Pretending Not To See

I had just explored the Arctic areas of the world in an expedition ship, but was returning to the states by plane. Going through customs and immigration in a western provinces' Canadian facility, the customs official told me that he was pretending not to see the skeletal bones I had put in my suitcase. On a remote Arctic Island, perhaps unexplored for many years, I had retrieved what I thought was an elephant vertebra and the jaw bone from some animal. knew, just as the customs official knew, that I was not supposed to remove any bone from any island and certainly not supposed to bring such back to America.

He looked at this mostly blind man and said, “I know you don't know what is in your suitcase, and I know you don't know that you are not supposed to bring what looks like whalebone to America. I am going to pretend I did not see it.” Often, in the military, where a large part of a retiree's pension is based on disability, you will have malingerers, those faking a disability of some sort. In the case of vision, since I was a vision specialist, I was asked to qualify and stipulate the disability. It is difficult to fake any medical problem, particularly a visual problem. There are too many instruments, too many ways to check. Most do not realize that retina impulses from each eye makes a cross over at the optic chiasm. With a tangent screen you can rapidly discover if you are being played with, people pretending not to see.

We do not like to see anyone turn a blind eye to, pretend not to see, anything. Particularly a surgeon pretending not to see diseased tissue, a dentist pretending not to see cavity, an optometrist pretending not to see an lens opacity. So much of the expense of living is from shoplifting in the stores, many store employees turn a blind eye rather than get involved. In fact, it is easier to turn a blind eye, pretend not to see, than to involve yourself in many things.

It the famed television program Hogan's Heroes, Sgt. Schultz of the German POW camp would often say, “I see nothing.” Parents had rather pretend not to see misbehavior than to administer discipline. A pastor pretends not to see what is going on with a church member or church family rather than having to face or confront it. Often, teachers see the signs of abuse and pretend not to see. My niece stopped teaching school after her first year because of abuse she saw concerning children. She had her mother, my sister, go to her school and observe one small black child...so abused, so wanting love and attention. After her mother investigated, with her knowledge of county government, the child suddenly disappeared. God alone knows how many children are abused, or are even killed, in a destitute home.

It has been said that Abraham Lincoln could not understand the loss, the deaths from the Civil War until his child, Willie, died. Mrs. Lincoln never mentally recovered from the death, and the President probably never recovered either. President Lincoln had only one child to live past the age of 18. He professed that it was only after he experienced death in a real way that he did everything possible to bring the war to an end.

Often, particularly on patriotic holidays, we pretend to defend the indefensible...the warts of our democratic republic. We know we have been drawn into military conflict because of the greed, power, and decadence of the military-industrial complex...the very thing which President Eisenhower warned the country about. Foreign entanglements, the very thing that George Washington warned the country about. We are so anxious to honor the promoters and achievers of our great superpower status and wealth, the defenders-patriots of the homeland, that we turn a blind eye and pretend not to see the disease affecting capitalism.

We can understand John Dewey's mantra, the communist mantra, “the end justifies the means.” But we pretend that we have not swallowed this decadent doctrine hook, line and sinker. Like the judiciary (legal minds), the pastors (spiritual minds), we have become so politically correct, “go along to get along” in our fantasia of survival, exploiting any avenue for revenue. Jumping out of the recession bubble machine, we pretend that God does not have an “all-seeing eye” even though it is on every piece of fiat (almost worthless) currency.

We pretend not to see or not to know that the RAND Corporation, now mostly financed by the government instead of private endowment, has reportedly developed tracking computer programs and equipment which can keep up with mileage on vehicles, boats and many other areas of life in order to support expanded taxation. In my lifetime I have seen efforts to “save the children”, “save the animals”, “save the poor”, “save the environment”. It was only a historic snowstorm in Copenhagen, historic blizzards across North America which saved us from global warming taxation.

We are learning just how fast a person's life can go into upheaval...the most tornadoes in history, most earthquakes in history, meltdowns of nuclear reactors. In the time of modern man we have sicknesses from the most primitive effects of sewage (water contamination, cholera, radiation, etc.). Not in history have we ever witnessed such weather bombardment, thunderstorms across Africa, flooding in South America, drought in Australia, typhoons across Asia, tsunamis and earthquakes along the Pacific rim, tornadoes, which are inland hurricanes, across America (1200 reported, 875 confirmed tornadoes in 2011).

God left us His Book, written by His hand, by His dictating to others, a love letter, guidebook, answer book. Still, He talks to us again, in language which anyone should be able to hear and see, are we still pretending not to see, are we still turning a blind eye?

