Appifiny of the Unwashed

#1745  All things by immortal power,
Near or far,	30
Hiddenly
To each other linkèd are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star; -Francis Thompson

Henry Kissinger once said, "The boundaries of history have been marked by the masses of the unwashed."

This writer never takes a shower, never turns a faucet in the kitchen, without thanking God for water. What water means to life, both animal and plant. The fact that water has made the determining factor of almost every event in history. 70% of the Earths crust is covered by water, and makes up 70% of any animals body weight, water determining all plant life (mystery of the ages, routes in the soil, and the magnetism involved in water traveling even to the top of the tallest tree).

I never get out of the shower, without thinking that my ancestors never knew what it was to have a decent bath... The unwashed. 

This world traveler has seen unwashed people, the world over In Africa- Asia, Hundreds of men and women in rivers, beating their dirty clothing against rocks, washing their laundry in a river. 

From one side of the world to the other, people spending their day, with great jugs many times on their heads, transporting water from a creek to their home. 

As with characters in the bible, as with our ancestral forebears, to understand them, we must put flesh and blood on and in their bodies. I fully realize that today and in the 21st century, their are children born who never know their  parents, or knew their grandparents. 

Please God forgive those who do not have "precious memories," who do not have "family ties" to hold onto. 

I have all the empathy in the world, for the unwashed masses whose life is a struggle, in remote corners of the world, which God has blessed me to visit. I must remember, however, my own family. 

In-between the ancient farm homes of both my mother and father, my grandparents, and great- grandparents before them, a distance of about two miles, a curve in the dirt country road. In the grave yard at that curve, are the tomb stones of these, "saints of old" who I want to remember. 

Their were very few photographs back then, most of their ephemera (paper products), destroyed in their activity and just survival of daily life. People just did not prize old things. Every time this world traveler was near a monastery, I thought of the monk who found the sisters in 

Saint Catherine's Monastery

 at  Mount Sinai, burning old biblical scrolls, just trying to stay warm.

We think that God is tough. My ancestors were really tough. Think of their horror story, before leaving England, flaying to keep their Christian belief. Crossing the treacherous Atlantic in a small ship... Sick, some buried at sea. Landing on the shores of this promise land, near Morris town, NJ 1677. Battered by the sea and the New England winters. Think of what they encountered with their very few possessions, clothing- food- tools- medicine. But they eek out of existence out of the soil of New Jersey, founding Morris town. Then the hard working farmers moved south to North- Carolina. 

To show how tough they really were (and only a few family members know this). In my lifetime, few automobiles, cousin Barney, who owned a car, drinking liquor, drove his car into the ditch right there at the graveyard. His family had built our church in 1874, still there- still beautiful. His own family "kicked" him out of the church for drinking. So many times I wanted to tell his beautiful Christian wife and children (now dead and in Heaven), that story.

how things have changed at the church house, the school house, the court house, and all my relatives houses. Places which have had such a tremendous influence on my life. 

I still want to meet a perfect man, other than my blessed lord. My own "warts," "sins," though forgiven, still bother me. But even though we fail him, he never fails us. 

Not only did those folks buried in that graveyard, never have a decent bath, how they suffered from disease, not only wants but needs, at the one room school-house, which even my own mother attended, my grand-parents along with NC education governor Charles B. Aycock, they had to go to the woods and cut wood for the stove. Also buried in the graveyard, aunt Catty, the teacher... Uncle Turner, who once a year would go into a nearby town, and buy ice for everyone's once a year treat, ice-tea and ice-cream (July 4th celebrated at the school house). In the graveyard is my mothers 2 year old brother, who died from a dread disease. Until her death, my grand-mother thought every young boy looked like Seth. 

There is a long line of those in the graveyard who I can remember from stories which were told to me. Such stalwart ancestors, who knew nothing but handwork-hard times, and the all preserving power of God, will keep those of us who had it much easier, from complaining. They never heard a radio, but heard the voice of God from beautiful birds in the trees. They never saw a television set, but saw the hand of God in the lives of the sick and lonely. They never tasted "fast food" but knew the thrill from healthy- green- real food. They did not worry about diet or exercise, because farm work, walking most places, kept them in shape. 

In a world of political correctness, were the price of a soul is so cheap, God help us to remember the values of real Americans, real "Christ like" individuals. 

Boldness on Veterans Day

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-10King James Version (KJV)

On memorial day, when we know that freedom is not free, we need true liberation in our thinking. In the politically correct world in which we live, no one wants to challenge anything anymore. You cannot be both a citizen and a person, a citizen has limitations, your person-hood goes on forever. The person-hood of your life gives you passion and purpose. Veterans, those who gave their last measure of devotion, their life, thought it was all worth wild. The walking wounded will never forget their comrades with whom they had the "boldness" to serve. 

