Jubilation

President Bush (41) was severely criticized because he did not go all the way to Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In the second Gulf War (Iraq War), President Bush (43) ordered troops to Baghdad and the Army entered on March 20th, 2003. In a television spectacle called “Shock and Awe”, planes were dropping bombs on the city, tanks shelling the city in every direction. As I listened to the unprovoked terror, I could not help but think of the women and children; huddled in homes, scared beyond all comprehension, not knowing what was going on. Meanwhile, Americans sat watching such on television, thoroughly entertained, enjoying the horrendous spectacle while eating their popcorn. Baghdad, one of the world's oldest and most fascinating cities, fell on April 9. Then until now, warfare, death and sorrow. I know of no jubilation at any time in Iraq. In these Middle East wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now in Libya, and to a limited extent, many other places, we see the beginning of WWIII.

After almost ten years, some Americans felt the need for jubilation after hearing of the “supposed” death of Osama bin Laden. Islam is a one-way street, many enter, but few leave. We forget that the one billion Muslims in the world, like the rest of us, were created by God. I can find no joy or jubilation at the death of Muslims any more than I can understand the weird actions of Muslims celebrating in the streets when the “supposed” planes' burning kerosene hit the towers in Manhattan. I have tried to understand how and why burning kerosene (the fuel of jets) did not destroy the cook stoves, heating systems, lighting systems (almost all made of metal) in the homes of so many of the world's citizens.

What joy can anyone possibly take in the troubles of other people, even your supposed enemies, in warfare or actions of nature...floods in the Midwest, fires in Texas, tornadoes throughout the south land, earthquakes and tsunamis in the Pacific areas? God talks to us in all these things, but so few listen. More or less like this past Easter Sunday, the resurrection story, so many leaving church the same way they entered: unaffected.

The news first broke about the “supposed” death of Osama bin Laden about 10:15 pm. It came via Twitter from someone in the intelligence circles of government. Then, with great fanfare, the master politician of all times, President Obama, playing the announcement to the extreme. Now and always, using all of the “rules for radicals” played to his base...those who so desire to be jubilant about anything that this man does. They have not yet realized what is going on in this country. That Obama, like Osama, will both face the wrath of God.

We live in a world where it is difficult to recognize our enemies. Even so, the apostle Paul tells us to pray for our enemies. Then, now and always, in every action of every nation, our only hope is the mercy of God. ...for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 106:1) ...for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 107:1)...because his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 118:1) ...for his mercy endureth for ever (Psalm 136:1)

The supposed killing this weekend, a victory for the military and intelligence, is not the end of terrorism...it may even encourage such. For political purposes, we have home-grown terrorists. Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established (Proverbs 24:3) History proves that it takes a providential guiding hand to build, but not much intelligence to destroy. Soberly, we rejoice when God brings justice. Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. (Proverbs 24:17-18)

Because of our open borders, we can depend on backlash; because there are those wanting one world government, we can depend on increased scanning at airports, less freedom and more interference in our lives. As Dr. Franklin said, “we will forsake all privacy for security.” Remember the fragility of life and possessions. God owns everything, we brought nothing with us and will not take anything away.

Osama bin Laden must have had a wretched life, coming from a wealthy family, has a world-wide following, but living as a haunted, hunted man...supposedly very ill. There are many forms of extremism, such as the killing of 53 million babies in America. Planned Parenthood clinics, financed from your tax dollars ($360 million in government grants)... just think, 52% of all black babies are aborted. The largest abortion clinic outside the nation of China, located in Houston, TX (fourth-largest city in the US) in the minority area of the city.

America will not escape justice any more than any Islamic country (Psalm 98:9). When Bush (43) said, “bring it on”, there was no reason for Americans to be jubilant. Remember, only a Christ-less eternity and the justice of God awaits those who are lost, no matter their religion, skin color, or nationality. It is a mental disorder to celebrate death, warfare; jubilation over the death of your enemy; even the defeat of your enemy in time of war, does not lessen the grief and pain of the innocent.

Turbulence

It took me five years to realize the fact that I did not recognize Benita from her facial features, but from the black and white dress, her Sunday dress, which she always wore when she came to my office. She worked at a Cherry Hospital, a mental hospital, as did her husband, both low paid attendants. She had told me that they had one precious son, who was in college, studying to be a preacher. In fact, he had already graduated from college and was in seminary (United, Trotwood, Ohio), she brought him by at least twice to meet me. A very fine young man, a very fine Methodist minister. He wanted to be ordained in their home church, a small Methodist church called Fellowship. Several of the relatives called, insisting I attend the ordination service and the meal that followed.

The ordination took place at noon on Sunday, the little church filled with excited people. The new seminary graduate, wearing proudly the handle of “Dr.” was an enthusiastic speaker, a tribute to his community, his church, his family. Like so many women, his mother only had one Sunday dress, his father one Sunday suit, because it had taken everything they could rake and scrape for his education, the blessing of this day. It was even more obvious at the home, there was not enough flatware to set the table. They had enough food, but a very humble home. The joy of the occasion was marked by their humility.

Dr. Styron preached that day on death, clinical death, the ticket to a better life. He spoke of the rewards of heaven, the resurrection of Christ and everything that makes Christian redemption possible.

Every time you pass a cemetery, every time you pass a funeral home, as much as you do not want to think about it, you know that death, your death, is inevitable. Many physically plan for it ahead of time, my grandmother kept her burial shroud in her cedar chest. I heard one woman say she wanted to wear a dress in the casket that would not make her look fat. I still do not like open casket visitations or funerals, I believe there should be as much privacy in death as in life...people gazing at you at the worst time of your existence.

I remember my sister's mother in law, and the closed casket funeral, one of the deceased's relatives went to her and said she would like to see her aunt. My sister said to her, “she would have liked to see you the ten years she laid in a nursing home before she died.”

I don't remember the reason, but I was in the hospital one night, and a family I knew asked me to be in the room to be with them, since her mother was dying. The patient, although almost dead, was still aware. We all know that the limbs are the first to get cold, I noticed that the daughter would keep running her hand under the cover to her mother's feet, finally her mother kicked at her. Death for most is a very lonely experience, I can think of nothing any lonelier than death in a traffic disaster, or a home disaster, unable to get help. I still believe the worst death is the long death faced by victims of Alzheimers...dead while still alive. A long, exasperating and expensive experience for the patient as well as the family.

Just as we know death is real, so we know God is real, we make the choice. Before the Jewish slaves left Israel, the blood of the passover lamb was put on the doorpost of every Jewish home. They made a choice, the death angel passed over when he saw the blood.

At the dedication of Solomon's temple (1 Kings 8), Solomon brought the entire history of the Jewish people amid the sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. When the Ark of the Covenant was moved into the temple, the cloud of glory was so great that the scribes could not speak, nor the trumpeters blow their horns. This was the dedication of the world's greatest building, and until this day, considered the world's most expensive building. Books have been written on the building of the temple, the cedar wood from Lebanon, the number of men required not only to cut the wood, but to bring it down the Mediterranean sea, transport it to Jerusalem, where the temple was built without the sound of saw or hammer, cedar wood, gold, brass. The children of Israel knew the prophecies and promises of God, they have experienced the glory, nothing has changed. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

700 years before the birth of Christ, the prophecy of Christ (Isaiah 53). The penalty, the promises, you must take him at His Word, God values His Word more than anything else. (Psalm 138:2) We know the penalty and the promise, we know that by His stripes we are healed, we know we escape death through His blood. If not healed, the ultimate, quickest healing, heaven.

