#1963

Dissapointed Hopes...Scattered Dreams

 “Some have narrowed their minds, and so fettered them with the chains of antiquity that not only do they refuse to speak save as the ancients spake, but they refuse to think save as the ancients thought. God speaks to us, too, and the best thoughts are those now being vouchsafed to us. We will excel the ancients!” -- Girolamo Savonarola

 When we have the mind of Christ, we need nothing else. When the last page of the book of your life is read, others will know if it has been a comedy or a tragedy. Pride is the beginning of every sin. Pride must die in you if anything from Heaven is going to live in you. In another article, "The Good Earth," I related the Church of my childhood, built by ancestors of both my mother and father, and that denominations faith and practice of washing "Saints' feet." Can you even imagine today's "highfalutin" pompous, painted, powdered, puffed-up, pew-warming church members getting down and washing someone's feet. Very few "so-called" Christians have that type of humility any longer but, I saw this in the Church where I was raised...I participated in this part of that Church's Communion. We felt that this act of humility/contrition was just as important as taking the bread and wine at the Lord's Table. The first image I have in my brain, as a very small child, my own precious mother, on her knees washing the feet of another lady...perhaps my grandmother. Humility was real to the early Christians. I often wondered why my family members and ancestors were so humble. After all, both my mother and father's families were of the states first families, the fist settlers of this state. 

It was not until I went to college that I realized the value many people place on "brands," names, and things. It was in college that I first learned that advanced education is more about networking, meeting the right people, making long-time connections, than actually getting an education. I had already realized that the "sorriest" among us had the largest funerals. My hard-working, God-fearing, tax paying parents and grandparents...known for their frugality and honorable lives, were never popular among the elitist because they were republican. In a state RULED by democrats for 140, the democratic party had tyrannical rule over NC, particularly the impoverished Eastern part of the state. Poor tenant farmers living in shacks, cotton mill workers shackled to the mill store, and political mail controlled as in slaves as the Jewish "brick-makers" to their Egyptian captors. You could not get a job working on a road, could not teach school, work in a hospital, even drive a public school bus...in the state of North Carolina, if you were not a registered democrat and a contributor to the party. If you work yourself to death, getting any type of advanced degree...medicine, PhD, etc. You could not get a job at a state institution of education if you were not a democrat. And, the same political party that kept blacks "in their place," were in charge of everything. My parents told me that IF I expected to get anywhere in this world, I would join the democrat party. This I did, I even became president of the State young democrats. But one day at the hotel Sir Walter in Raleigh, the temple of the democrat party, sitting at a table with Governor Sanford and US representative Fountain, I decided that every man (if he is going to call himself a man) must make real decisions. I had seen the fraud of democrats as a child...hauling black people to the poles to vote that they would not speak to otherwise. They would hand the black person a cheap piece of candy in order to mark THEIR ballot. Can one even imagine the fact that today's minority's march in lock-step to support this same democrat party?

 This doctor was the first doctor in his town not to have "Jim Crow" waiting rooms. I was NC young man of the year. Even though from pulpits and podiums across the state...especially to Baptists, I had talked about the hypocrisy which had invaded the Christian Church...total lack of humility. How can any Christian pretend to be a believer in God, salvation by grace through faith, and still discriminate against ones fellow man...regardless of the shade of skin color. Even the blacks themselves were bigots. There were organizations that would only admit fellow blacks if their skin was as brown as that of a paper bag, this was the test that they used at the entrance door of their group, holding said brown paper bag to judge their skin color. And, I was amazed/heart-sick that young men such as myself were despised because we were not sought after to pledge a fraternity. I have never recovered from the fight that money/looks/family DNA determined your desirability for certain civic clubs, all country clubs.

 I was there right after blacks could co-exist with whites, President Truman had a black secretary (I still remember her name, Tilly) she hated white people. Perhaps my best friend in the Army was a black doctor. He was raised in the Mississippi Delta. His entire community working hard to send him to Meharry medical school. It will take a long time for the black race to recover from their years of bigoted treatment.

 Today, there are about 16 million Jews in the world. A race to which our blessed Lord belonged. There are about as many Jews in New York city as in the Jewish state of Israel. They are a spectacular group of people. Most Nobel Prize winners are Jews. Most scientific achievements are traced directly to a Jew. Hitler tried to eliminate this race but failed. God told Abraham, the first Jew, that there would be as many followers of him as stars in the sky. As soon as we forget that every human being to whom God has given life is a very special person...his own set of fingerprints, one in 64 million chance of sharing identical prints with someone else...his own specs of Iris in the eye, his own manner of walking. There are never two voices alike. Just think, seven billion on the face of the earth today, and probably that many already deceased, never two alike. Even identical twins, sharing the same mothers' womb, same DNA, are never exactly alike.

 Over 100 times in the New Testament, we are told about the resurrection of Christ. Every book in the bible, except the book of Luke, was written by a Jew. Yet there are those discriminating against Jews because of their race; blacks because of the melanin in their skin, and most of us because we are WHO or WHAT we are.


 Dr. T.R. Morris MD Lt. Col USA Retired Blind/Dictated Visit my blog at http://carolinahedgehog.blogspot.com/ Facebook: http://www.DrThomasMorris.com * For release to Disability and religious publications* (910)-251-6218 (910)-762-9467 (Dr. Morris is a totally blind 100% disabled service connected veteran, 8 around the world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries) *If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to this email with the subject line "REMOVE" and the email address that you were sent this email at* CC: NCDJ, NHC, President Trump, Media