Eternal Guidepost

The story is truly fantastic and factual, an ark of salvation for 8 human beings, surviving the Great Flood of 5000 BC. From one of Noah's sons, after the Flood: Abraham, the first Jew; from Abraham: Isaac; then Jacob; then from Jacob: the great patriarchs, the great family of the Old Testament. Because of Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachael, the Jewish nation flourished in Egypt, but became slaves of the Egyptians.

In one of the first tests of eugenics the rapidly multiplying slaves, like the ark of salvation for Noah and his family, a small ark was constructed by Jochebed and Amram, parents of Moses (somewhere between the 12^th and 13^th centuries BC). Mostly because of Moses's older sister Miriam, Moses spent the first 40 years of his life in the palace of Pharaoh learning everything about the knowledge of the known civilizations of his day.

It is obvious that Moses knew his ancestry, his older sister and his brothers, but Moses made the mistake that many of us make: thinking that our families and people we know will understand our actions. After Moses killed an Egyptian who was torturing two fellow Jews and buried him, he learned, just as many of us have, that people really do not understand our actions, even if done for their benefit. (Exodus 2:14)

God gave Moses 40 years in the desert to whet his future. No other man has had such basic training. When God approached Moses in the back of the desert, He knew who he was and where he was. If you are God's, He knows where you are and what you are doing. (Ezekiel 8:12). There is no record that God ever talked to Moses before the burning bush.

While Moses was being prepared in the desert, his fellow Jews were being prepared in Egypt. 40 years previously, they had not suffered enough, were not ready to follow. God had to hear their cries. (Exodus 2:23-24) Even so, like many of us, abused and misused, bearing our marks of enslavement, as did the children of Israel after being delivered through the Red Sea. They were so quickly ready to return to Egypt because of memories there (melons, cucumbers, etc.). Like new Christians, delivered, redeemed. They were not ready for the hardships involved in salvation: being different, eating and drinking different, longsuffering.

Moses wanted the millions he was leading from Egyptian bondage to have the same experience with God that he had. He headed for the backside of the desert where he had encountered the burning bush, near Mt. Sinai. Moses, like most leaders, encountered early in his leadership, the difficulties involved in trying to please people. (Galatians 1:10) This civilization was particularly stiff-necked, unyielding people. God would break them through trials and tribulations, and the older ones he had delivered would never enter the promised land because of their unbelief. After they had witnessed the miracles, both in Egypt and in the desert, knowing God's hand of protection and correction above them, when Moses went to top of the mountain for his face to face encounter with God and obtaining the commandments (commandments written by God alone), the first actions of the ex-slaves and even his own family, taking some of the gold wealth of Egypt and building an idol to worship. When Moses came down from the mountain, sin always leads to nakedness, they were dancing naked around the golden calf.

Today's Christians must realize the Word of God is a sharp knife (Hebrews 4:10), cutting away the mystery and giving us the absolutes. From the encounters of early Judaism, and the way it affect Gentiles, the church, we learn many valuable lessons. God is in charge, nothing shocks Him. We may need not spend 40 years preparing but He will shape us. Don't expect anyone to understand, it may be necessary to give up many things including family and friends...the potter controls the clay.

I never fully understood the struggle, the forgiving, the forgetting. Like many, anxious to achieve my own objectives, I did not take the time that I should have taken with so many people. Their blood is on my hands, and many had not sunk deep enough to want a helping hand. Lost, but hanging on.

There is a blessing in adversity, you appreciate health after disease. I must believe that God equips us to do what He wants us to do, and sometimes it takes a long time. We just do not have the sense to read the guidepost along the way. Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” Only by learning to pray submissively, “thy will be done”, will we learn to profit from the adversity as well as the successes of life. Living is a learning experience. The older I get, the more I realize just how little I knew when I was young. Money is neutral, checkbooks and bank accounts show our values.