Writers have tried to romanticize war. Politicians have used war as stepping stones in their career. Stock markets thrive from the demands of war. Fortunes have been built from the spoils of war. AND, few human minds have the ability to comprehend the destruction of war, mentally and physically. 

In 1976, there was a 7.5 earthquake in Guatemala. This writer was in Guatemala city a few months after the earthquake. One does not have the words to describe such destruction... Streets, bridges, railroads. I walked down the street in Guatemala city, too many hazards for traffic, with propped up storefronts, merchants still trying to make a living selling on the street. In the best of times, life in third world countries, is tough. But when the Earth has shaken everything apart, it takes a long time to put everything back together. In the meantime, life must go on. 

The first great question God asked a man, asked of the first man born into this world, God, asking Cain about his brother Able, "And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9). And Cain gave the eternal answer, "Am I my brothers keeper?" Wars like earthquakes, like all other disasters, even like murders, mayhem, are inescapable "shadows of life. Sane human beings do not want problems of any type. Shelter ourselves from problems, protest fellow human beings who bring problems. But, few escape the warp and woof of living. I get so tired of young people talking about making a contribution to the world through their education, through their ministry, Through toil of some type. Most of us just do the best of what we can with what we have. Most of us are just thankful that their are those with the expertise, training intentional fortitude, "guts and spine," To face the challenges of the world in-spite of everything, or anything. 

This old blind veteran has "sensed" many veteran facilities. It is always the same, well paid government bureaucrats "just going through the motions." Once in a while you will find an administrator, nurse or doctor, who actually takes the job of "veteran care" seriously. I don't believe I have ever heard one pleasant remark in a VA facility. A pastor who drove my car to the VA hospital Durham NC many, many, times, said, "they may smile, but they are not happy." Ineptness walking on two legs. 

This totally blind, 100% disabled service connected medical officer, appreciates every good thing that has ever been done for him, but I have sensed the worst in military hospitals... As a staff officer doctor myself, and more recent years as a patient, 

I can truthfully say that the Army did everything possible to save a shatter of vision in one eye. I spent so much time in Army and civilian hospitals... In Boston, the best specialist in the world. At the VA hospital Durham NC, since one of the best eye centers is right across the street at Duke University, the best eye specialists there treated me. 

I was on the second floor of the eye center, just across the street from the VA hospital. My head was completely bandaged from all the surgery. But I could hear the Vietnam protesters yelling outside the VA hospital. These protesters were students from nearby Chapel Hill, from which I graduated, and the several colleges in the Durham area. I said to a black nurse who was " supposedly" taking care of me, "They have no idea what they are doing." She said. "I understand you are a Veteran from across the street, and I want you to know right now that I hate veterans." Then, she proceeded to spit right in my face. I think I was in shock for quit a while. Shortly after the incident, my mother and sister who were worn out from driving from such a long distance, came into the room and I told them what had happened. Of course, they threw a fit, and demanded that my doctor (Banks Anderson, Jr) come immediately. I had been a patient of both Dr. Anderson Jr, and Dr Anderson Sr. Two of the best specialists in the country. Of course he assured them that it would not happen again. That this nurse would be reprimanded. I have no idea what happened. I wrote a letter to the administrators at Duke about the incident, BUT, Duke like every other entity in America, that gets funds of any type from the government, is going to stay within the boundary of political correctness. 

A good example, on this Memorial Day weekend, when the "normal" people have a holiday (this old veteran and his assistant will be working) when the wheels- heels, élites, are enjoying their booz and buffet, just remember, the veterans now, just as always, are happy to get the scraps from the table. My citizenship- Patriotism, in my country, does not end at my clinical death. My person-hood continues eternally. 

#1737

Fathers Day and Heros

Nothing between, like worldly pleasure;
Habits of life, though harmless they seem,
Must not my heart from Him e’er sever;
He is my all, there’s nothing between.

There is a balm in Gilead (Jeremaih 8:22). There is a retrovi (rediscovery), magnificence in thinking again of your own father on this fathers day.

My mother and father were singers, at the old family church house, built by my ancestors (1874), They did not just "mumble" the old hymn's, as do most pretending Christians. You could hear them singing above the crowd. Much later in life, in my private practice which I enjoyed for a few years following the military, many members of churches and other communities (and my parents visited churches everywhere), would say to me, "our church revival never got started until your parents came to the meetings, and we could hear them singing."