All disciples were martyrs except for John, it took too long for the message to sink in, the eclismic experience of His death and Resurrection changed them totally. They were never the same again, knew they would never see one another again (no method of communication at that time), but each had a mission. Bartholomew skinned alive in Armenia, Thomas killed by a heretic in India, Luke hung in Greece, Mark dragged through the streets of Alexandria, Peter crucified in Rome, Paul beheaded in Rome. All could face death because they knew that Christ was real, they knew Him, the power of His Resurrection, the fellowship of suffering (Philippians 3:10).

You cannot conjure up comfort on your own, trying to understand the actions of God. When a person kills oneself, it is unnatural, it natural to fear death. God in life is a mystery, surrender to mystery. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:15)

Black Death

The Black Death, 1347-1351, wiped out half the population of Europe and over one hundred million of the world‘s population. Scholars question and debate much of the details of the Plague but it is believed to have started through the fleas of rats. It led to the morbidity of the most innocent of the population including the poorest and contributed to the ruin of many religions including decimation of the Catholic Church. There have been recurrences of this Plague in other places in Europe, and indeed around in the world such as in Spain and Italy.  Much later America was affected by the Plague mostly in San Francisco where there was much death and rats which could be seen running down ropes of ships being tied in the port facility were a scourge on the city. It was a horrible form of death and like all pandemics tested the social fabric of health and commerce.

Europe again, is in a state of despair mostly due to their own inattention to immigration and border control by an influx of Muslims, mostly African, who risk life trying to find a better existence in European countries.  Most, like refugees from Cuba, are trying to get to America on makeshift floating devices or refugees from Mexico and other Latin American countries trying to get to America through tunnels, over or under fences, the exploitation of the human psyche and the determination for finding a better life, has led to untold hardship and death. Just last week, a ship carrying many Africans sank. A container carrying many was discovered with most of them dead. The risk involved in trying to find a better life here on this earth can be compared to the risk of eternal damnation for the unrepentant soul.

Much of Europe’s trouble is self-imposed because of the desire for cheap labor from the Muslim countries of Turkey and those in North Africa.  Instead of going back home, they stay.  One of the largest mosques in the world is now located in Cologne, Germany.  The Muslims’ have many babies and they do not abort their babies.  Among Westerners, more caskets are manufactured than cradles.  Women in Western Europe have stopped having children, so the Muslims have rapidly taken over.

So many Africans have died trying to cross at Gibraltar that there is little burial ground for the dead. Almost the same situation has happened in the Canary Islands, off the Coast of Africa. With all the problems of colonialism, at least the colonial powers, England, France, Germany, Portugal employed natives in their own native country and introduce housing, streets, social and commercial systems which improves their living standards. I will not go into the sociology of white-owned black rule or black-owned black rule but using South Africa, the wealthiest African nation as an example, matters have not improved, only deteriorated with Black rule. More blacks are unemployed in South Africa now than before Mandela. Living conditions of blacks are worse now than before Mandela.

The African country of Somalia is without government, so terrible that the military from other African countries, who had tried to give some relief, have withdrawn. I remember my absolute consternation when in the Sudan and Ethiopia as I saw the tragedy’s already existing there (nothing compares to present day Darfur) and one of the Sudanese officials saying to me, “ You must go back to your country and try to get us some help. This is a place of complete decimation.”

Of course, as always, in every trip around the world, some reporter was anxious to interview me about the trip. How often, do you find a blind man traveling the world, able to report on conditions? But, as always, until my series of commentaries on my travels, reporters just like to romanticize and talk about the insignificant, such as my crossing one river in Nigeria on an ancient rope bridge. Even my description of the peace corps worker, who I met, along with a British ambassador, who had escaped Charles Taylor’s Liberia with the machete deaths was of no interest.

I described in detail my escape from Kigali in Rwanda where the genocide had just begun (1 million Tutsi were killed by the Hutu’s), where even the United Nations representatives were expelled from the country, and one accompanied me to the airport where we had to fight our way through gangs of young black “head hunters” to get into the airport where we were kept in the superintendents' office with what dire police protection was available. Facilities at the airport, the only one in the country, was behind barbed fenced, the taxi drivers who drove to the airport in a caravan for protection, drove right up to the gate where they formed a gauntlet of protection, as much as possible, for us to get inside.

To this day, just as fresh in my mind as the day it happened, I remember my camera bag hanging around my neck, my white cane and 2 suitcases, being swung side to side trying to protect myself along with the drivers and my guide and the UN officials as we escaped Rwanda into the airport, eventually on the last plane out. I have heard the hatred in the voices of these black people. I know something of the black death and only in the “echo chambers” of hell itself will one hear the cries of the women and children who have fallen victim to the desperation and desolation of the black continent.

Books have been written on the genocide in Liberia, the hell of a 27 year war in Angola, the horror stories of Somalia, the beheading of non-Muslims and the stoning of Muslims in Nigeria. Just this week, photos were shown of a 17 year old girl, held down by adults receiving 39 lashes, for sexual activity against Muslim law.

The world's greatest navy seemingly cannot detect or prevent the hijacking of its flagged ships, but untrained pirates operating from failed boats out of the harbors of a failed country. Have we become so “drugged” that we do not have the mental ability to comprehend what is happening, not only in our own country, but around the world? It does not take a disease such as bubonic plague, the black plague or malaria (from rats and mosquitoes), or starvation. (At the Nigerian airport, the British ambassador said to me, “You stupid Americans send food, why not metal garbage cans for these people to protect their food from rats.”). When will a world of wealth recognize the cries of babies and small children or their desperate mothers in these countries facing black death.

Roller Coaster

#677

Anthony Newley's hit song, Stop The World I Want To Get Off, 1962 musical, tells the plight of many of us. We feel that life is a roller coaster, just up and down … Great drops that take our breath away. I was on a roller coaster once in my life, with my sister. She was enjoying the ride but I promised God, on that crazy ride, that if I could get off, I would never get back on.

I suppose I have said it 1000 times to friends and acquaintances, “I just don't know how people survive in this world, with it's ups and downs, evil and corruption, sorrows and disappointments, without faith on which to cling”. How does a loved one follow a casket to an open grave in a cemetery without faith? More important, how does a family follow a “lost” family member to an open grave knowing that the soul is forever gone … In the torture pit of hell for eternity?

Yesterday, the first time in history, the stock market fell 1000 points in just a few minutes time. Certainly, if a bomber can get on a plane in Europe and fly into this country, if a bomber can get on a plane in this country and “almost” fly out, in spite of the continued lies and deceit in Washington, we know the terror we face. If, Goldman Sachs and other international bankers can manipulate the financial world as they have done and are doing … It is a matter of record … While the regulators are sitting in their office watching them do it … 33 SEC regulators making salaries of 100-119,000 are in their offices watching pornography … There is no one watching the store even on Wall Street.

