Reality Enigmatic Plunge At Eighty-Five

#1773

“We have shared the incommunicable experience of war, we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youth our hearts were touched with fire.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

            When you reach the age of eighty-five, you no longer have fear of death. You no longer have the competitive spirit. You no longer have the fright of un-forgiveness. You have forgiven all those who have wronged you and if they do not accept such, they are on God's hook, after all, with mercy to spare God has forgiven me for all my rotten sins and if he can forgive "the chief of sinners" such as me, I can forgive others and ask forgiveness of others.. commission and omission.

 

            At eighty-five you have given up about your looks, about your ambitions, your relationships, you have learned not to be shocked at anything, to expect very little from the world and those who inhabit it. You realize how little you have affected those with whom you have come in contact. Those who should have been closest to you. Most were just pretending, like bureaucrats, politicians, even  the cashier at the grocery store, "have a good day," ALL were just going through the motions. You realize just how empty most phrases "I'm praying for you," and the death of a parent or friend, someone saying, "they are better off" (how do they know they are better off?) Or, some irrational statement, finding a needle in a hay-stack (most people have never seen a hay-stack, have no idea what it is like.) OR, "killing two birds with one stone" (those who would kill a bird or anything else have no idea about the intricacies of life... even bird life.) Some of these same people would vote for politicians or groups that are for planned parenthood, that would take the life of the most innocent. Most people I know have little concept of photosynthesis (plant life) or the homeostasis of animal life (clotting of blood, etc.) When my great grandparents were children the population of the United States was thirty-one million. Every time we pass a graveyard where these old people are buried, we should give them the honor of thinking about what they accomplished. Now, the population of the United States, three-hundred and fifteen million. Ninety million do not work, nearly fifty million on welfare, almost 200 million draw a government check of some sort.

 

          

In my lifetime, eighty-five years, I have seen America change completely. Just a small percentage of the population controls all the wealth (some say 1%.) Just a small percentage of the population pays all the taxes (some say 20%.) The middle class has largely become the working class, struggling for survival. The "talking box" in the living room, satanic fed desires for ease keeps from an early age, everyone dissatisfied with everything. The court house is over run by those with addictions. The school house has become a place for entertainment instead of education. The church house has become a battlefield for souls with the fight carried on from air-conditioned fox holes. Your house has become just a changing room or filling station. This world traveler (Doctor Morris' passport has been stamped in 157 countries, eight around the world trips... every continent) has see more commitment to false religions than committed-concerned-convinced-dedication to basic Christianity (in a so called Christian nation.) Most churches are just country clubs with steeples. In my days in speaking before civic clubs, I found more loyalty to civic club principles than I found at most Christian churches.

 

            I believe that the thing that bothers me the most, as most of us enjoy the comforts of 21st century living, just how little we appreciate what we have inherited... we are so busy picking flowers which we did not plant.  Never for one day has the poverty of my youth left my mind and not just me, all my family. We left the fundamental denomination of our forbearers of church house which did not have inside plumbing. We were embarrassed about our own homes, homes of love and understanding because of no inside plumbing... old drafty houses. We could not invite friends to our homes or our churches because they just might need to go to the bathroom. Most of our college educated friends had never seen an "out-house."

 

            This writer, like his parents-grandparents-great grandparents before him, followed his blessed Lord in baptism by being baptized in a fish pond (long before an inside baptistery was installed into our country church.) Women did not wear pant suites/slacks to church. Aunt Sarah who died at 98 would go around and use a safety pins to pin the girls dresses between their legs, so that the dresses would not rise up when they got into the pond. All believe in truth. Your truth is not necessarily my truth... your experiences are not my experiences. Our ancestors had not experienced the truth of inside plumbing, electric power, the bottomless ocean of technology. God forgive us for not appreciating them enough, for not celebrating the fact that they did the best they could with what they had.

           

            I participated at the funeral for the first graduate of the North Carolina State University, who died at one-hundred (N.M. Matthews, Goldsboro NC.) He and I would talk about the challenges of this new nation. My uncle turner told me about the first multistory, eight story, hotel building that went up in the county. Men carrying bricks and water, on their shoulders, up many feet to build that building. My great-grandfather wrote about his first experiences with electric lights, when he attended a baptist convention in Nashville, Tennessee. My own Grandmother and my relatives were land owners, talked about picking cotton  the day after her marriage. Can we even imagine the depths of poverty and despondency for the tenant farmers, the black people of that time in history. This writer still remembers studying the primitive medical instruments (still used until the beginning of the 20th century) at the UNC school of medicine, Chapel Hill. I will never understand my treatment as a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran. I will never understand my treatment by relatives who knew full well that I had worked very hard, lived a life of trust in God, to reach this time of disembarkation. I wonder how I would have been treated by my family-relatives-associates if I had been convicted of some crime and gone to prison. It suffices to say that most survivors who have reached the 21st century are just caught up in a world of me-ism.