Perhaps the earliest memory of my own father, was hearing him sing early in the mornings, as he was around the farm, feeding the hogs, work animals, and milking the cows. I can still hear him singing, his favorites, nothing between and, "I'll take my vacation in Heaven." He never took a vacation, in his entire life. He was the workingness man anyone could know. He never had anytime for the "worldly pleasures" of most men such as, hunting, fishing, sports events, he was always busy. could find more work for his sons on a wet day, then most men could find for their boys on a dry day. If nothing else, he would say, "Thomas go to corn-crib and shuck corn." we had a large farm which had been in the family a very long time. Mules or tractor, he would keep us all busy from early morning to darkness. Then, on Saturdays, holidays, he would be up early doing the usual chores (hogs, cows, chickens etc.), and then drive the 5 miles into town, to stand on his feet all day long and cut hair. This he did my entire life. One of the many preachers at his funeral said, "There is no telling how many heads he cut for 10 cents a head during the great depression." Of course his funeral was held at the old family church, with its many additions over the years, which he and my cousins mostly built. I still remember the day that he and I were working on one addition at the church. I was holding up the drywall for him to nail. I said, "why are not others here to help us at the church?" I still remember the tears rolling down his face, as he said, "They don't love our church as much as we do."

Every church member has a 168 hour week. Most think their salvation is adequate just for that one hour on Sunday morning. He believed Christianity involved every hour- second, of every day. Early on Sunday mornings, Winter: building fires in the wood-burning heaters throughout the church. Summer: opening the windows throughout the church in all Sunday school rooms. He would always go the mile to the church to make it comfortable for others. If the weather were so bad that the preacher- pastor could not get there, then he would conduct the service. When I was a child, Church service, only one Sunday a month. But, there was always Sunday school, prayer meetings, visitations, etc. The men of the church were responsible for these services. My father was also chairman of the school board, small- poor country public school. This writer, like his sister and two brothers, like his parents- grand-parents went to this same school for 12 years. I still remember the principal of the school driving to the farm, going up to the field to find my father on the tractor, and discuss problems with him. Often, my father would come to the house, put his toolbox in his truck, and head to the school house to take care of a building. It was much easier for my father and principal to repair something, then to do paperwork and the county finally get around to it.

Once, when I was a student at Chapel Hill, I told the founder of modern education in North Carolina, Dr. Guy Phillips, that story. He said, "Your father might not have been a college graduate but he was a real educator."

Children must have good memories. I so pity those who do not. As poor as we were, dirt road- no power, phone, or running water (the embarrassment of outside bathrooms both at our home and the church). Prominent people would often visit our church because they had heard of its beuty and the great song services there. I still remember the walkers, owners of the Ford dealership. My parents invited them to go to our home for lunch. They hardly knew them, but the Walkers went to our home, and years later, as my patients, they both said to me, "In our many years of church life, that was the first real Christianity we had ever seen."

I remember another time that a couple, the Sassers came to the church, my parents remembered through their ancestors. They invited them to our home for lunch. My mother usually had two large tables of people every church Sunday. In later years, this couple, school teachers, told me the same thing, that they had never forgotten that hospitality.  

At my fathers funeral, packed house, after I had led the family in as the oldest child, one floor reef was brought in late. It was by far the largest there. One of the funeral directors, came over and handed me the card that was on it. I just stuck it in my pocket. Later, a friend read the card to me, "In memorial to the only man I ever knew, in church, or out, whoever spoke to me about the welfare of my soul." The card was signed by an NC state senator.

His last years, my mother having died of cancer at age 62, I would call him and tell him I was coming up for a visit, to take him out to lunch. He was so proud to see me in my Cadillac. My driver would always say, "He will be sitting on the front porch watching for you." He gave me many of the values, that have kept me going during my years of disappointment, blindness. He was the sermon, instead of a message. He was the example of hard work. Disciplined living. I believe he will be sitting on another porch, watching for his four children.  

#1735

Mandala

(Search for Completeness)

"Make me a channel of blessing today,
Make me a channel of blessing, I pray;
My life possessing, my service blessing,
Make me a channel of blessing today."


No human being blessed with life, blessed with nominal intelligence, can escape the knowledge of cause and effect, cannot recluse himself from the responsibility of cause and effect. It takes courage to live life. 90% of the Christian faith is just raw courage. In Mexico, in North Africa, and other areas of the world, this writer- world traveler, has seen young men dive from high cliffs into water depths below. This takes courage. As a field grade Army officer, I have seen young men jump from airplanes, hoping that their parachute, prepared by someone else, will open. This takes Courage. In the inter sanctum of the human mind, gods greatest creation, the most amazing thing in life, hope. Most of life's activities, even its sacraments, involves hope. 

