our ancestors crossed violent oceans, fought violent wars, worked-studied-prayed for the liberty of personal responsibility? 

I was just a child when socialism reared its ugly head in America, it started with the controls of FDR and his communist vice president, Henry Wallace.  I still remember my mother and grandmother standing in the front yard crying, as government officials, after their measuring tapes, cut down wonderful growing crops-killed pigs to respond to a certain number-killed chickens to respond to a certain number on each farm.  On our farm, they cut down the crops at the end of each row because corn-cotton-beans-tobacco would often get damaged at the end of row crops.  But, that hardworking black farmer who owned a small farm near us, they controlled his farm operation (agricultural stabilization control) by cutting down his crops midfield...his best tobacco-corn-etc.  And so the controls of our lives began.  And now it worsens everyday...a permit-license-payoff for everything you do.  AND, the majority around us who vote, think we are a land of freedom and liberty.

We think we vote for representative government, that someone at the courthouse, statehouse, and White House loves us.  We are loved like birds love road kill, you are lucky to even get a written response from your local government representative anymore.  The main concern of every elected official is just one simple thing, reelection. 

One of my best friends, Robert Futrell, NC3, assistant to the congressman, Robert was killed in a plane crash, he was raised in a village called Grantham...just as Margaret Thatcher was raised in a village called Grantham, in an apartment above her father's butcher shop.  Robert, an attorney, told me that the congressman's entire day and that of his large staff was punctuated by free buffets and cocktail parties furnished by lobbyists.  He told me that the only letter his congressional staff ever got really excited about was one that a black farmer had written them on a brown paper bag...probably his only stationary. 

This writer is often invited to speak before conferences or meetings of pastors, years ago, just the beginnings of the computer craze, one pastor waxed eloquently about megabytes.  Later, I told these pastors that this blind, once sighted, world traveler had been to both the North and South Poles, I told about the millions of square miles of just glaciers at the top and bottom of the world.  I said, all these millions of square miles of ice encapsulation were formed by individual snowflakes.  Do you know that there have never been two snowflakes found that our Creator, God designed exactly the same?  I said, I have crossed Siberia on the great Russian Trans-Siberian Railroad, everything covered with snow."  I saw Lake Baikal the world's largest lake, totally frozen.  This puts the manmade computer in its place.  I said, even the hairs on every head are numbered (Luke 12:7) not just yours, but every human being ever chosen for life. 

Forget the tinsel and mistletoe, forget the decorations on the tree...the spending a spreeing of a holy day that has become a commercial holiday.  Is it not enough just to think of the gift that God gave to the world?  And this baby, putting on a tent of human flesh, dwelled among us AND, in every one of his 35 miracles, God was revealed through him, to us.  

#1916 Elisha's House

#1916

Elisha's House

The Indescribable Christ
By Dr. S.M. Lockridge

Dr. S.M. Lockridge was the Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, San Diego CA from 1953 - 1993. He entered heaven in 2000. He is well-known for a passage out of his sermon titled “He’s My King”:

“He’s enduringly strong, He’s entirely sincere, He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful. He’s God’s Son. He’s a sinner’s savior. He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He stands alone in Himself. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He’s supreme. He’s preeminent. He’s the loftiest idea in literature. He’s the highest idea in philosophy. He’s the fundamental truth in theology. He’s the miracle of the age. He’s the only one able to supply all of our needs simultaneously. He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He saves. He guards and He guides. He heals the sick, He cleans the lepers. He forgives sinners, He discharges debtors, He delivers captives, He defends the feeble, He blesses the young, He serves the unfortunate, He regards the aged, He rewards the diligent, He beautifies the meek. Do you know Him?

Well, my king is the king of knowledge, He’s the well-spring of wisdom, He’s the doorway of deliverance, He’s the pathway of peace, He’s the roadway of righteousness, He’s the highway of holiness He’s the gateway of glory, He’s the master of the mighty, He’s the captain of the conquerors, He’s the head of the heroes, He’s the leader of the legislators, He’s the overseer of the overcomers, He’s the governor of governors, He’s the prince of princes, He’s the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

His life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Well. I wish I could describe Him to you. But He’s indescribable. Yes. He’s incomprehensible. He’s invincible, He’s irresistible. I’m trying to tell you, the Heavens cannot contain Him, let alone a man explain Him. You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hands. You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him. Well. The Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Death couldn’t handle Him and the grave couldn’t hold Him. That’s my king!

He always has been, and He always will be. I’m talking about He [who] had no predecessor and He [who] has no successor. There was nobody before Him and there will be nobody after Him. You can’t impeach Him, and He’s not going to resign. We try to get prestige and honor and glory to ourselves, but the glory is all His. Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. How long is that? And ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and when you get through with all of the forevers, then 'Amen'."