In 1987, President Reagan initiated a “so-called” plunge protector to prevent this type of thing from happening. With such a calamity, trading should have immediately shut down. We find, in this, as everything else, those in charge are drunk at the wheel … Intoxicated by their Obama inspired power-hold, on the finances and lies of so many people.

Another roller coaster is NASA and the space program. Think of the billions spent on space activity … Putting a man on the moon.

Involving weather control, instead of practicing weather control around the Gulf Coast bringing on such catastrophes as Katrina, why not Africa? The Sahara areas of Africa needed all that water. Traveling through the Sahara many times, there is never a cloud in the sky, such tremendous heat that most of the continent is parched.

Describing life as a roller coaster ride can be easily defined. For instance, your birthplace in a family. The oldest child is usually more authoritative, bossy, an alpha animal. Most of the great inventions of the world, literature, political leaders, all were first born children. It is the last born child who is the comedian, the jokester, never takes life very seriously, never accomplishes very much. Those in between are, more or less, just there.

For most of us, life is a dancing experience. We tap dance just as hard as we can to get ahead and stay ahead. If you are fortunate, blessed, you do an Argentine Tango, you have a partner to dance with and you move two, almost as one, the beauty of the Argentine Tango. Fortunate the man who finds his soul mate, someone to whom he can depend and trust in every life activity. Fortunate the woman who finds that soul mate, she knows that she is the very essence of his life … his reason for living, working, coming home whether in the evening or from around the world. The greatest trauma to befall a human being on the roller coaster of life … other than death, is a disability, many, born with a disability. I have been asked many times, if it is better to become blind or be born blind. I am very glad that I have been able to see in my youth … people, trees, flowers, animals etc.

Once, a totally blind man, blind from birth, was brought to my house to visit me. He had wanted to meet me and his parents brought him down to my house. I sent my secretary out to buy some food, so we had lunch and a very nice visit. Later, I took them down to my large den in which I have animal skins, masks and other worldwide travel memorabilia hanging all over the walls. I went to describing the room to him, the things that were hanging on the walls. His father, a University PhD professor, jumped up, moved him, and put his hands on the very objects. Then, I realized how blessed this blind man was to have such parents. Then, I understood how the young man had received two University degrees. His parents understood the debilitation of blindness, the harbingers of disability.

Without God, you cannot know God. Those who have never experienced disability or loss can never know loss. I'm very thankful for my disability because it has made me a much better person. I have taken this burden, this chasm in the roller coaster, to our blessed Lord as my devotion to him. We are taught, to know the “fellowship of his suffering”. The normal people, so brash, so competent, so permanent, think nothing bad will ever happen to them. Like the politicians, the power brokers of the world, they think we are just the dumb sheep who should be bossed by the border guard dogs in our existence. They have so much to learn. When will they learn how they have been deceived?

Tragic in this roller coaster ride, confusion of gender … masculine and feminine. Most of these homosexuals are just silly putty, being used and abused by Satanic forces.

Many youngsters have been wounded in the trauma of home life. It is almost impossible to repair the wounds suffered by many women from dis-functioning husbands or distraught wives bringing their wrath on their pragmatic husbands. We are living in a wounded world. 55% of marriages end in divorce, 52% of all black babies aborted, 70% of all children reared by single mothers.

On the roller coaster, there is a paradigm shift between good and evil. When I was an Army medical officer, we tried to save lives. At Fort Hood, Texas an Army medical officer killed 13 of his fellow soldiers. When I was a student, we pledged allegiance to the flag. This week, in Morgan Hill, California, school-children wearing an American flag on their shirt were told by Principal Miguel Rorriguez of Live Oak High School that they could not wear the shirts and the parents of the children were told that they would be suspended from school. This happened on Cinco De Mayo when California was honoring Mexico … a country in ruins, now ruining the state of California.

As with the oil catastrophe in the Gulf, as with a bomb in the nation's largest city. As with the flooding river flowing through America's music city there is nothing “fail-safe” in the challenge of life. Get on board, the ride is exciting, it is over quicker than you can imagine.

Ides of March

#515

If we have anything to celebrate here at the Ides of March, it is that “Spring is in the air” and just perhaps, we are about to escape the worst winter in my memory. Shakespeare, perhaps the worlds greatest poet, made the Ides of March famous in his wonderful play, “Julius Caesar”. “Beware of the Ides of March”. The fictional character “Seer” or prophet referred to in the play, warned Caesar of the Ides of March. On his way to the senate, Caesar said to the Seer “It is the Ides of March and nothing has happened”. The Seer replied, “it is not over yet”. Caesar was later assassinated by men whom he trusted. Caesar, known for his many military exploits, know for the Gallic wars, had a most memorable funeral. The funeral oration of Mark Antony, I memorized as a student and so has students all over the world:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Funerals of world leaders have always been interesting, particularly in England. As I have told many British subjects in traveling around the world, “you folks really know how to put on a funeral”. Do you remember the procession involving Lord Louis Mountbatten at St. Paul's? Hundreds of British sailors pulling the gun carriage on which the casket rested? The funerals of Queen Elizabeth's mother and father at Westminster? Do you remember the funeral of President Kennedy at St. Matthew's Cathedral? Short Haile Selassie and tall Charles de Gaulle? Do you remember the funeral of Lyndon Johnson at the First Christian Church in Washington? And metropolitan opera star Leontyne Price singing “Precious Lord Take My Hand” and “Onward Christian Soldiers”? I could describe the funerals of most world leaders.

Funerals have always bothered me, this is a very personal thing. But the thoughts of families getting together, gorging themselves with food, and then going to a memorial service is downright pagan. This past week, a second cousin killed himself...young age...depressed about losing his eye sight...leaving behind a family including a 4 year old child. Beyond all understanding, his family deciding to have him cremated, first had him stretched on a table with a quilt covering the lower part of his body, so his family could take one last look before his ashes were interred in an urn. How pagan can you get!!! All privacy gone, people starring at a dead body. Please God, deliver me from such heathenism.

Once, I was in Burma, a Buddhist Monk had died. My driver just happen to take me by the site of the “festivities”, “drums and drama”, “bells and smells”, “family and others dancing around the bloated corpse”. I said to him, “please get me away from this satanism”. Once in Singapore, walking down a busy street with my guide, he said, “this looks like a busy store, let's see what is going on here”. When we got in he said, “oh my god, we are in the midst of a funeral”.

The great late blind editor of the news Argus, Goldsboro NC, often wrote about being in a restaurant with his “seeing eye wife” and people being so curious watching a blind man eat. For many years, I have felt the “stares” of sited people as I have tried to live a somewhat normal life knowing they were watching my every move, particularly in a restaurant. I feel this is the reason so many disabled become reclusive. Certainly, in a coffin, or laying on a table with a quilt, (as was this cousin, a suicide victim), I do not want people staring at me. I have had my fill of this type degrading, uncivilized behavior.

One mortician, told me, I give the dead just as much privacy as I give the living. I always keep them covered with a sheet. I even resented the cadavers, in the laboratory laying naked while being dissected by students. I feel babies and children, should learn early in life the decency, the privacy, of being covered.