Hope is involved in marriage, if it works out, fine, if not, expected.

Hope is involved in rearing a child, especially a strong-willed- mentally challenged- prodigy or precocious child. Most of the geniuses of the world, were unusual children. With parents, it is a matter of working and waiting. 

Hope is involved in investing, stocks, real-estate, inventions, even planting a crop. The greatest investment I ever knew, and I have been a large investor in both stocks and real-estate, was the investment on my parents, in their farm, fertilizer and seed, planting crops. The fertilizer- seed- soil, could produce nothing without god given rain and climate. 

Hope is involved in education, whether grade school or graduate school. The worlds greatest investors- financiers- planners, never went very far in education. They had a drive- mental capacity which ephemera (books and paper) cannot give. A PHD, man or women, without common sense can starve to death in a time of disaster. 

Burying anyone is an act of hope. You think you know, but you never know, the soul condition of the dead. The eternal destination of the soul is within the providence of god and god alone. Many of us, and in fact, most of us, are good pretenders and may have fooled others. Ourselves, we cannot fool. Within the inter sanctum of the mind, our hope is established. Some scientists have tried to measure the weight of the soul. The soul does not have mass- weight- identification. We all have one, and it is what makes us "who" we are. Other body parts can be transplanted. At clinical death, the soul, here now- their then, leaves this worn- torn- used body, and the body is disposed of with hope; resurrected hope. 

All is not well that ends well. You can have a very successful life, living and dying well, by living the simple life... Simple ambitions, simple lifestyle, simple unchallenged job, never wanting more than a simple car- house- clothing. One man said he had no enemies because he had outlived them all. Everyone will love you if you are never a challenge to anyone about anything. If you are just a pushover. 

Science is about investigating the unknown. Untying and looking inside the baggage which everyone carries around. Intelligentsia: medical, psychological- governmental, involves the spending of tremendous funds to uncover the obvious. For instance, the poisons you put into your body, result in slow, if not instant, death. For instance, you cannot bomb into your way of thinking, nationals who have spent thousands of years living their lives a certain way.

When I was a young boy, this was before the military and my time of total blindness, my eyesight was very poor. Back then, parents or teachers, never payed any attention to children s eyes. Especially a child with a good  mind who could learn in spite of anything. I was never chosen on a team to play ball because I could not see how to hit a ball. I had to memorize everything the teacher said because I could not see the chalkboard. It was only when I went to get a drivers license that my myopia (nearsightedness) was discovered, I went to an optometrist for eyeglasses and the world became, in the truest sense, a cause and effect. I could see leafs on trees. Could see as well as hear, birds in the air. 

There are images, from the eyes into the brain, which I can never escape. I will never escape the images of the black- segregated school houses of my youth. Those framed buildings, painted white, with their outside toilets and hand water pumps. While, right down the road, as poor as they were, brick school houses for the white children. And, we expect the black race to forget this disparity. I will never forget images of refuges at border crossings in third world countries. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, fathers and mothers with all their earthly belongings in large sacks over their shoulders. Frail shoe-less children, bare feet on icy roads. This writer, raised in the poverty of Eastern North Carolina, dirt road, no power- phone- water lines, working in the hot sun an entire day, in green tobacco to get paid one dollar. Could I ever forget the hard work and sweat of my parents? I still remember their thrill in selling their first tobacco for fifty-cents a pound.

The picture I paint of life is not all darkness. Thank god I lived in a time of beautiful music, even beautiful movies- love stories. Love stories between real men and real women... None of this same sex marriage insanity. 

Can I describe the person I would like to have been? Firstly, good looking... Looks will get you further than anything else. Secondly, a pedigree of wealth and influence... Ancestral prominence. Life is hard enough at best. But is a real tragedy on such an uneven playing field. This has been my main quarrel with god. It would be so much easier to live the Christian life, without trials and problems. If only god would "quick fix everything with prayer." If only god were a bell-hop type deity... just come running when we need him. If only I could hold onto god in one hand, and the world with the other. If only warfare against Satan could be accomplished from an air-conditioned foxhole... Demanding nothing. God wanting nothing from me except pretension. If only I could live like my family, my associates, my fellow church members, and most of my friends, just playing games with god. Nothing settle, nothing complete. 

#1733

Energy

One of the most used words, vocally or in-print, is the word “energy.” If, when I was in Zimbabwe, about 25 years ago, I had accumulated $10,000 in Zimbabwe fiat currency, and hid it in the ground, today the sum would be worth pennies, if anything. If I had bought $10,000 in gold coins, and hid them in the ground, today they would be worth many times what I paid for them. If I had enough ground to hide $10,000 of crude oil, it would be worth many times what I paid for it, almost as much as the gold, because oil is truly liquid gold. We realize this every day as we witness the Middle East aflame, sending up the price of crude oil, sending up the price of gasoline at the pump.

I was reared at a time when there was little need for oil, gasoline. I remember my cousin's service station had a hand-pump gasoline tank into which he pumped gas for the few cars in the entire area. My family, everyone in the community, depended on animal power for turning the soil and crop production. We had mules on the farm, my favorite mule was Nell, she taught me to plow. Even today, in most of the world, donkeys, horses, buffaloes are used instead of the combustion engine. The world's economy depends on oil, food, plastics, transportation, warfare. I remember the first plastic, we never thought it would so monopolize our lives. I saw a water buffalo pulling a small lawnmower, cutting the grass at a Maharaja's palace in India. Oxen walking a circle all day long, pumping water. As a child, I remember water running under the grist mill, turning the wheel to grind corn, entire buildings built without a power tool of any type. Ferry river crossings using mules to pull the line.

In books and later in movies, we saw slaves rowing Greek ships in time of warfare and in commerce. You never heard the sound of a boat motor on a lake or even the ocean, boat paddling was some of the best exercise in the world. Students actually walked to class, families walked to church. At the beginning of the 20^th century when 90% of the American population lived in rural areas, obesity and diabetes were almost unknown because people worked, gardening, care of grounds, raising crops, etc.

Today, the sissy-prissy politicians, academics, spoiled walmart-aristocracy, resent dispelling energy anywhere except at the gymnasium. God, please help the man who must ride a golf cart in order to get his golfing exercise. God, please help the woman who must have an electric beater or blender to prepare everything in the kitchen. God, please help young men and women, who find it hard work to push a lawn mower, and probably hard work to push the buttons on a video game. With all the new technology, laptops, iPads, the television set, please don't tell me I must push buttons on a remote. Let me just think, and the cameras on the iPad, and the channels on the television will change, without any energy on my part. Slowly but surely, we have become a lazy, spoiled, extravagance of human existence.

The greatest energy conceivable to the mind, was expended when God created the universe, the world and everything in it. He placed here, everything that mankind would ever need for living...the gold in every mountain is his. Every mineral, every element, every herb, we would ever need for living or healthcare, was placed here. God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, large lakes and rivers of water, lending to such energy producers as the Hoover Dam, the Aswan Dam, most of the crust of the earth filled with crude oil, natural gas, coal. With the dependence on the combustion engine, great reserves of oil near the surface of Saudi Arabia, we have become spoiled to the use of oil.

With the gulf oil spill, we have discovered just how much oil is available right on our own backdoor. The ludicrous theory that oil was produced by dead animals and dead plant life (how did they all get down there?). Questions are asked, with the abundance of cheap, plentiful natural gas, why not liquify it and use in so many places. Coal was the main stay of industry for a long time, and we know about smoke stack cleaning.

America's greatest problem, a Marxist Sunni Muslim in the White House, who knows nothing at all about energy or anything else. His only experience with energy is perhaps bouncing a basketball. Supporting him, “pea-brained” politicians who cannot face the reality of energy, they had rather talk green...production of energy meeting present needs without jeopardizing the needs of future generations: renewable, solar, wind, wave, experimenting with equations which will not balance such as electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels, all these things costing more energy than they will ever produce or save.

These people who know nothing about conservation in their life habits or their nation's survival need to experience humiliation before jubilation. Bomb shelters are being built around Moscow, China is training 10,000 carrier pidgins to deliver messages in time of war, if as expected, all electric utility grids are wiped out. Purveyors of ignorance, Washington and the state-controlled news media have not realized that if Saudi Arabian oil is cut off, every financial system in the world will shut down...we are that dependent on Saudi oil. Everything we buy or sell because of the stupidity of world leaders, particularly Japan and Europe, dependent on oil, energy from oil. Saudi Arabia's princes, royal family got richer than Midas when crude oil was $5 a barrel. Wikileaks states that the Saudis have overestimated their reserves by 40%. King Abdullah and all his brothers (successors) are old and sick.

The height of stupidity, we should be accustomed to such from Washington, putting ethanol in the gas tank, producing food shortages and empty stomachs. One of the saints of long ago said, “God is more anxious to save us and help us than is a mother taking her child out of a burning building.” When will we learn that every thing we do is spiritual? We do what we do because we believe what we believe. I believe it time to end “stinking thinking” about energy.