“Oh I wish I could describe him to you.”

The greatest miracle of grace, that God would not only save our souls but his second greatest gift, the love of parents.  Life's greatest disappointment that some children forget parents love so quickly.  Mortals are fallible, remembering parental risks-sacrifices only on that trek to the grave.  Do forgetting children actually think a dead mother or father can smell the flowers placed around a casket? 

Perhaps this is just one of the reasons that so many young people, and even older survivors, often attempt to fill a "void" with pills OR find solace at the bottom of a liquor or prescription bottle. 

Mankind's only venture into Godliness is showing kindness to others.  It is nothing new, in spite of everything: economic differences-skin color-mental and other disparity, it has always been there, perhaps that is why Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek."  (Matthew 5:5)  Those of us who have worked with the less gifted of the world have found that those with limited mental ability-different skin color-peculiar charisma often bless us most...their contribution to our lives a matter of giving us pleasure-joy-assurance.

On the plantation where my mother was raised, her father before her, his father before him, AND the old family house is still there.  That big old-drafty house survived the Civil War because it was the only house in the countryside that was used mostly as a hospital as well as funeral parlor.  Even Sherman's troops, the world's worst and most evil enemies, did not burn down that house...even though they were burning down all the houses and barns all around.  When I was a boy, all the chimneys left from burned homes were called Sherman's Monuments.  My grandmother told me that her mother was just a young girl, at the time; it was her job to take the milk cow way down in the woods to keep the troops from stealing the cow.  It was her brother's job to take the mule team way down in the woods to keep the troops from stealing the mules.  Of course, they cleaned out the smokehouses of all their meat, their hog pens of all their pigs and hogs, their chicken houses from all their chickens, and the corn crib from all its ability to feed Yankee horses.  You see, the Yankee troops lived off the land to make lives of the surviving southerners even more wretched; they would throw a dead dog into the well.  So, all the wells had to be camouflaged, so survivors would at least have water to drink, a cool place to put a bucket with milk for a baby or desperately ill person.  Can we even imagine young people way down in the woods, holding onto livestock-work animals, seeing nothing but great black smoke in the distance as Union troops burned and destroyed homes-barns-crops and anything else southern people needed for survival? 

One of my cousin's said to me (I am the oldest grandchild), "Who will we go to...to ask questions after you are gone?  You are the only one who knows about early family history."  I said, "Yes, while you young boys were out chasing a little white ball on a golf course or listening to some trash on modern technology, I was always listening to the conversations of my old relatives."  My grandmother told me about her mother telling her stories of the Civil War...the Yankee troops beautiful horses, how they hated everyone-everything that the country people held dear.

On the plantation, even when I was a child, far from the main house, much nearer the barns was a real old house, many would have thought it was a slave house but there were no slaves on my ancestors land, paternal or maternal, they were land owners but worked the land themselves.  However, there were black families who lived on the land with them.  In this particular old house, still surviving the erosion of time and weather...the large cooking fireplace, no glass in any windows (glass was very expensive and there was little glass in any pre or post Civil War houses, even my great grandfather's country store building did not have any glass in it) lived an old black man survivor named Elisha, the house was always called "Elisha's House".  Many of his family moved away, even into the towns.  But he chose to continue living and working on the farm.  There was a large cedar tree just outside his house, where he would sit in the shade on Sundays after he had worshiped at the church, built by my ancestors after the Civil War (1874).  At the church, the white men and boys would sit on the right-hand side of the building, white women and girls would sit on the left-hand side: the division petition was still there in the building when I was a child.  Black members of the community would sit in the balcony of the church.  The only time all would sit together, white families alongside black families, at a funeral.  Death was the great equalizer-broke down all segregation barriers.  Grief hits every human soul equally.

One morning, my great grandfather found Elisha dead in his house.  Other men on the farm dug a grave under that old cedar tree, which was still there when I was a boy and, Elisha, wrapped in the blanket which he was wrapped in during bad weather his entire life, was laid to rest.

Probably noone knew anything about Elisha's family or life, he had probably never been out of the county, at that time in history, had never heard a radio-airplane in the sky, but God knew all about him.  Then or now, with all the history around us-wars-travel-technology, has anything improved very much, would Elisha been better off knowing and exposed to all of what we call, today's progress?  Or content in his faith-work ethic-meek manner of living?  Was he wealthy?  It is good to remember, that you are at your very best this very moment.  You will never look better than you do right now, feel better than you do right now.  Now is all you have.

#1915 Lightning Rods and Dark Energy

#1915

Lightning Rods and Dark Energy

"The UN humanitarian aid agency decries the “complete meltdown of humanity” in Aleppo. Its children agency says there could be more than 100 unaccompanied children trapped in a building under fire." www.TheStar.com

Blindness is often mutual, not always sightlessness, the dehumanization of others. 