            Most of us might go to God's house and sing such old Christian hymns as "Jesus keep me near the cross." When Jesus knows, we do not mean a word of it. The Christian religion is a supernatural religion. You can not be a Christian without believing in the supernatural. It is the supernatural love of God and love by God, which gives reality to life even in the 21st century. I so pity those who have no memories. I so pity those who have no hope for the future. Six hundred thousand Americans were killed in the great American Civil War. It was not that long ago, I have known family members who were alive during that time. They had the faith to keep on keeping on. I do believe that faith is ninety percent raw courage. This morning, eighty-fifth year my mind is clear, my body free of pain, ready to take the plunge into the depths of the river of reality. 

Bullet Proof

Bullet Proof

Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee

-- John Donne

            God wanted this writer, though early in life disabled by blindness, to travel and sense His world.  So, eight round the world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries, using my remaining senses to study the world...the impoverished, the decadent, the prosperous.

            Man is the only animal who knows he is going to die, man is the only animal who can blush. So many men spend their lives thinking of dying.  Not as much now as in the past, because men have learned to preserve health through technologies which have led to longer life spans, but no real change in human nature.  It breaks my heart that people so blessed with long lives think they are bullet-proof... that nothing is going to affect them.  

             

            Many live thinking they will live forever, the perils of life (disease-accidents) are no respecters of persons. There was a time when life was very simple, just food, shelter, and exercise.  With prosperity the three big ones, heart attack-cancer-stroke, are taking their toll.  Few human beings escape cancer, it is just a matter of how long your immune system can prevent its diagnosis. Like the fear of dying, the fear of disease cannot control our living, yet we should never forget that death is just one breath away.   

            Almost daily I hear a last name, a city, which brings back the memory of someone I have known, like wonderful memories of wonderful people.   I have learned to understand unbelieving real men who have gone through the trials and trauma of raising families, building businesses, cultivating farms, defending a nation, who do not want to hear preachers or politicians who have never done anything.  It is like listening to a catholic priest tell you how to raise your children.  Some of the best men I have ever known did not possess ancestral genes, had never gained anything from family wealth and position.  Like all of us, the race was theirs, and they had done the best they could with it.  I remember two great generals who could not read nor write (Nathan Bedford Forrest of the American Civil War and Pablo of the Spanish Revolution) they did their best with what they had.   How many of us have done as much?  

            We get so tired of hypocrisy, a word not allowed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Friedrich Neitzsche (of 'God is dead' fame) said, "You do not challenge Christianity for its truthness, just Christians for their unhappiness".  If Christians really believed what they profess to believe, they would have a perpetual smile on their faces, they would be the happiest people in the world.  Christians are the only people on earth who are truly bullet-proof. 

            We hear much about accomplishment and heroes.  In my book, the real heroes, people of accomplishment, those who have run the race of life with integrity, gone through the trials of raising-protecting families, able to recover after financial and other setbacks and still have a sense of humor, to be able to laugh.  It breaks my heart that gifted men, so accomplished in every way never know the transforming-redeeming power of the Holy Spirit of God, after such a productive life here on earth, stumbling at the Cross of Christ, will die and spend eternity in hell... men blessed with so much, the gravitas of survival skills here on earth, will simply throw it all away, never knowing or believing, that their most important decision in life is making sure the welfare of their eternal soul.

            It has been this writer's unforgettable, marvelous experience to view from the outside many of the world's great cathedrals and churches.  The church exterior does not escape the smut and smog of a great city, the walls look dreary, but, going inside the church or cathedral, sun invading the great stained glass windows, the building has an entirely different appearance.  Our bodies are the temple of God, they get very smeared with smut and the debris of living on the outside, but it is the inside that makes the difference.  It is so important to treat your body like a temple, not a dumpster.  20% of the world's population have never known good potable drinking water.  It is what we eat and drink that determines our health.  Like good food, good mental processes determine our mental health.  It is from the interior of a man that defilement takes place. (Mark 7:15 "there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man".)  The mortality rate is still 100%, all of us will experience clinical death.  But, for the Christian, we do not experience spiritual death, bullet proof, living forever.

"For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."