Thalidomide

Once I stood on a hotel balcony in city of Tiberius, just above the Sea of Galilee. This Sea, 17 miles wide, 39 miles long, can have a storm almost instantly. It was during one of these storms, that the disciples were on a ship, and they saw Christ walking towards them on the water (John 6:19). When the impetuous Peter walked on the water towards Jesus, he began to sink, not because he took his eyes off of Jesus, as is so often the claim, but because he looked at the pounding world, walls of water, around him. Those who try to understand life, understand God's Word, are trying to use their natural minds. All the fullness of the godhead in dwells us as believers, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. It is then that we are able to face the questions and quandaries of this present world.

I was still a medical officer on active duty in 1957 when the news of Thalidomide made the headlines. Probably 10,000 babies born with birth defects throughout the world, because of one drug given to pregnant mother to relieve nervousness and morning sickness. Think of it, over 2,000 babies born in England, 2,500 in Germany, and about 44 other countries in the world, because of one drug...babies without hands, feet, or legs, etc. Only because of Dr. Frances Kelsey, one of the FDA inspectors, had insisted on the holding-up of the drug in this country, that America was not splotched with such horrific debasement, even though the drug had been produced in this country by Richardson Merrill, USA “Big Pharma”. It is still sad to think that men and women will study medicine and pharmacology as long as they do, to become educated by representatives of drug companies who call on them at their offices. We have learned from too many deaths, that exotic new chemicals in drugs will kill as well as deform. It is so necessary that anyone investigates any medication, any pill before you put it in your body.

You know your body better than anyone else, and most of the time, you can handle yourself, most sicknesses with common sense methods. Remember, Jesus took all of our diseases and deformities to the cross, along with our sins. (Isaiah 53) When you go to the Lord's table, you take the bread for your healing, the wine for the remission of your sins. Within the power of almighty God, we have deliverance, redemption from disease as well as from sin.

One would think that with the progress made in healthcare, psychological understanding, we would not have the horrendous problems facing us today. But, we are bombarded with the conflicts, moral, physical, spiritual, which keep us dumbfounded about what will happen next.

Each day we squirm with news of the loss of human dignity: abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, ill treatment of the mentally ill, our total inability to get along with one another, it is not just the embarrassment, indignity, insensitivity of body searches at airports, but criminal activity, even in families.

I was on the edge of mental depression most of my life, because for too long I looked at life, living, healing, with a natural eye and natural mind. I would have bouts when I just wanted to get away from everyone, had very little to do with anyone, simply because I could not understand the complexities of the human mind and those around me. Most of all, my family and friends, who should know better.

Only after I assisted in the rehabilitation of a mentally ill young man, did I discover that God is capable of healing anything. Different with birth defects, innocent children entering this uncertain world minus providence from the sanctuary of the womb, most of these children died early, but those who did survive, are glad they have life. A minister asked my help, a young man was in the depths of manic depression, it was difficult to even think of such a snake pit home-life, that one could be born into such a horror story; today, authorities would have probably intervened, but even that is questionable.

He told me how his father would beat his mother in his presence, just about every piece of furniture in their home had been broken. She had lost all desire to live, totally mentally incapacitated, much of the time, little food in the house, mostly bread with lard to spread on it. When not at work, the father would sit around drunk watching television, cursing, despising everything and everyone. “I am sure he had killed and buried a sister older than me, he would warn my mother of the backyard, and what could happen to her there.“ His only refuge when not in school, visiting his mother's parents who, on a small farm, poverty-stricken, likewise were demented. His grandmother mostly sat around crying, and in prayer; but, his grandfather, seeking to escape the world, would take him on walks in the woods, telling him about animals, birds, trees.

It was only after the father had been hit and killed by another drunk, driving a car, and his mother had been arrested, stealing food and silverware from a neighbor's house, that the law, the minister and I became involved. Try to talk about the love of God with someone who has never seen anything but hatred, who has never seen anything but want and fear, who has never seen anything but mental depression and mental illness.

My only niece, a Salem College graduate, teaching her first year as a teacher. A black female child, totally hungry for love, coming to school each day, ill-kept, abused, beaten, one day never came again. My sister, a former teacher, said to me, “can you even imagine what happened to her?”

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8) The cure to one's depression comes in the reality of this scripture, as well as the words of the William Cowper hymn, “God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.” It was in my world travels, seeing how people in the word live amid every form of poverty and degradation, that I found solace and solution to my questions. The longest chapter in the Bible, the 119th Psalm is filled with the hope coming from God's abundance. One will never understand bioethics, man's inhumanity to man, sin's ruin and Christ's redemption until one realizes that parents give the body, but God creates the soul. Your body, abused and misused by the world, the flesh, the devil, will deteriorate, but your soul will live on forever, having been embossed and embraced by the short sojourn here on earth, as a stranger and alien, chosen by God, before the very foundation of the world, our citizenship is in heaven. (1 Peter 2:11)