The "normal" person never considers handicapped safety bars in a bathroom.  Why they are there?  What they are for?  The "normal" person never thinks of what it is like for the "cripple" or blind to use bath facilities, to get dressed, to crawl around attempting to survive. 

My daddy was a great follower of Dr. M.R. Dehaan (Grand Rapids, Michigan) he was a physician, in private practice, but first in his calling was his radio ministry of Bible teaching (Radio Bible Class).  He said that one morning he and his wife Priscilla were very estranged by an argument, they normally would read aloud their daily devotional at breakfast, but this morning they did not even speak.  Finally, she read their daily devotional to herself, saying over and over, yes...yes and then passed the book over to him.  The devotional was on kindness and the forgiveness of one another and it so happened that it had been written by Dr. Dehaan himself. 

There is a very dark cloud of energy around most of us called "indifference".  It would be so easy to show kindness to those who did not win life's lottery, who God chose for disability, who God chose for impoverishment.  Last year, 4,600 human beings from Africa drowned in the Mediterranean attempting to escape the impoverishment of Africa...many of these human beings were women and children.  Can one even imagine the poverty of thought-impoverishment of despair in getting aboard a boat to cross a large expanse of water, such as the Mediterranean Sea?  Can we even imagine such destitution, leaving everything known behind?  Venturing toward the unknown with all the risks and dangers involved?  Now, at 86, looking towards the sunset of my life, I truly believe God wanted me to sense what life on this planet is all about...the reason I went on so many round the world trips, every continent including both the North and South Poles.  God left me with a little vision in one eye, so that I could see some of the disparities of life: the horror story of life's inequalities.  It is difficult for me to even describe these things and I know that most readers will not believe what I am about to describe. 

In darkest Africa, among the poorest people I have ever known (and this writer was raised in the poverty of impoverished Eastern North Carolina: dirt road, no power, no phone, or water lines).  I could not believe what my little bit of sight saw.  It was up to the women of the African village to take a large molded basin and catch the urine from cows.  They used this "water" along with the manure from the cows and clay to build their houses...shelters from storms-shelters from wild animals.  The cows were their method of survival.  Then, I would see them with jugs walking long distances just to find water for their children to drink.  Water for bathing or cleaning was completely out of the question.  I found that even in delivery, at birth, very little water was available.  I witnessed the village "witch doctor" with a distraught chicken diagnosing diseases and maladies.  In addition to this struggle for physical survival, the desperate need for spiritual help and this is where the real capture of human depravity comes into focus.  Have you ever considered why so many African men are called Mohammed?  You see, in the Islam religion, a boy named Mohammed is assured of Heaven.  The disparity of everything in human living is impetus-necessity for escape. 

In the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa the largest non-Muslim religious group, Coptic Christians.  Coptic comes from early Egyptian.  Until recently, even under Saddam Hussein, Iraq, and other Arab rulers, Coptic Christians and their places of worship were protected.  It is no longer this way; all Christians are considered the enemy by Muslims. 

For the first time in a long time, listening to commentators on the radio, or just people with whom I come in contact, I am encouraged about the future.  I have often thought that when I look upon the face of Jesus I would want to wish that I had done more for his glory.  I truly believe that there were enough people like me praying in the last election to have the "almost" miracle of the election of Donald Trump as president.  So many times, it takes a bully to chasten and correct.  Anyone with an IQ above room temperature, anyone who wants to live a responsible life would have known that the criminal woman running against him would have been a further disaster for our nation.  There is nothing in the news to which we are alert that would say otherwise.  As in the Old Testament when God's chosen were taking over the Promised Land from the seven civilizations there, he told them that he would send hornets in front of them, to chase out the natives.  We desperately need a man with familiarity of hornets to cleanse-sweep out-cleanout the cesspool of our nation's government.  We cannot be too judgmental about the president elect's lifestyle.  We are hiring someone to clean up a mess, not to be humble, mild or meek.  Perhaps, an onlooker would have thought Jesus a real bully, when he chased the money changers out of the temple, in his day.  It should be so obvious to anyone observing the liberal news media, to anyone cognizant of the advancement of socialism, to anyone aware of the hatred of most liberal young people, such as university students have toward our country that the communist mantra of "the end justifies the means" is now a matter of national survival.  Americans can get things under control or we can get ready for American vanguishment from within.  Perhaps our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, said, "I do not fear what could happen to America from outside but only what could happen from within."  

Under the scourge of indifference, the dark energy of discontent because of the grace given by God to this marvelous nation, we will find the energy to make corrections: to protect our borders: to control our enemies both foreign and domestic.  How many Christian heads must be chopped off?  How many places of Christian worship must be destroyed, before Americans realize that the choice is ours, a lightning rod for the world or surrendering to the powers of darkness?