#1909 The Safari is Over

 

#1909

The Safari is Over

" Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity."  Hamlet  (1.2.72)

If God gave a medal for failures, I would be at the head of the line.  There is not one man God does not give a signal to, AND, I do not believe a man has ever lived who was not besieged (in his own mind, even though he kept it a secret to others) that didn't have the belief in his own heart to know the difference in right and wrong. 

Ted Bundy, recent history, the worst, was charming, good-looking, intelligent.  "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."  (Psalm 139:14)  Chosen by God for life, there is not a replica of me.  We are all, like the sands on the seashore-like snowflakes, individually designed by the supreme creator.  It all starts in the home, the development of the adult.  I learned long ago that I cannot judge-predict the outcome of any child.  Those blessed most with good ancestral genes-DNA, those with the intelligence and looks to succeed, even those with the charisma and charm enough to coax a hen off her eggs, often fail in everything.  Then, there are those boys who are nothing but radical rascals, those girls who are radical imps often turn out to be the very best fathers-mothers, ideal citizens, in everyplace their hand turns.  You simply cannot stand on a street corner and evaluate the baggage that others are hauling around on their backs.  You simply do not know from whence they came-have not walked in their moccasins.  It amazes me that many, considering their backgrounds, turn out as well as they do.  In America, 72% of all children grow up in homes without a father.  Next to Jesus, there is no love like a mother's love and we know it is true in spite of what some of their children might inflict on them.  Once, I spoke at the funeral of a 100-year-old North Carolina State College graduate, one man said to me, asking about my own mother, "Be good to her, she is the best friend you will ever have."  So, every prison, every reform school, every runaway in a big city, all had a loving mother.  We don't know what happened to change their attitudes-criminal acts, etc.  But, we do know that at one time they were loved, and every parent believed that they had produced a responsible child.  We cannot judge too severely about the birth of any child, there would not have been a King Solomon, the world's richest-wisest man, if there had not been an illicit relationship between King David and Bathsheba. 

This weekend, tyrant-dictator-communist czar, Fidel Castro died at the age of 90.  In 1959, I met and the family of a judge who had escaped Cuba and the evil acts of Castro.  Later, speaking at a meeting in Miami, I met other Cuban dissidents, all with horror stories about Cuba.  Tyrants-dictators should know as everyone else, everyone who has passed a graveyard that the mortality rate is still 100%.  Sinners-unbelievers may attempt to fool self, but down deep inside they know that there is a "payday".  Life here is so short, it seems just a few years ago that I heard Fidel interviewed on a late night talk show, a good looking young man, but, like the rest of us, he got old-worn out, and now he is dead.  Did his hero status, his power over the Cuban people, the great wealth he accumulated actually cause him to believe that he had rather have what the world offers him now then to spend eternity in the blackness-emptiness-horror of hell? 

I know that God loves me because he keeps putting up with me; he is not the author of confusion.  You can trust the Bible for your beginning and you can trust the Bible for your ending.  It makes no sense, whatsoever to a mind of reason that anyone would exercise so much cruelty over other people, man, women, and children, when it would be so much easier to have a heart of empathy, a destination of splendor instead of one of horror.  How is the wiring of anyone's brain so different...some human beings capable of so much kindness...some human being capable of so much hatred? 

This world traveler was in the Congo, Africa.  The city of Goma, where I was visiting is at the head of the 2000 mile long Congo River.  Even back then, mid-70's, as has probably always been, so much conflict between the tribes-religious groups.  My guide and I were trying to make it from Goma to Brazzaville, today, 2016; it seems like a nightmare, all the bridges had been blown up.  One cannot believe the trouble we encountered in just getting across rivers.  Why do poor people always add to their degradation?  Great trucks were lying in the rivers, which had tried to cross on rocks.  My driver took our Jeep across the rocks but would not allow me to go.  Believe it or not, this blind man crossed the river walking on a wire, holding onto a wire.  There was a large crowd of onlookers waiting to see me drop into the river, but God-willing, I made it.  At one crossing, I met a Catholic priest driving a pickup truck, attempting to cross a river.  In the rear of the truck he had six dying HIV/AIDS men who he was attempting to get to a hospital; also in the back of the truck was a nanny goat, which they were using for nourishment.  The priest said to me, "I know God loves these people and he is using me to help keep as many alive as possible."  The next day as my driver and I were leaving the city, this little group with the priest still at the wheel at the truck, was just arriving, maybe at the hospital.  WHY DOES GOD PLACE IN ONE MAN'S HEART THE DESIRE TO HELP OTHERS AND INTO ANOTHER MAN'S HEART THE NEED TO KILL AND CAUSE MISERY TO OTHERS? 

Once the most powerful weapon in the world was a nuclear bomb, now, the most powerful weapon in the world is truth.  Truth is truth whether anyone believes it or not.  We live in a world where truth is in short supply...the love of money...the love of power...the lack of not fearing satanic darkness.  We live in a world where evil men and women will burn down a nation in order to rule the ashes.  We live in a world where men and women feel that man's knowledge is sufficient for all their needs.  They might believe in God, if God were made in their image.  Most of the seven billion population of the world, and most have some form of religion, in spite of their rituals believe that this life is all there is to it, that, at the end, we just become fertilizer.  Castro knows today the truth, and I hope it was not too late. 

Christianity is not complicated, just tough; it is hard for mere mortals to believe that the Creator of the universe, the world and everything in it, the one who can measure the Himalayas with his fingers, would actually leave instructions in his book, that he actually wrote a book, giving us all the answers.  When Jonah, disobeying God, jumped from the ship into the water, there was a big fish there to keep him from drowning.  AND, JONAH REPENTED INSIDE THE FISH, in the darkness of the fish.  When the fish belched out Jonah on land, saturated with acid and remnants of a fish belly, Jonah knew the truth, we know truth sets you free.  (John 8:32)

In Raphael's marvelous canvas, The Holy Family, captured by the artist, is the beauty of truth, that God sent his own beloved son into the world as a baby, putting on a tent of human flesh to dwell among us and lastly to redeem us by dying on a cruel tree.  And, it is all a gift.