Even Christians may learn the pruning knife of God (Psalm 119:17). The greatest blessing of my life is the blessing of blindness because it has brought me closer to God than I ever would have been otherwise. I know what it is to walk by faith, not by sight.

The prodigal son (the greatest story in all the world) was never the same after he left home. He found he did not have a taste for hog slop, remembered the nice food on his father's table. You can believe that after his conversion, he knew obedience to his holy father. I don't know about the older brother or the father, both needed a retread to continue their journey. But we do know the blessings of redemption for a prodigal son. Thanks be to God for giving us guideposts leading across our eternal life.

Rippers and “Rippees”

If you were able to get off the bed this morning, can still take care of the fundamentals of starting a new day, still enjoy a refreshing shower (I thank God every time I take a shower, because I realize the number of my ancestors who never enjoyed a good bath. Just think of the children of Israel in the desert, our ancestors crossing the plains in a covered wagon.), still enjoy the smell of fresh coffee, can still hear birds singing outside, you have much for which to be thankful.

Every morning of my life, for as long as I can remember, before my breakfast to satisfy my hunger, I go to the Lord's table: a little piece of bread, thanking God for His healing, a little sip of wine thanking God for His salvation through His precious blood (Isaiah 53, 1 Peter 2:24). I know it is symbolic, but God help those who claim the name of Christ, and do not recognize His redemption and healing...the bread for healing, the wine for remission of sins.

Even though I have lived in total blackness, blindness, for most of my life, I am still anxious to hear happenings around the world, via radio. One story after another of corruption, government decadence, religious hypocrisy. When you have achieved my age, it bothers you to think that young people, those who are just beginning their lives, those who must face the uncertainties, those who may be called on to defend their country, those who will be taxed to support madness, hear the same thing I do. What incentive could they possibly have for patriotism, for hard work, for defending and supporting the ripoff segment of our society. For whom is more prayer needed, the rippees or the rippers?

We hear so much about the present recession, or as many call it, great depression. I lived during the Great Depression, nothing even resembles slightly the Great Depression, nine million Americans starved to death during the Great Depression, and during that time 90% of the population lived on farms. What we are going through now is just the overture for the opera, the real drama has yet to begin.

In grand opera is the colloquialism, “it ain't over til the fat lady sings”, meaning that many operatic sopranos are greatly overweight. I will assure you that there will not be many overweight people at the opera, the movie house, the streets, or anywhere else after the next, real, great depression heading our way. We are depending on the very ones who got us into this mess, the Congress of the United States, and the legislators of states to get us out of it. Most of these people will be sitting pretty, retired somewhere, living of the graft which they have stocked away.

The PBGC (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation), the organization guaranteeing pension for the many business and government agencies has already assured Americans that most pensioners will never get their money. The government has been eyeballing this cash cow for a long time, and like social security recipients, military retirees, all will be thrown in the same blender of socialistic, “dividing of the wealth”. Like Bell, California where city retirees received ludicrous retirement checks, like Wilmington NC, where the manager of four state liquor stores receives ludicrous retirement benefits. All this insanity of inequity toward working Americans will end.

It is truly amazing how far the American spirit has strayed in my lifetime, the insanity of thinking the well will never run dry, no matter how much water is pumped out of it. Everything in life involves money, money and possessions are talked about in the Bible more than anything else (2352 times). I believe God had a suspicion about how addicted man would become to money. Everything involves sowing and reaping, you cannot understand God's Word until you understand the parable of the sower...you sow sparingly, your reap sparingly, in every thing, you reap what you sow. If you do not give much to God, do not expect much in return, you cannot out-give God. On the farm, my father knew where to plant certain seed, in this world, the field, there was planting time and harvest time.

As important as the parable of the sower, the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). I think it is important to call this marvelous story, the most beautiful story in all of literature, the parable of the prodigal father, so much to learn from every precious word in this story, the rearing and discipline of sons. The younger son (ripper) did not even say “father, I have worked for a large part of your estate,” rather he just said, “gimme.” He was willing to rip off his own father. The father (rippee), so willing to forgive, running to meet his stinking son (stinking from the hog pen), realizing he did not have a taste for slop, finally realizing the wonderful home from which he had fled.

