unintended consequences

#1748

"One of these days, the ground will drop out from beneath your feet
One of these days, your heart will stop and play it's final beat

One of these days, the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing
One of these days, their bombs will drop and silence everything"

There was a time, even from the "talking box," when their was reason, even sanity. There was such marvelous TV shows as Laurence Welk, Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans, the I Love Lucy show, even Uncle Mitty or Arch Bishop Sheen.

There was a reason why the most sinful even the most ignorant among us took pride in knowing their was goodness in the world... That everything was not on the back streets- red light areas of our town. Even to a world traveler, we knew that Satan had placed blackness in the souls of some people. In some third world countries, their were cages near the street, were fighting roosters were kept. The traffic activity-noise, kept the roosters, "pumped up," just as fighting dogs were kept pumped up by human beings, with souls, being mean to them. What possible satisfaction can a human being get from seeing animals fight one another? often to the death. But, likewise, what thrill can another human being get from planes or drones, dropping explosives on innocent mothers and children. And yet, from one side of the world to the other, Americans want other cultures to admire us. Even desire our form of liberty. Is Iraq any better off today, than it was when America first started interfering with their lifestyles, their religions? Did the thousands of young people who fought there, die in vein? As now we must do it all over again. If we are to satisfy the manufactures of war who are still supplying both sides in all military conflicts. This is Americas greatest economy booster. The building and supplying of war materials to everyone all over the world. Most of the nations fighting wars in the Middle East, do not have the technical abilities-raw materials, to build a bicycle. I know, I have been there. In spite of their religious inconsistencies, their un-American way of doing things, they just want to be left alone. 

In my world travels. I was on some remote islands in the south-pacific. Somewhere, that these sightless eyes cannot find, I have pictures to prove this... Natives, dark skin with blonde hair- blue eyes. There were cultures of these tribes on several islands, completely different from other natives of other islands and their people. My guide told me that a Scandinavian ship had wrecked their many years ago, and in the course of biology, the native women had been seduced by the blonde Scandinavian sailors. In today's world, this type matter of geography and biology does not seem strange as you question your own sanity involving same sex marriage, in their movement- agenda, in those involved in perversion, to stay on the front page on every news outlet. 

The fiction writer can look into the future, can prophesy and dramatize present day events but just think of the scar tissue involved in explaining unnatural- immoral lifestyles to children. Children born of natural honor and love. 

This old blind writer- veteran, often thinks that he is not the only one running blind. Many of us tried so hard to live decent- responsible lives. If only we had the opportunities afforded young people today. I still remember the first Christmas I came home from college. I was hitchhiking, almost totally frozen. Two men, a truck, loaded with Christmas trees, stopped to give me a ride. I crawled up in the back of that truck, with all those Christmas trees. On that truck ride, I don't know which was shaking more, the trees or me. Today's college students, with their superior high-school preparation, grants, subsidies, allowances, do not know what it is to want for anything. But, neither do they know how much debt is on their head, as they look onto the future. Many of them have debt from school expenses, but more have the debt facing them from the tyranny of a country that has sold their future down the river. 

Keeping wars going all over the world, like a Cancer eating away at the body, its just slow death. In the human body, their is at least one trillion cells. It just takes one of those cells to go crazy, start a meiosis of insane division, and you have cancer... Slow mythological death, but always with the same ending. 

The slow certain destruction started in my parents lifetime. My mother spoke at my uncles funeral, an officer in the Spanish-American war, that war started with the sinking of the Maine in the Havana harbor of Cuba. WWI started with the sinking of the Lusitanian, probably by the British, to force America into the conflict. WWII started with an attack on Pearl Harbor, for which America had been for warned. We all know the foolishness- silliness of the 9-11 fiasco. Now, We see nothing in the future except endless wars, endless atrocities, eventual executions by terrorists, on the American soul. 

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

Narcissism

Vanity and narcissism — the compulsive need to be admired and praised — undermine one's courage, for one then fights on someone else's conviction rather than one's own.

    Rollo May - Man's Search for Himself (1953)

Most of us make the mistake of weighing and measuring others with the same scale and yardstick that we measure and weigh ourselves. When this writer lies down to die, he wants to think and remember that every fellow human being he ever met, anywhere, on his many trips around the world, even among his most personal associates and family members, that in the souls of them all, whichever way they went, Heaven or Hell, that their was some goodness in the soul of all of them. Please don't let me think that I was narcissistic enough to judge anyone else, when I was only a sinner saved by grace. 

When Hitler started his book burning, attempting to cleanse the third right, everything bad in his nation, the first book on his list was the biography of Helen Keller. There have been many great person hoods in the history of the world. But, perhaps no person as great as Helen Keller... A women born deaf, and blind. Most of us who heard her speak, could not understand anything she said. But, other than Jesus himself, few people have had the influence on the lives of others that she had. 

Is it a coincidence that she is buried in floor of the National Cathedral, in Washington DC, right next to president Woodrow Wilson, who has been declared the most Narcissistic man who ever lived. It has been said that president Wilson was so narcissistic, that he wanted to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral. A more recent president, William Clinton, is said to be just as narcissistic... That he wants to be the commanding prescience in every room that he enters. We have all known people so narcissistic, that way, because they were blessed with good looks, A truly gravatosk personality, or had in some way become powerful because of money, or ancestry, or brain accomplishment. Lets face it, their are those who just stand out above the crowd. 

