#1860 Raincoat on a Peg

#1860 Open my eyes that I may see Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me; Place in my hands the wonderful key That shall unclasp and set me free. - Hymn Open My Eyes Raincoat On A Peg

Americans have become overwhelmed with the pleasure of bad news.  Even at the Olympics, when we think of Olympians as having worked hard, planned-prayed-instilled with discipline, much enthusiasm for winners erased by the foolishness of losers.  On any highway in this nation or any nation, in any night club or "dive" in this nation or any nation, you can find "drunken" night clubbers who have the irascibility to kick in a door and do damage to a public "toilet".

One of the first things I learned, in leasing real estate to businesses accommodating the public, the "trashing" of bathrooms.  You can take a person from a respectable-reputable home, pour in some liquor or other drug and he or she will act like an animal.  Since the bathroom gives a little privacy, they will act like a lower animal out of control on the mirror or other bathroom equipment.  I can say without fear of contradiction, I spent more money as a landlord in bathroom repairs "public places" than any other areas of rental property. 

Americans should be ashamed when confronted with such behavior from Olympians...true or exaggerated.  But, why not Olympians, are we not embarrassed enough by the behavior of millennials?   Did not the baby boomers embarrass we old folks enough with their gay pride parades, gay agenda, politically correct everything?  Truth is truth whether anyone believes it or not and, most young people do not want truth, just lies.  These are the ones who cheer lying politicians such as the Clintons-Sanders-Hollywood Potentates when they make their political convention speeches.  To the uninitiated everything is obscure, if you don't like truth, even beauty, just throw mud at it, just lie about decency.  We want integrity on our terms.  We want God in our image.  Even at the church house, your house, we want God like an old rain coat...just hanging on a peg by the door.  YOU JUST USE IT WHEN YOU  NEED IT.  Discipline-decency is no longer a way of life.  As the advertisement for black colleges states "the mind is a terrible thing to waste."  Most of us harbor things in the mind which never escape...otherwise, why education.  From primary school, from Sunday school, from every experience in life imbedded in our mind (the human mind, the greatest of God's creation).  We hold onto matters-things-items from which we cannot escape.  Especially for the sighted, and sight and intelligence are totally intertwined, we have visual images from which we cannot escape.

I wish I could forget visual images that trouble my mind every day of my  life.  I cannot erase them.  Many times I have talked about what I saw (and I did have some eye sight at one time) at the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  I cannot forget the migrants-refugees fleeing the country, attempting to get across the border.  The adults were carrying on their backs sacks containing their belongings, their small children standing around them on icy roads barefooted.  Do we think for one minute that these children  have forgotten the fright of their lives, the plight of their families, the horrors of warfare?

This old, blind veteran, son of Eastern North Carolina, raised in poverty on a dirt road without power-phone-water lines, chosen by God to escape the heat and sweat of his "raising".  Blessed to have jumped through the hoops of education and the military service.  I lived through the rigors-offenses of racial segregation.  As a doctor, two of my best friends were black doctors.  One in the military service, a brilliant medical officer raised in the Mississippi delta.  The other, a black doctor in private practice, Goldsboro, NC.  He mostly had a practice of black patients, he was loved beyond description.  After the civil rights struggles of the 60's, he said to me, "The white people may think that the black minorities will just take their new acceptance at the schoolhouse-courthouse-'outhouse' in stride.  Simply because they can now go to the same water fountain, bathroom, or school will not "magically" erase their years of segregation."

When he died, I got to the funeral too late to sit with the honorary pallbearers, I squeezed into the rear of the huge black-packed church where the funeral was held...the caroling banging out the sad notes, the great choir, the beautiful casket, carried on the shoulders through the church by six black men in black suits wearing white gloves.  He received all the words due a real man of his service to a community, family, church but the thought plundered my mind how he was rejected by most of the people outside this great oedipus.  Even today, black doctors have their own groups, black men their own fraternities.  (NC Association of Black Cardiologists and Black Free Masons)  I understand that black athletes at predominately white universities, separated, ride in their own bus. 

The study of psychology has blossomed in my lifetime, everyone is looking for an easy way to cure mind problems.  My patients who were addicted to alcohol-prescription drugs-comfort foods were all attempting to escape something.  The first time I was in Russia, my travelling companion, a professional writer-reporter from New York City, said to me, "I have never seen so much public drunkeness...it is worse than the Bowery in Manhattan."  I said, "If we had to live in this godforsaken place, we would probably escape by staying drunk also."  Even pastors instead of presenting the great position...one who is able to heal everything, send his people to the psychologist.  Physicians-psychologists-politicians make the psychiatrists rich.  As we Army doctors found with MKUltra (mind-control), tranquilizers and other chemicals that have made Big Pharma rich mental health is a statistic.  One never recovers from poverty.  One never recovers from sexual abuse.  It will take many generations for the disenfranchised, the disabled, the debauched to recover from shameful treatment.  The politician can put on this raincoat and go out among us when it is convenient and talk his concern, the pastor can put on his raincoat when it is convenient and preach his concern as he lives the easy life, the physician can put on his raincoat and enjoy prestige as he thrives on pill hill, we can all put on our raincoat of prayer and belief in tough times but the creator of the mind knows every stain and smear.

We are not stuck where we start, whether poverty or segregation.  To live the Christian life is not easy, just tough.  The only cure for a sick mind is a well mind...rebirth...new man...the holy spirit of God through Jesus Christ now inhabiting you.   The born again Christian, new creation, is seen through God's spectacles as Jesus.