So it is with us, our relationship with our heavenly Father, many of us feel like the rippee (those who have served our country in uniform and have received nothing in return). Those who must witness the daily transgressions of the wicked who always come out on top. Remind our young children, those who are bombarded daily about the greed of adults, rippers (bankers, politicians, Big Pharma) that the “all-seeing eye” of God, the perfect accountant, still has everything under control, that there will always be a pay day, one day. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)

Snake In The Grass

The phrase “snake in the grass” was first used by the poet Virgil referring to a deceitful person. I have always had a morbid fear of snakes (ophidiophobia), on one of the worst days of my life, in the bush in Africa, I almost stepped on one of Africa's most poisonous snakes. Already that day, our camp had been threatened by a rogue elephant.

Living on the farm, I always enjoyed going barefoot, I never could understand why my father always put his shoes on, and kept them on, regardless of where he was, relaxing or working. Even when working on my aunt's home at White Lake, I noted that he never removed his shoes.

Then, his oldest sister told me the story, on the large farm (400 acres) where I was reared and where he was reared before me, a farm completely isolated from most of the civilized community, there were three large tobacco curing barns, both when he was a boy and when I was a boy. During the tobacco curing season, these barns were hanging with green tobacco which was cured, the large furnaces in the barn were stoked with wood night and day, to keep the heat at a curing temperature.

When I was young, the procedure had been changed to oil, but when he was a boy, the fires were kept going with wood. He was 15, his turn during the night to go to the barns and put in more wood, he went running down the path barefoot, stepped on a large rattlesnake, which, after biting him, slithered off into the dark night.

He returned to the house, my grandmother, knowing the certain results of such a large rattlesnake's venom, made incisions at the snake's perforation and began to suck out the blood and poison. Of course, in the first years of the 20th century, there were no telephones, few vehicles. His oldest brother, Patrick, hitched the horse to the buggy and raced to the nearest town for the doctor. The doctor had a car, one of the few in the county, and before long he was chugging into the yard. There was not much that he could do that my grandmother and grandfather had not already done, the same treatment I have used on many patients, wood ashes in hot water, compresses, trying to draw out the poison. They worked on his limbs incessantly, night and day, such a snake bite usually kills, but he survived.

The psychological fright of stepping on that large snake with bare feet was etched on his brain forever. I noticed afterwords, his entire life, working in the woods, on the land, anywhere, he always had a gun. He probably shot more snakes than any other man. One day, he and I were moving some timbers. I almost put my hand on a large rattlesnake, I'll never forget how he beat that snake with an iron rod. If only we could eliminate the snakes from our lives. Even our Blessed Lord showed scorn for serpents and scorpions, crawling, deceitful creatures (Luke 10:19).

It is the serpents and scorpions who walk upright that we must fear the most. In their greed, both for power and for money have they deceived as they slither around in their own debauchery.

When I was young, on the farm, we plowed to rid the fields of grass and weeds, we used blades to kill weeds, exposing their roots to the cleansing and killing heat of the sun. For the past 40 years, chemical sprays have been used to control weeds on the farmlands. Allelopathy is the academic study of chemicals in agriculture. Monsanto is the company which has produced the zillions of gallons of this poison used in cropland, pasture land, along highways and railroads, and even in deforestation. Nearly 50 years ago, my cousin was using his plane to spray this type poison over large agriculture areas growing soybeans, cotton, tobacco, etc. I told him then, wear a mask to keep as much of this poison as possible from your lungs, he thought he was indestructible and died of throat cancer at a very early age. We are just learning how toxic these chemicals are, not only to those who use them in farming, but to those who eat the animals that have eaten the grass and grains where such weed control was used.