God despises pride- narcissism, he allowed the children of Israel to wonder around and then die, for forty years in a wilderness desert in order to "humble" them. Jesus, God- man, God who put on a tent of human flesh and lived among us, said in the most famous sermon ever preached, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5).  Paul said, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves" (Philippians 2:3). Would it not make 21st century Christians, Christians so despised by the world, feel better, if Jesus, when harassed by Pilate, and his unlawful judgment, had done some small miracle, such as a swarm of bees going in circles around Pilate's head, and showing the accursed Roman leader, as he has always shown the world, just who is "boss." But would it have made any difference? Those Romans who arrested him in Garden  of Gethsemane saw him restore the ear to the servant of Malchus which Peter had cut off with his sword, and it did not seem to have any affect. Jesus broke up every funeral procession he ever met, healed the sick, fed thousands, with one boys lunch, still he had very few followers. I am convinced that only his resurrection  made an eclylsmic change in the lives of  his disciples.  Jesus, Paul, saints throughout history, "those of whom the world is not worthy" (Hebrews 11:38), were humble in their greatness. Many humble grandparents, teachers, pastors, neighbors, have died never knowing their influence on someone's life. Those who have had the greatest influence on this old blind veterans life, have not been people with power or money, but those with a humble and contract spirit.  

This old soldier found that veterans don't talk about the war, they just get over it. The healing profession should be more humble, our immune system is all we have going for us. The poisons we put in our body from most doctors, generally do more harm than good, shutting the healing process down. Effectively killing the kidneys and liver. This old veteran, world traveler, is made happy knowing the enjoyment of life by others, than in the darkness- loneliness- exasperation of his own. I have concurred the feeling that I had contributed something to the world. I believe there is healing in forgiveness. I have forgiven the employees whom I was paying good money to help me, as they were stealing from me. I have forgiven the many dealings with people who I knew had only one thing on their mind. Whether a real-estate transaction, car repair, or even shoe repair, "how much money can I get out of him." It was my business that I have lived so frugally, never bought anything unless it was on sale. I once found a Kennedy silver half dollar in the mud, it was so ugly, but I washed it and it shined. That is my hope and joy. I have been so rotten and dirty, like everyone else in the mire. But, Jesus took me up and washed me of all my narcissism, even my sinful nature. 

#1731

Liars, Wanna Be Boors

Joseph Stalin, a very wicked man in every respect, probably told the truth when he said, “It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, running against the American installed President Karzai of Afghanistan, probably realized he was fighting a losing battle against the liars, wanna be boors, both in Afghanistan and America whose Opium War with all the intrigue of all the Chinese dynastic Qing opium merchant trade promoted by the British Empire, now refereed by Karzai's brother with the help of the CIA, is a democrat party-type charade worthy of an Academy Award Oscar.

The paradox of the ages, America trains her enemies. In Somalia, President Mohamed Farrah Aidid turned his country into a cauldron of savagery while his son, Hussein Mohamed Farrah Aidid was a college student in California. The son is now the ruler of the totally wrecked country. Over and over, the sons of third world country tyrants come to the US for education supposedly to learn the American way of progress in a democratic society just to return home more the barbarian than their ancestors.

The worst smell in the world is the smell of a decomposing dead animal, corruption. It is obvious that voters love the smell of corruption. Last week, the citizens of NC were subjected to the same “good ol' boy” politics which have afflicted the old north state my entire lifetime. “There is no honor among thieves.” The ex-governor Easley and his chief political supporters tried to out-lie and out-boor one another before the state elections committee. We have known in this state, all of my lifetime that a check to the democrat party (At one time the price was $20,000, now it is up to $50,000.) would buy you a seat on any state board such as Department of Transportation or trustee on a university board. When I was young, it was necessary to vote the democrat ticket just to be a state employee of, DOT, school teacher, state hospital system.

Now, for the well-healed democrat elitest the big check can buy prominence. I remember the political signs of Ralph McDonald, Willis Smith, J. Melville Broughton, William Umstead, Luther Hodges. It was a curiosity that these men would spin the big bucks; but then it became obvious when a republican Holshauser or Martin were accidentally elected that money flows from the democrat cisterns in Raleigh to Obama-type organizers down every pig path. This is the way you get in power and stay in power unless, now and then a republican squeezes in, such as Helms and East.

There was a time, with Dr. Black, at least the money was exchanged in the mens' toilet. With the Scotts and Umstead, it was a matter of brown paper bags. Now, the checks are written with an “understanding” they would go in the right pocket.

Republicans will never win in this state or elsewhere until they learn that you cannot take Dale Carnegie's book How To Win Friends and Influence People, to a gun fight. The democrats are always out for blood, not at all fascinated by psychological warfare. When “cousin Wayland Spruill” walked into the legislature as if calling hogs to the trough (souy, souy, souy) he had the buckets of money. He knew how to feed the dollars to the democrats who knew how to pay for votes. When this totally blind, 100% disabled veteran in dress uniform, stood beside a prominent citizen in the Jaycees, the senator from Columbia in Tirrell County knew how to ask for money in order to get legislation moving.

During the 2008 election the parking lot stayed full of cars night and day at the Obama headquarters. They were serious about winning the election. In this town, where several “RINOs” have been elected, each time a real republican runs I send a message to come by my house for a check. Twice, recently, after giving the candidate a check, my advice and encouragement, I ask my assistant to see the person to the door. Each time, I ask my assistant, “Did the candidate ask you to vote for him?” The answer is always the same. The novice candidate does not realize that he must ask everyone for a vote.

I get so tired of hearing democrats talk about rich republicans. Every vote, every time, the democrats raise most of the money. Surely, there is enough republican money somewhere to conduct training sessions for republican candidates and campaign workers so that with the message of conservatism which most voters “know in the heart” is right. We can win elections for God, family and country.