- Romans 14:8, King James Bible "Authorized Version", Cambridge Edition

Tough Times

As I have gotten older, I have a new appreciation for my relatives who I studied as they aged. There were many of them; because I came from the stock of two very old and established eastern NC families. They all lived long, eventful lives. Having returned from the decadence and tom-foolery of academia I now realize that these ancient relatives taught me more from their life experiences than could be gained from the stacks of many libraries. Our older relatives studied all the volumes available to them and mixed with their common sense produced wisdom which is sorely needed in these days of academic depravity and neutrality. There were doctors, lawyers, teachers, farmers in my family household of faith who had already forgotten more than today's professionals know. The well-paid agricultural extension agents were amazed to learn about farming operations from my father or the grafting of fruit trees from my grandfather.

I was often astounded to hear an aunt who had never had a facial or manicure give me a Bible reference, quote it exactly, and say, “That is the answer to your question, that will solve your problem.”

Those who are not ashamed of God will find that He is not ashamed of them, ever ready to pour out His abundant mercy. Why not enjoy all He has to offer? Get over pretension. The very hairs on your head are numbered. (Matthew 10:30)

Aunt Sarah was a most remarkable woman, a young girl while her father was away fighting in the Civil War. Dying at age 100, around 1958, she and my grandmother would talk about how the Yankees came down the road plundering and burning. She talked about their beautiful horses, their shining swords. She was too young to lead the cows and the mules way down into the swamps like the older boys and girls to keep the Yankees from stealing them. But they could talk about putting food into washtubs and hiding the tubs in wells which were concealed, leaving enough pork meat in the smokehouse and chickens in the chicken house so the Yankees would go ahead and steal those things along with corn and hay, and move on in their march to the sea. (Sherman's march to the sea, 1864)

Recently, the young pastor of the great family church built in 1874, visited me and questioned me about many historical facts involving the church and community. He said, “There is a portrait of an old man hanging in the church office. Do you know who he is?” I said, “I remember the day that Aunt Sarah gave a picture of Reverend Worley to a traveling photographer, going through the community and she paid him to reproduce the small picture into a large frame with the bubble glass.” The picture has been hanging in the church ever since. He was one of the first pastors of the church and rode 30 miles on horseback to preach. Imagine one of today's pansied procurers riding a horse or anything else to preach. We have limousine pastors just as we have limousine politicians. Aunt Sarah's husband, who had inherited a large part of my great grandfather's estate, died young. He is buried in the old family cemetery with many of my great, great grandparents, aunts and uncles, Spanish flu and Civil War victims. At that time, a widow only received a child's share of an estate. Her husband's estate was divided between her four children. She lived a month at a time with each child, all prominent and wealthy relatives. Knowing her absolute devotion to the church, where she always sat on the front pew, they made sure she was always in attendance.

She was known far and wide in all denominational circles. All her grandchildren, leaving the area, from advanced education and prominent marriages hardly knew her. I was at her funeral and before her burial next to her husband in the ancient cemetery one of her “stuck up” granddaughter's who I believe had never spoken to anyone in my personal family, insisted that the casket be opened at the grave, so her two daughters (They did not arrive in time for the funeral) could see the great grandmother they had never seen before. I thought then, as now, how tragic, that with all the technology and wealth the world had provided this saintly woman's grandchildren and great grandchildren they did not know her. I remembered, that on one occasion, one of my relatives had recorded Aunt Sarah discussing her life, her problems after her husband's early death and her memories from the Civil War to World War II. I heard this tape replayed one time. So, I know it did exist. How tragic that this family does not have this memory in their possession. Photographs, letters, even tapes are lost when family members die and their possessions are scattered by antique dealers or even yard sales.

As an example, my next door neighbor, Bill, died with not one relative at his memorial service. The family heirlooms which he prized including his great, great grandfather's musket and many other items were dispersed by the trust department of a local bank to the highest bidder.

In these tough times, when the unemployment rate is higher than it has been since the great depression, when accumulated wealth has decreased in value, when wise people are taking time to validate their lives, and evaluate their “things”, it is good to remember that in a history of a free people and a free country, there have been tough times before. On the farm, during times of drought we found the plants would send their roots down much deeper seeking moisture. When the rains did come, and they always do, the plants grew with renewed vigor. This is a good time to send our roots down in remembrance of the family and those around us, who have helped us get this far. For those of us who are Christian, it is a good time for remembrance (at the Lord's table with His holy elements) of what He has done for us and regardless of how bad things get in this life. Tough times here, only mean thrills there.