When I was a young doctor, there were very few cases of cancer, diabetes very rare, today both are epidemic. At the same time, 1 out of 10,000 children were diagnosed with autism; today 1 out of 100 students have autism, ADHD, or one of the other problems from which they will never escape, and which costs them, their families, their nation, untold misery and millions in treatment and money. Are we so stupid as a people, as a nation with some scientific knowledge, that we think we can escape by poisoning our own country with toxins: fluoride and chloride in our drinking water, spraying agriculture with poisons such as Round-Up, and poisoning other countries with depleted uranium? (DU is waste from nuclear plants, and is used in defensive armor plating, weaponry for increased piercing ability, this radiation is left to poison everything: ground, water, aircraft)

There is almost no limit to the snakes in our lives, deceitfulness that has taken over our education system, our banking and housing economy, the posers in our political parties, the pretenders in our churches.

Search all literature, you will never find a greater story than the story God gave us about the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son, like selfish mankind, selfish nations, wanted a life of ease from the work/sweat of someone else. It was only after he lost all, it was only after this Jewish boy found himself feeding hogs that he came to his senses (Luke 15:17)...starving, looking at the “slop” he was feeding to hogs, garbage, that only stupid hogs would eat, he came to his senses. If he had been hungry enough, he would have eaten the hog slop, but he did not have a taste for slop, for garbage. In his home, in his rearing foundations, he had a taste for better.

When did we as a people, as a nation, lose our taste for the best? When did we lose our taste for good music, a good education, decency in government, controls of poisons whether in our food, or warfare toward our enemies? When did we as a people, as a nation, cease to be afraid of, cease to learn that we can walk around snakes without getting hurt? When did we cease to have a taste for the physical and spiritual ideals of God, in whose image we are made? I could not worship a God which I understand, but God understands, and as was the case with those before the flood and many times afterward, He will allow us to self-destruct.

A Great Story (2009)

When my father was a young person, he knew a young man in the community who cared nothing about the church, or the school, or his family, or his neighbors, or anything else except himself. His selfishness got him into some real trouble and so he left the state and went down to Texas and became an oil field worker, really became a wildcatter (a person who drills oil wells in areas that are not in advance known to be oil fields), and by the time I was a child he had returned to the community for visits showing off his millionaire success riding in a large stretch limousine with a wife of questionable advantages.

I say this because one morning in the Quaker church, of all places, where as a child, I was with my parent who were visiting there, where Quaker women are conservative in every way. She evidently thought she was in a night club and pulled out her compact and lipstick and did her face while the sermon was going on. Anyway, he shared his wealth with his long estranged family by first going to the family cemetery and replacing all the tombstones with far more expensive ones, putting a nice fence around the cemetery, and building a roadway from the highway to the cemetery, buying all the land around the cemetery and much other land in the community, remodeling his relatives homes, and generally, “spreading his wealth” (a familiar term). Mr. Mitchell is long dead, but the stories of his largess to the church which he never attended in his youth, and to the relatives whom he hardly knew, persist.

Perhaps the greatest story in all of literature, is the so called “Prodigal Son.” It is a story of a young Jewish boy with a remarkable father and less remarkable older brother, who took an early inheritance and went far from home, probably Babylon-Vegas. Where he wasted his inheritance and when this Jewish boy had to resort to feeding pigs the scriptures says, “he came to himself” (Luke 15:17). How many days did his loving father stand looking in the distance thinking about his lost son. The scripture says he recognized him, probably by his walk or something and he ran to meet him. The remarkable part of this story is that the older brother resented the festivities of the homecoming. But, the remarkable father said to the resentful brother, entreated him and assured him that his remaining property was his.

I have sympathy for both the son who wanted to get away from home (because I had a real strict father) and I have sympathy for the older brother who had stayed at home, worked hard, and did not have as much empathy for his younger brother. Our Lord gives us these parables such as the man who went and hired people to work in his vineyard and paid the ones who came to work first the same as the ones who came to work last. This helps us to better understand death bed conversions or even the repentant thief on the cross.

It helps me as a blind Christian (I am a totally blind 100% disabled service connected veteran) to show some benevolence toward healthy, wealthy men in this very community who went to Canada to escape military service ,but returned to become the leading politicians and some of the wealthiest party givers and party goers at the country clubs of the community. They are the “good time, good ole boys” of the community and they and their wives look down their noses, particularly at church, at those of us who were foolish enough to live committed lives directed by the holy will of God.

We can be sure that God will discipline his own. These good ole boys already belong to Satan and they will have their enjoyment, “here and now.” “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:7)

We who live in the darkness of blindness, who have given our best to our country, have values some will never understand outside of a spiritual conversion. 

Character determines destination, Our values are set by home and school. We cannot prevent birds flying over our heads, but we can prevent them from building nests in our hair. It is the anti-Christian home and the anti-Christian school system, that permits the building of the nest of socialism, admiration for political corruption, and disdain for nobility of human life that has brought down individuals and governments. Right now, the worlds largest democracy, Indonesia, a country of 5,000 islands, is making the decision of either continuing as a democracy or becoming the world's largest Muslim theocracy. We pray that the secular movement in this country that has permeated the home, government, school systems, universities, media, and even the largest corporations will not be over taken by this cancer.

The story of America, the success of America is based on free enterprise, capitalism, and constitutional rights that include everyone, even the minorities. A democratic republic established by a magnificent constitution, gives to every citizen the freedom to fail or to succeed. Bill Gates, a man of wealth and intelligence, in his rules for success in business, states in the first rule, there is no such thing as fairness. We are just given opportunity along with responsibility, whether at home, or wildcatting in a foreign place.

Abraham Lincoln, said he was not afraid of this country being conquered by another country. His fear was that it might implode from the corruption and the anti-American curse from within. 125,000 men who lie buried in foreign cemeteries attest to the fact that this country is worth defending. It is the greatest story of a successful nation in history. And the story is resplendent with men and women of faith who are responsible for the success. They had faith in the promise of America and faith in the decency of one another.

Something For Nothing

#513

Burt Lancaster, one of Hollywood's greats, starred in the movie Something for Nothing. In the story, a ne'er do well, vagrant, lands an astonishing wishing machine which enables him to accomplish and accumulate things which he could have never done on his own. So it is with us, we spend our time wishing for things, day dreaming, “waiting for our ship to come in”. The great hotels and casinos in Las Vegas were built by losers. I know people who spend any excess money they have after the bills are paid on lottery tickets actually believing, with the odds involved, that they will get “something for nothing”. I remember buying one gambling ticket in my life, when I was in Ireland, a ticket on the Irish sweepstakes. Anything that I have gotten free could be held in a very small area of my hand. Anything you get from your government, in most cases, can be written on a very small piece of paper.

Since I have been in the collectable market my entire life, specifically marketing antiquarian books, I've had the occasion to visit with many antique dealers. The thing that keeps them going, that causes them to get up and open up the store every morning, today just may be the day that a discovery will be made (a painting behind an old print in an old frame, a tarnished silver memorable piece). One antique dealer, a very large, very beautiful antique store full of beautiful things, told me the stress he encounters every time a woman with small children comes in his store. He said, “all these beautiful old things and these children just have to put their hands on them.” And of course, if one drops something, the mother immediately ushers the children out of the store, scolding them as they go, while he is left with broken, useless merchandise which he must clean up. Another said, “I wait all day hearing people say, “just looking” and then a pickup truck loaded with old furniture will pull up in front of my place. The owner will come in and ask me if I am interested in buying some of his antiques.” He said, “I go out and look in the truck load of junk and just happen to spot a tiger oak wood table and I am cured and happy for months to come.”

To show you how much you can trust people, I had turned my entire estate over to the trust department of a large NC bank. After all, I never know when something might happen to me (we are all just one breath away). One day, the chief trust officer visiting me said, “I know you have a stamp collection and you have never shown it to me.” I took him to the room where it was located, and pulled out the many books of stamps. But, much to my sorrow, years before, in an old book, I had found some very valuable old stamps which I had put in an envelope. Like a fool, I just had to show him those stamps. Evidently, they immediately disappeared into his pocket...gone from me forever. I could give many examples of this type of thievery.

Recently, a first edition of the Super Man comic book was sold in England for in excess of one million dollars. I owned a first edition Super Man for many years. It was learned that I had the book and a university student was assigned by someone to get it by coming to work for me when I had a job opening. He was one of the sharpest men I have ever met. I liked him very much, he did his job well. But, he never took his focus off his main mission. Of the 17,000 old comic books I own and had collected (I never looked at a comic book as a child. I have them only as with all the other antiquarian books because they are worth money, and I deal in books for money) one day, he said, “I've heard you have a first issue of Super Man, I certainly would like to see it”. Now, like a fool, I showed it to him. It should have been in my lock box at the bank. I will not go into the details but the book disappeared. I called his father, who lived in Cary NC, and told him about the matter. His father said, “I am not surprised”.

Americans in particular, because of the great movies played and books written involving inheritance and the good fortune of hitting it big, have the “hope and change” of the “get rich quick” mentality. We even have this dream with the “high fliers” of the stock market. When I was a much younger man I made a small fortune with penny stocks. Only using money which I could afford to lose I would buy these stocks for under one dollar a share. I would comb the market, studying, thinking, planning. I remember a Hong Kong bank stock, a diamond mining stock from South Africa.

It is far better to get rich slow, to invest wisely. Use fortitude, strength of will, perseverance, endurance. If you are blessed with a talent to hit a small ball in a cow pasture (golf), to run up and down a court or field with a ball, or even hit a small object with a stick (football, basketball, baseball), you may become a young millionaire, playing. You may make much money driving a car fast, always turning to the left. It will take exercise and discipline. The rest of us will depend on much prayer, fasting and self control.

My early years in the stock market and real estate market were punctuated by information, study. It is unbelievable the incredible amount of information available on any subject, universities, book stores, the internet. Most people are just lazy or just too busy with their social life of sex life (John Edwards, Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford).

The earthquake in Chile is an excellent example of the great increase in technology but nothing having changed about human nature. Several have resigned because they were too busy with other things even though the technology was available that would have saved many lives. Most of the damage in Chile came from the tsunami which technology predicted. Too often, in most jobs, it is a matter of just going through the motions. I would like to go to one doctors office, one more time, where the doctor as well as his staff showed a passion for the profession, the profession of healing.

We have a culture of “something for nothing”, welfare checks, food stamps, college grants, government housing (keep breathing until the retirement check).

Of the deadly sins, laziness and coveting are the most obvious. A black preacher, Reverend Johnson, sold me some old books. He spent his entire life just going from one widows house to another collecting “alms” from them. I gave him some of my old clothes, but they were not stylish enough for him. The thing I will always remember from Reverend Johnson, he was sitting in my den and I was giving him instruction in the bible, talking about the disciple Thomas, who reportedly had callouses on his knees from so much time spent in prayer. I had a large, round, brass table near his chair. He got so happy hearing about Thomas that he scared me to death by kicking over my table.

Christian ministry is simply the holiness of discipleship.

The most beautiful story in all literature, and I do not believe you will find a more beautiful poignant story in all literature, secular or sacred, is that of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). One son, wanted his inheritance early, “something for nothing”, left home and threw it all away. This Jewish boy found himself, of all things, feeding hogs. Deciding to return home, where his fathers servants ate well, his old father, ever looking down the road on which the son had left, saw him returning and ran to greet him. His brother, having stayed home and supported the father, resented the return of the Prodigal. The story mostly involves inheritance. To forgive we must know forgiveness. To be thankful we must know thankfulness. Only in living, can we know life.

“For we are born in other's pain, and perish in our own.” (Francis Thompson)