Please, please, don't invite me to a funeral where I am expected to gorge myself with food celebrating someones demise. I have one aunt and uncle who never missed the chance of a free meal at a dead persons house. They always know that food will be brought in and that if they get there in time, they will be invited to eat. There is no such thing as grief anymore, death is almost an embarrassment. I am told some families never look at the deceased. The coffin is kept closed with a church pall or flowers over it. Prayer and fasting for the deceased or a proper memorial service are rare. Why is it that family members feel they must speak at the funeral? The Preacher out west, who was killed by someone in his church, was eulogized at his funeral by his wife! Don't tell me you are Christian if you participate in these unholy, unnecessary, exercises. There is nothing here that is “Christ-like”. Whose end [is] destruction, whose God [is their] belly, and [whose] glory [is] in their shame, who mind earthly things.) (Phl 3:19) .

My next door neighbor died, Bill, one of the most distinguished men I have ever known, graduate of Williams College, successful in every endeavor, wealthy. He was barely at the funeral home, surely not embalmed, when I heard from my house such clammering over “things”. Relatives running out the door carrying his things, yelling back insults at one another. “He wanted me to have this”! Another neighbor, Margaret, former clerk at the Federal Court drove me to his funeral. Three of us were there. Margaret and I, and the young man who cleaned and cooked for him...not one relative.

“If you want to see what your friends and family think of you, die broke, and see who comes to your funeral” (Gregory Nunn).

Shifting Sands

#504


A friend of mine, in a recent conversion concerning creation said, “I don't agree your Creator but I do believe there must have been some instructions about the Big Bang.” I said, “who do you think gave the instructions?” The phony baloney of evolution should have been fully discredited and by now, should have disappeared from our Lexicon but the world wants to continue in it's sin without any fear of judgment. The academics continue to promote the myth...even in the face of the wisdom of the ages. Ptolemy the Egyptian mathematician attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. Few could understand his calculations. Einstein, greatest mathematician of modern times has said the most comprehensible thing about the universe is that it is incomprehensible. Without God, no man can understand God. Only one who has studied the universe with a telescope and likewise has studied micro organisms with a microscope can fully appreciate the greatness of the Creator, for the others, basking in the ignorance of their own wisdom, life for them is a matter conjecture.

I already had one degree in science in 1953 and was working on another when Watson and Crick discovered DNA. I thought this will forever silence the Pagans of the world with their goo to zoo to you mentality...all of which had been mostly imagination. I have studied in the 2000 mile Rift Valley of Africa where magically life supposedly began. The Leeke's and other anthropologists would be the first to tell you that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

King Solomon, in his book of the Ecclesiastes states the following , “for in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” The historian will tell you that through the many ages of technical knowledge (iron age, bronze age etc.) nothing has happened to change human nature...man is about as dumb now as he ever was...has little foresight...has an expensive watch for which to tell time but that is about all.

God does not have a calendar, does not wear a watch. Almost exactly 200 years ago, 1811, the greatest earthquake ever to hit America (New Madrid) left it's markings, still visable. There are historic buildings in this very town in which I live still showing the results of that earthquake...an earthquake so powerful that water flowed backwards on the Mississippi river. Several evenings ago, my congressman called me personally and I told him, that he probably should spend as little time as possible in Washington D.C. It is my firm conviction, that the most evil city on the face of the earth is Washington D.C. If Washington D.C. escapes the wrath of God, God will surely apologize to Sodom. The warnings are all around us, he is showing us what he can do...Haiti, Chile, Japan, Taiwan and last night Turkey, none of these small tangos, rumbas, that have left death and desolation. Until 1900 there was 2,713,900 deaths from earthquakes. Since 1900 there have been 2,216,528 deaths. From 1990 to 2007 there have been 284,832 deaths by earthquake. Just this year there have been more than that which shows us the evidence and warnings which our blessed lord was careful to disclose. “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these [are] the beginnings of sorrows.”(Mark 13:8)

Put a few fleas in a glass jar and put a lid on the jar. The fleas will jump up to the lid trying to escape. Take the lid off the jar and the fleas will jump no higher than the previous lid. You can even train a flea! Man has not yet learned that he cannot pick up a box by standing in it. Content are our politicians to just play the games that people have always played. Content are our spiritual leaders to operate in darkness when they have been shown the light. Content are most parents to survive in self delusion.

There was a time when freedom loving, God fearing, hard working, citizens were not so easily scammed. We have seen the international banking system and a ludicrous tax system enslave us to the government. With a Marxist in the White House and both houses of congress under the complete control of liberal antagonists of freedom, children who have escaped abortion are being reared as slaves for state control. The only personal security left to give you any comfort at all, your relationship with your doctor. Now, this is being removed in the Obama, liberal, totalitarian control. The three largest employers on earth, the Chinese Army, the railroad system of India, and the socialized healthcare system of England. Larger than these three will be the socially engineered healthcare system of America. Can you even imagine the consequences...SOPs (standard operating procedures) and mandates to states and counties, assignments, waiting lines, limits on prescriptions etc.? Only those of us who have worked in military hospitals, who have faced combat in veterans hospitals, those who have seen the audacity of social service bureaucracy can realize that the genetic modification of plants and animals will not compare to the modification of human beings under absolute government control. It took one man, Barney Frank, antagonized totally as he has sought to carry out the “gay agenda” to confuse, distort, and destroy the housing mortgage market. It will only take one Pelosi or her ilk to destroy the last vestige of liberty in a once “freedom loving” America.

Write down your memories of America before the beginning of the 21st century. One day, it may bring comfort to you. Once, in Belgrade Yugoslavia, an older woman said to me, when she was cleaning my room, “I wish you could have known this country when it was free...before Tito...before Communism. I had a beautiful home, a husband and children. My husband was shot because he protested the Communist takeover. I don't know what happened to my two children, they just disappeared from the world, and me, I am a slave of the government.”

"The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."
Omar Khayyam

I have been accused of being too negative. My consolation to you, this day, and I so need it myself, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Black Death

Black Death

The Black Death 1347-1351 wiped out half the population of Europe and over one hundred million of the world‘s population. Scholars question and debate much of the details of the Plague but it is believed to have started through the fleas of rats. It led to the morbidity of the most innocent of the population including the poorest and contributed to the ruin of many religions including decimation of the Catholic Church. There have been recurrences of this Plague in other places in Europe and, indeed, in the world such as in Spain and Italy. Much later America was affected by the Plague mostly in San Francisco where there was much death and rats which could be seen running down ropes of ships being tied in the port facility were a scourge on the city. It was a horrible form of death and like all pandemics tested the social fabric of health and commerce.

Europe again, is in a state of despair mostly due to their own inattention to immigration and border control by an influx of Muslims, mostly African, who risk life trying to find a better existence in European countries. Most, like refugees from Cuba, are trying to get to America on makeshift floating devices or refugees from Mexico and other Latin American countries trying to get to America through tunnels, over or under fences, the exploitation of the human psyche and the determination for finding a better life, has led to untold hardship and death.. Just last week, a ship carrying many Africans sank. A container carrying many was discovered with most of them dead. The risk involved in trying to find a better life here on this earth can be compared to the risk of eternal damnation for the unrepentant soul.

Much of Europe’s trouble is self-imposed because of the desire of cheap labor from the Muslim countries of Turkey and those in North Africa. Instead of going back home, they stay. One of the largest mosques in the world is now located in Cologne, Germany. The Muslims’ have many babies and they do not abort their babies. Among Westerners, more caskets are manufactured than cradles. Women in Western Europe have stopped having children, so the Muslims have rapidly taken over.

So many Africans have died trying to cross at Gibraltar that there is little burial ground for the dead. Almost the same situation has happened in the Canary Islands, off the Coast of Africa. With all the problems of colonialism, at least the colonial powers, England, France, Germany, Portugal employed natives in their own native country and introduce housing, streets, social and commercial systems which improves their living standards. I will not go into the sociology of White-owned Black rule or Black-owned Black rule but using South Africa, the wealthiest African nation as an example, matters have not improved, only deteriorated with Black rule. More blacks are unemployed in Africa now then before Mandela. Living conditions of blacks are worse now then before Mandela.

The African country of Somalia is without government so terrible that the military from other African countries, who had tried to give some relief, have withdrawn. I remember my absolute consternation when in the Sudan and Ethiopia as I saw the tragedy’s already existing there (nothing compares to present day Darfur) and one of the Sudanese officials saying to me, “ You must go back to your country and try to get us some help. This is a place of complete decimation.”

Of course, as always, in every trip around the world, some reporter was anxious to interview me about the trip. How often, do you find a blind man traveling the world able to report on conditions? But, as always, until my series of commentaries on my travels, reporters just like to romanticize and talk about the insignificant. Such as my crossing one river in Nigeria on an ancient rope bridge. Even my description of the peace corps worker, who I met , along with a British ambassador, who had escaped Charles Taylor’s Liberia with the machete deaths was of no interest.

I described in detail my escape from Kigali in Rwanda where the genocide had just begun ( 1 million Tutsi were killed by the Hutu’s), where even the United Nations representatives were expelled from the country, and one accompanied me to the airport where we had to fight our way through gangs of young black “head hunters” to get into the airport where we were kept in the superintendents office with what dire police protection was available. Facilities at the airport, the only one in the country, was behind barbed fenced, the taxi drivers who drove to the airport in a caravan for protection, drove right up to the gate where they formed a gauntlet of protection, as much as possible, for us to get inside.

To this day, just as fresh in my mind as the day it happened, I remember my camera bag hanging around my neck, my white cane and 2 suitcases, being swung side to side trying to protect myself along with the drivers and my guide and the UN officials as we escaped Rwanda into the airport, eventually on the last plane out. I have heard the hatred in the voices of these black people. I know something of the black death and only in the “echo chambers” of hell itself will one hear the cries of the women and children who have fallen victim to the desperation and desolation of the black continent.

Books have been written on the genocide in Liberia, the hell of a 27 year war in Angola, the horror stories of Somalia, the beheading of non-Muslims and the stoning of Muslims in Nigeria. Just this week, photos were shown of a 17 year old girl held down by adults receiving 39 lashes, for sexual activity against Muslim law.

The worlds greatest navy seemingly cannot detect or prevent the hijacking of its flagged ships, but untrained pirates operating from failed boats out of the harbors of a failed country. Have we become so “drugged” that we do not have the mental ability to comprehend what is happening, not only in our own country, but around the world. It does not take a disease such as bubonic plague, the black plague or malaria (from rats and mosquitoes), or starvation. ( at the Nigerian airport, the British ambassador said to me, “You stupid Americans send food, why not metal garbage cans for these people to defend their food from rats.”). When will a world of wealth recognize the cries of babies and small children or their desperate mothers in these countries facing black death.

YOUR CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS YOUR CHILDREN

In your eye’s the child
never ends,
nor should it
Oh the limbs grow,
the body matures to adulthood
But in your eye’s and heart
the child remains
The laughter though a deeper tone
Still holds that
joyous golden ring
of Christmas presents
or a birthday game
The hair now full and Silky
Still holds the urge
to touch and stroke
The smile though older
still makes the heart leap
The body may be
tall and lithe and grown
But in your eyes the outline
of the child is still seen
Though they are grown and flown
Never does a day pass
without the same worry
how are they, where are they
though they may be grown
In your eyes the child never ends nor should it

Bill Mitton

A Veterans Salute to D-Day

On June 6, patriotic Americans will remember those brave young men who gave their last measure of devotion to this country.  This is the day which began the Normandy Landing initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation.

I was in Europe for the 25th anniversary for the Normandy invasion.  Like most Americans attending the memorial we visited the cemeteries, the largest of which contains the remains of 9,387 American military dead. At that time, I had a shadow of vision in one eye and it was interesting to see older couples and some mothers and children being led by a military escort with a map to a grave in the cemetery, where most of them fell down beside the grave weeping.  This was their first contact with the fallen hero since being notified of his death. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

My most remarkable memory of recent wars, even more acute than my own personal experience, I was asked by the governor of the state and the state adjutant general, General Kapus Waynick (former ambassador to Guatemala) to attend a veterans meeting in San Antonio, Texas.  There were four 100% disabled veterans flying down in the governors plane (a propeller WWII relic) piloted by a retired Air Force colonel.  I remember very well the storms we encountered on the trip to Texas.  We stayed in a hotel near the Alamo and I shared a room with a most remarkable veteran.  He was a very devote Christian gentleman and one night after our prayer together he said, “I am going to share something with you that I have never shared with another living human being.”  I had already determined from his posture and movements that he was in constant pain and a very sick man.  He said, after the Normandy invasion, “I was subjected to an explosion which left me just a mass of physical and neurological metabolism.  Kept alive in a field hospital, until transferred to an American army facility, no one kept from me the fact that I was going to die.  My parents were too old and depleted in health to come to the hospital.  There was no other family member alive who could come and give any comfort.”

He said one night, he knew that death was near, because all of a sudden, his body became enveloped in an extreme coldness.  He said, “I DIED.”  He said, “Instantly there was a warmth, peace, happiness, and a beauty which no mind can describe.  My soul was blessed with the splendor of heaven. I saw the beauty beyond compare and the face of our blessed Lord, but all of a sudden deep in my soul came the thought, not yet, not yet.  And I was restored back to life.” He said, “I have seen it, I know it is real.  In a few weeks, the army arranged for me to be transported to my home several hundred miles away and I had the satisfaction of seeing the happiness of my parents.”  FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

At the beginning of WWII, I was with my parents when they visited a distant cousin who, the young son of their old age, had just died in Europe.  The father, a cousin of my father, a former banker, had lost everything in the Great Depression.  He was in his mid 60’s but his second wife was in her early 40’s and they had one son.  The only time I ever saw the son was just before he left for Europe after a few weeks of basic training.  He was “sweet on” one of my cousins (my cousin Rose, now buried with her Air Force colonel husband in Arlington), went to our church before he left, he was only 17, very good looking, blond, in his uniform, he lasted 2 weeks after he arrived in Europe and is buried on that foreign soil.  I was with my parents when they visited this old couple, I remember, because I was always fascinated by beautiful wood and the wood in their old house staircase etc, was beautiful beyond words.  But, my parents said, they had never seen such grief.  FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.


There are several military cemeteries in Europe. The one I visited had 9,387 graves and I also visited the American military cemetery in the Philippians where nearly 18,000 are buried.  Arlington of course has 250,000.  One is never the same after visiting a military cemetery, after visiting a VA hospital, after visiting a family where photographs and a casket flag dominate the walls because even though “life goes on”, families of veterans know that the veteran only had one life also.  FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

Preachers and churches are important.  The gospel of salvation, good works of faith and Christian endeavor, the teachings of absolutes of right and wrong, the very fabric that has kept this country together and made it great are important.  But not as important as veterans.

Teachers in our schools, professors in our colleges, research fellows in great institutions give us a better life, a more healthy existence. But not as important a veterans.

Laborers who build the barracks, manufacture the weapons, build the ships for christening and the planes for transportation, who are the back-bone of our economy on every level. But not as important as veterans.

Commentators who keep us informed, who try to expose and synthesize every action of government, shed light on the politicians and bureaucrat who have taken an oath for integrity. But not as important as veterans.

Entertainers, celebrities, TV personalities, comedians who can make you laugh, risk their lives and their possessions visiting the front lines on battlefronts all over the world attempting to bring some laughter, some memories of home, some appreciation for their gallantry, to those who made this sacrifice of time and talent. But not as important as veterans.

The contentment, the splendor, whatever joy you have in your existence has been paid for by those willing to defend YOUR country.  The American lifestyle, any enjoyment in your existence did not just happen, it has a costly history.  Only those who have seen the frozen bodies of their comrades stacked like cord wood, as was the case around the Chosin Reservoir in South Korea, know the true meaning of war.  Only a medical officer who has heard the screams of burn victims in an army hospital knows the true meaning of war.  Only when you have seen the destruction of a city, the cries of a family after their home and possessions were destroyed, will you realize the importance of peace. 

“There is a peace that thrills the heart,
the veterans knowledge that he has done his part. 
The country is waning, may slip and fall,
at the poles, at the plow, uniform in the closet still ready for the call.”
- Dr. Morris

Hindsight, Still 20/20

This past weekend, two of my friends were buried. One, from my youth, a wonderful memory, a Sunday School teacher. Another, wife of a friend, a pastor's wife. The mortality rate is still 100%. Ride down any highway and look at the cemeteries with the grave markers, every hospital, every funeral home, all are a reminder that we all will die. For many years, I owned a co-op apartment in Manhattan (a co-op apt is a large building where the owners own their own apartment and pay a fee each month for common maintenance, door men, etc.). Mine was on trendy Beekman Place, on the East Side river. Executives from two of the largest television corporations lived there.

Walking out the front door one morning a lady, who lived in the apartment across from me, was leaving at the same time. Her husband, one of New York's best known actors, had invited me to a reception in their apartment some time ago...mostly United Nations people...when he was already in a wheelchair. I said to her, “How is Will doing?” She said, “He died one year ago.” We stood on the front walk and talked for awhile. She told me he died two days after he was taken to a nursing home (the usual stay in a nursing home is just a few months). She said, “Before I could even go out and visit him, they called me and told me he was dead. I called a local cremation society and they did the rest...I never saw him again. I wrote notes to his family and friends and told them he had left the theater, final curtain.”

At Seven Springs, NC, the wife of a local landowner died. The neighbors began to take in the fried chicken and potato salad but could not find out anything about when her very peculiar husband was having the funeral. The third day, as they were taking in the cakes, pies, chicken, he said, “The boys and I took her up to the Methodist church cemetery this morning and buried her.”

In the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, when there is a death, white flags fly on poles high above the house. In India, those close enough to the Ganges, cremate the body on the banks of the holy Ganges River.

I am convinced that eventually, with the sanitizing of death (death is almost an embarrassment to most families), little attention at all will be paid by a family when someone dies. The 52 million innocent babies killed since 1973, 37 years ago, is a testimony to the fact that, in the new health care reforms, the expense of old age, the most rapid growing segment of the population...those over 85...our families and neighbors will be anxious to dispose of us early and quickly. If these 52 million babies had been permitted to live, they would be paying taxes, they would be the doctors and nurses caring for elderly. One of my secretaries was spending some time sitting with a disabled lady here in town. She died unexpectedly and Marie called the lady's daughter and told her that her mother had just died. The daughter said, “I don't have time to go now, see if you can get in touch with my brother.”

Old Testament, Abraham (name means father of a great multitude) was fortunate enough to have Eliezer, his full-time devoted servant. Abraham valued him enough to send him to find a wife for his son, Isaac (the son of Abraham and Sarah). I visited the tombs of Abraham and Sarah in Hebron. I cannot help but feel that Eliezer was probably responsible for their burial. Fortunate, any more, is the man who has someone interested enough in him to take care of his burial, his estate, his final days. I have said all this in order to make it clear that life is short and you had better live everyday as fully as possible. Old age is not for sissies.

You have only one body, one soul, one life. The body does not function the way it is written in books. Learn to care for your health as I am convinced that just as many people die from overeating as from starvation. Previously, I have written about old doctors I have known who use food as medicine. If one eats correctly, exercises, has a rich spiritual life, there is no reason for illness. The very worse thing you can do is put these toxic, exotic chemicals in your gullet as medication.

I learned early with patients that they do not think they have been treated, helped, unless you charge them a large amount of money for their visit and unless they can spend much more money for medicine...or any type care. My first experience with this, even though some old doctors had warned me, was my cousin Louise Edgerton. Forty years a public school teacher, on board of trustees of a Christian college, musician, business woman, a marvelous person in every respect, brought her mother to me as a patient. I told her that her glasses did not need changing...that she would just be spending money for little or no help...that she should be careful about her diet which was affecting her vision more than anything else. Of course, as happened many times after that with other people, instead of thanking me for them not spending much money, and me not charging them for valuable advice, they went directly to another doctor who “massaged” their pocketbook well, and made them feel much better even though they got no help whatsoever.

In the past 50 years, as a totally blind citizen, every time I go to a practitioner's office, I asked my driver the same question, “How many are here, how old are they?” Always the same answer. Most small offices have now been enlarged to auditoriums to take care of the crowd...of old people...there because they have nothing else to do and because insurance and Medicare is paying the bill. If you think it is bad in most offices now, just wait until EVERYONE can go at government expense. It is so obvious on radio and television talk shows when a specialist is being interviewed, every call, “Will my insurance pay for it?” People do not want to get well enough to pay for it themselves, they want the government, their insurance, to pay for their needs so they can spend their own funds to pay for their greed and, with all the intelligence at universities, medical and nursing schools, public health investigations, evidently I am the only one who sees the problem (a totally blind doctor). “Where [there is] no vision, the people perish:” (Proverbs 29:18).

Each of us, each individual, special, your own DNA, your own fingerprints, his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). No one else in the world like you, God put you here for a purpose, your life is precious in His sight. You are only as effective as your health...you are what you eat...raw food, nutritious proteins, carbohydrates, limited fats and sweets. Learn to use common sense in your lifestyle, read and learn about your body, don't treat your children with adult medications and make sure some stupid doctor does not give you a full dosage if you are not heavy. Most are so busy in their “assembly line” care, just moving as rapidly as possible from one little room to another...you are lucky these days if a doctor or nurse even makes skin contact with you...remember they are only interested in laboratory findings. I had rather have an old doctor with a stethoscope examine me than all the laboratory and radiology results. Any doctor who is going to cut on me, I want him to be so old that he can barely hold the knife. You see, I remember how little I knew when I started out. The old practitioners have been there before, “done that”.

Every day of my life, I think, “If I had only had the foresight to buy such a security, buy such a piece of land, make such an investment.” Hindsight , Still 20/20. Believe me when I tell you, that the very One who designed you, who put you here for a purpose, will still advise you on everything you do, including your investments, your social contacts, your relationships, even your vote in the voting booth. No Christian, no person with morality would be guided by God to vote for such despicable people as those who promote a culture of death.

Vision

On or about the same time that the British reported they had lost over 200 soldiers in the Afghanistan fighting, it was reported that 12 times more opium leaves Afghanistan now than before the war started 8 years ago. The world's love for smack is probably the reason this bogus war is being fought. I have been in Afghanistan three times in my life, the Hindu Kush mountains are the most formidable terrain on earth. There is nothing in the entire country that would cause anyone to want it: Russians, British, US or anyone else. The only possible reason countries continue to fight over this poor, desolate unforgiving country, is the poppy crop which supplies the world with opium. Is it really worth the fight?

In the War of 1812, a headline came out in one paper, “Great Battle Won. Only One Man Killed.” Just one man was killed in this battle, but for the mother of that man, the wife of that man, the children of that man, it was the end of their world. A few years ago, in one Russia battle to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, a young Russian soldier was killed and his remains were sent home to his family in a casket which was sealed and which was accompanied by another solider. There was a time even in this country, when battle casualties were brought home in flag-draped caskets with an accompanying honor guard. (Now, pictures are not even made of caskets at Dover). The Russian mother of this dead solider thought she could see her dead son in the casket in uniform and she so begged the guards to open the casket. Someone should have prepared this family as all families about the condition of casualties in modern war. Anyway, she put some sleeping tablets in some tea, which she gave the guard and when he passed out, she got a crow bar and got the casket open. She, nor anyone else could be prepared for what she saw. Often, when explosives, even with suicide bombers do their damage, there is not much left that anyone would want to see.

Young men who have been reared in the sanity and sanitized life style of most Americans are not prepared for what they see in warfare, certainly not in modern warfare. At Fort Campbell, KY, the 101st “Screaming Eagles' ” commander, Brig. Gen. Townsend, who has lost an average of two men a week to suicide said, "Suicide is a permanent solution to what is only a temporary problem. Screaming Eagles don't quit. No matter how bad your problem seems today, trust me, it's not the end of the world. It will be better tomorrow. Don't take away your tomorrow."

Military investigators have found that most suicides result from drugs, financial problems and marital problems. But, I attribute many of the problems in the military to the anti-Christian attitude taken by the military in recent years. It is reported that Bibles are not considered important.

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion.

Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm that the Bibles shown on Al Jazeera's clip were, in fact, collected by the chaplains and later destroyed. They were never distributed."
According to the military officials, the Bibles were sent through private mail to an evangelical Christian soldier by his church back home. Reuters says the soldier brought them to the Bible study class where they were filmed.

It has been reliably reported to me that on some military bases, NCO's are confiscating personal bibles of soldiers. If there is ever a time in a young man or a young woman's life, when a personal relationship with God and the Bible is needed, it is a time of military service, especially in a combat zone. Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18) It is a certainty, that all deaths reported as suicide are not suicides. Two of the most famous are Admiral Borta who reportedly committed suicide and NFL football's, Pat Tillman who was supposedly killed by friendly fire. Many feel that Tillman knew things about the bogus Afghan war to which some might listen because of his prominence. In 1978, at a military conference involving terrorism, the FBI is reported to have said that they could make any death appear to be suicide or natural.
It does not take dumbed-down, pleasure-seeking Americans long to tire of an unpopular war. After the planes supposedly destroyed the World Trade Center and one supposedly hit the Pentagon (small hole by big plane, the explanation for the Pentagon plane explosion - never understood) on September 11th, 2001 (9-11). There was an outburst of patriotism for about two weeks. Someone said to me, “I have never seen so many flags.” I said, “It will be over real quick. American patriotism and the flying of flags is short-lived.” It reminds me of an old man in the country church who went to the alter in repentance every time the church had a revival. His salvation did not last very long. His wife once said, “If it would only stick.”
Young men and women are never prepared for the horrors of warfare, the destruction, the dead, the mangled. Any disaster leaves an unforgettable impression. Traveling through India by train, the railroad built high, so the train could make it through a flooded area, I was not prepared to see the bloated animals in the flood waters. Nor was I prepared for the desperation of the people. Every time the train stopped, women and children were clambering and begging for drinking water. Of our senses, vision leaves the greatest impression. In a fraction of a second, what we see, travels through the cortex of the brain and is usually forever remembered. Young warriors never recover from war. Think of what it does to the children in the war-torn areas who are living with the Uranium-coated bullets polluting THEIR soil. Sounds of gunfire and helicopter blades will only be forgotten with the passage of time.

In the Bible, kings were only remembered as either good or evil. In America, presidents are supposed to leave some legacy. It is truly tragic that most leave a legacy of warfare involvement where young warriors are killed and countries are made desolate. Politicians are very charming. How else could they get elected? A governor said that Russia's Gorbachev and his wife were two of the most charming people one could imagine. A congressmen said that George. W. Bush and his wife were two of the most charming people one could imagine. One loses charm in combat boots and helmets. But you never lose the stench of death.

My father was the toughest man I have ever known in war or elsewhere. I never knew him to cry but 3 times, when my mother died, when a barn burned, and I understood he cried when he learned I had lost eyesight. Get the vision. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

From the Same Litter

The most astounding biological and genetic fact of human life is the very evident birth of children from the same parents who are so very different. The largest cell of a human body is that of the female cell that is impregnated by the sperm of a male, resulting in a new life containing the genetic-hereditary characteristics of both the mother and father. Whether one cell or a million cells later in the gestation period, this is a new life; a new individual, named and selected by God for life. After 37 days, the heartbeat begins, but from the very beginning, one molecule in each cell of that human body contains all the hereditary genetic characteristics of both parents which would fill many pages. This precious child is to be birthed, to be trained, and raised, as we are told, in the very image of God. One would think that the offspring of parents would be very much alike. Even identical twins have their differences.

I have enclosed a marvelous 1989 Abbot painting of a mother dog and her litter. This is sent to you, with my compliments, since I have the complete and wonderful set. But, even in a litter like this, each puppy has his own character; his own behavior patterns. There is not a parent who will read this who will disagree that there is a tremendous difference in their own children. They look very much alike as to physical appearance just as my son and grandsons have certain of my facial characteristics. The older we get, the more we realize how much more our actions resemble those of our parents and grandparents, even to the kindness shown to others.

This very morning, as my driver and I arrived at a fast food restaurant to get some breakfast, I opened my door and a black older woman made my day by blessing us with her greeting and quoting scripture to us about God's blessing. Now, I don't know who this lady is. She did not know me, but one must not go to the depths of Africa to be a witness to the graciousness of our blessed Savior.

Over a lifetime, I have attended many churches. I have given much money to God's work (awards, scholarships, missions, etc.). It is a rare thing indeed for a recipient to even thank me for the generosity of God given and extended through me. I wish I knew there were five people who prayed for this totally disabled, totally blind man each day. The country church, built by my great grandparents in 1874, supported by both parents, parents and grandparents, always showed appreciation for my gifts because I was one of the first to break the cycle of poverty and be able to be guided by God to give. From the time I was in college, the pastors always asked me to give a word of greeting and prayer each time I visited. In recent years, they care nothing about my prayers or my greetings.

The older people in that country church as well as the much larger city churches which I have been associated, know that I have the right to live my life according to God's will; that my trust is entirely in Him. GOD IS BOSS! Most of my relatives, like my friends, just “play church.” God has assured me, that this is the least of my worries. When, this week, we learned of Michael Jackson's unexpected demise, my assistant reminded me of the many recordings which I own along with the almost 50,000 others in my hobby collection and, of course, we have already begun to sell them. My first thought, at his death, was his “soul direction”. If, somewhere, he had learned of sin's ruin and Christ's redemption perhaps in the last seconds he, like anyone else, could have made a “course correction”. Many times, in many places, I have made the statement, if one could ask any deceased person, regardless of destination, “What would you have done differently?” I believe the answer would always be, “Trust in God.” My prayer for my siblings, my cousins, the many with whom I have come in contact in a very busy life that they would find the true answer for living “to God be the glory”.

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. “ 1 Corinthians 10:31

We only go around one time and we know how quick the trip. The precious arteries in our body carry blood 12,000 miles a day. One of the three big ones: heart attack, cancer or stroke, will eventually get most of us. I had a pastor tell me once, “It bothers me when I walk up to a group of men and they cease talking and laughing.” I said, “Don't let this bother you. They are laughing and talking about something which most the time, does not honor God and they honor you and me by knowing such.” This has been my experience, my entire life, even among family members. Most people are much more interested in soap operas, gossip columns, political trash or some overpaid ball player than God's work or His workmanship. If the Governor of South Carolina, if the Senator from Nevada, if many of these other snakes and vipers had any honesty and integrity such as they profess when making promises seeking your vote we would not have a country steeped in bankruptcy, seething with debauchery, actually thinking and hoping that the whores in cat-houses on the Potomac in Washington DC and Jones Street in Raleigh, NC would give you reason to have some patriotic hope for this nation. I told one of my assistants, this very morning, what would people think if she denied food to her young children? Yet, the voters of this nation, having voted for Obama and his ilk, having trusted the lobbyists and their elected protégées, have so indebted this nation that your grandchildren will not afford to eat. Just yesterday, in a vote of 219-212, congress voted in favor of the major energy-climate bill, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs.

In every century, God's people have been deceived. Moses' greatest problem, when delivering the children of Israel from 400 years of bondage, was the “mixed multitude” interspersed with them, non believers, complainers, deceivers. Today's greatest problems are the deceivers. There is always, a password, to determine if you are in a mixed multitude, just ask, “Are you a saved, born-again Christian?” As in the computer, this password will determine the difference and you are wise to escape the deceivers. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6:17 To escape deception, to please God, you may lose family, friends, business, you will probably seek another church but God will not hold you guiltless, if you have not placed Him first in your life. Just because you came from the same parents, ate at the same table, does not mean you are related. Be careful who you call brother. The unbelievers in your family, in your church, even in your civic clubs, are not your brothers. (1 Corinthians 5:11) He may have on a Roman collar, he may be able to recite much scripture, but he is not to be called father. (Matthew 23:9)

In this world, corruption, lies, felony, such government acts as the cover-up act of the murder of a president (JFK), the unimaginable cover-up of the Oklahoma City bombing where 169 Americans were killed, the downing of a TWA flight in which hundreds were killed and which cost $36 million tax dollars to bring up 95% of the plane from the New York Harbor, revealing no answers at all, and many other cover-ups of your government, such as the manipulation of oil prices, drug prices, even financial fraud. You may feel like a voice crying in the wilderness, but even if you have no respect left for yourself think of the future welfare of your children and grandchildren.

There is no one word in the English language, that describes the corruption, cover-up insane activity of present day government. To think that we can pay our debts by spending more money, to think that we can pay social security taxes by killing more children and marrying more same-sex individuals, to think we can prosper by making everyone poor is only to verify that it will take the justice of God to purify this contamination.

All's Well That Ends Well

To the existentialist, history means nothing and the future is unpredictable; how pitiful that the human mind so limits itself.

This country boy did not fall in love with Shakespeare until college. Steele Building is now an administration building at UNC-CH but when I was a student there it was a dormitory where I lived. It was right next to the historic PlayMaker's Theatre. That Greek architectural structure which brings gladness to the hearts of so many alumni. One of my friends had introduced me to one of the actors in Shakespeare's play “All's Well That Ends Well”. He was standing outside the theatre smoking a cigarette one day and said he was leaving me a ticket for a play at the ticket office. It was at that play that I fell madly in love with Shakespeare. Little did my friend know, or did I know at the time, how many Shakespearean plays I would live to appreciate in the future. In England, at Stratford-Upon-Avon, I was at the play “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” and I went through the 400-year-old Shakespeare home, walked the streets where the Bard himself had walked.

Life, at best, is a very short experience. Death has become so fantasized on television, so sanitized to those left behind, almost an embarrassment to a family because your death interferes with their routine, their me-ism lifestyle. One of the most lovable, respected men I have ever known, who lived next door to me, died some years ago. One neighbor, Margaret, asked me to go with her to the funeral. This man, graduate of Williams College, successful by every measure with which men measure success, did not have one member of his family at his funeral, just a handful of business acquaintances and friends.

Years ago, I left instructions with my Trust, who will handle my estate, that my death will be only a paid interlude with no services and no visitation of any type. As several of my disabled friends have told me, people, especially family, have erased me from their memory and recognition while alive. Why should I want any of them around me after death? The Trust department will be paid to have my body cremated and interred next to my beloved parents and they will dispose of and distribute the philanthropy which I have left. While alive, even those to whom my wealth will be left, could not be bothered so why should they be bothered at my death? Although a 100% disabled service connected medical officer veteran of the Korean War, I have made very sure that your government will not pay one dime to bury me, not even to a flag under which I served proudly. The Veteran's Administration has done everything possible to deny me any benefits of my service, so why should I count on them for anything at death? It troubles me that those brave, young warriors, now and then, get such callous appreciation.

I had the joy of knowing real Christians, real people of quality, real people of concern. I have not forgotten one marvelous Christian lady who was a patient of mine for several years after I returned from the War. