#1862

Eye Wash

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision. - Helen Keller

If you can still feel pain you are alive.  At 86, I well remember that in my youth very few people, born and raised in America did not have a foundation of biblical and constitutional principles.  I feel nothing but pain, this old-blind veteran is so hurt when he hears daily the heresies of treason about this country.  Worse, the perverts came out the closets and the Christians went in.  There was a time when the Christian church would have stood boldly, put on the whole armor of God (Eph 6) against the communist philosophy that has become embedded in every area of American life...media, education, financial, even spiritual.  The church, most community leaders, power brokers, opinion molders many of whom might not be Christian would stand as a wall against the liberals and perverts who have the desire to eliminate gender and decency from our lives....using bathrooms (toilets) as a mixer.  Can you believe that some school systems refuse to use the terms boys and girls?  Can you believe that some educators-financiers want same sex or unisex bathrooms in their places of business (Target stores)?  Can you believe that the words man or men have been taken out of the verbiage in some reputable places?  We thought for a while that Democrats, Sanders-Clinton just wanted to take away our guns...they want to take away your food, if you do not dance to the tune which they play.  It should pain every thinking American that we have lost it all, our republic-freedom-privacy-security without a shot being fired from a foreign power.  Still the most popular president, Abraham Lincoln, a man doused in principles, "I don't fear what will happen to America from without but I do fear what will happen from within."

Many years ago, your writer was speaking before a conference of the Southern Baptist Convention.  The talking box had not become as addictive as today (TV-computer) I said then,  and I have not changed my mind, "If Satan had wanted to design something that would make people, especially children, just as mean as possible, he would have designed a television set."  Satan has perfected the eye wash of degradation and sin.  On television, living color,  he has made evil acceptable and beautiful.  The eye is the window of the soul and our souls have been tranquilized and stupefied by images.

In the military, when an officer with high rank was going to make a personal evaluation of our facilities we called it eye wash, the cleaning and preparing, the painting and fixing wanting the "brass" to think this is the way we performed all the time.  I have often said to CEO's from different industries, especially the fast food industry, go out an inspect your franchises don't let them know you are coming they will prepare with much eye wash.  Go in as a customer, watch what is going on, do some snooping in corners-backrooms-especially bathrooms.  American commerce was built on one principle, the owner, the one who had put in his hard work-taking all the risks, was always in charge, almost always on the premises.  In the restaurants built by hard-working mostly minority Americans the owner was usually at the cash register, so he knew what went in and what went out.  So he could look around and predict his future.  Any business, if the customer, the one paying the bill, does not enjoy his experience with you, he will not return.  Business is not a flash in the pan affair...no matter how much eye wash.  It is always good to patch and paint but certain basics in any business must always be pushed.  Rat poison is mostly cornmeal, just a pinch of arsenic, just enough to kill the rat.  We are learning the affects of very small life, the virus, microscopic, the virus transported by a mosquito can cause death.  We must never forget the small things, life-liberty, the pursuit of happiness, honesty-integrity, family, these are not just religious principles but principles which the most base individual can understand. 

You can put lipstick on a sow and she will still wallow in the mud.  The crudest sinner still has an appreciation for beauty and uprightness.  The common prostitute can paint and prepare with eye wash of every type (make-up, clothing, hair dye) but she is still a prostitute and she knows what she is. 

I was walking to church one Sunday morning, about six blocks through the business area (downtown church).  A woman sitting on a stoop outside a cafe-bar, waiting for it to open, (now I was suited up carrying my bible, there was no mistaking "my eye wash") she stopped me and asked me for a dollar, which I gave to her.   At lunch, a lady asked me, why I gave her the dollar.  I said, "Now she knew her condition, I have just left a large church, where most of the people there, do not know theirs...they are just trying to attract God with eye wash."  Hoping that the overpaid pastor might say something pleasing to God, the choir might perform well, their perfumed-powdered-painted pew warmers might perform well.  Maybe the smoke from Christian cigarettes does not get into God's eyes, maybe the language and costumes of Christians (not that different from the party-goers at the nightclubs) will not bother the sensitivity of God, maybe the lack of disabled-disenfranchised-depressed on the pews will not bother anyone.

General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, after he was saved, left the eye washed security of  his Methodist church to go into the highways and byways following the great commission of our lord.  When he brought in the sick and distraught, the despairing and the depressed, the ugly and indifferent...people without funds or family background, his fellow church members began to complain, they did not like smelly, broken, unsaved people, the very people for whom Jesus died.  So the Salvation Army was born and it spread around the world.  Once, at Christmas, he wanted to greet the citadels around the world...did not want to spend much money.  He sent a telegram with just one word, "others".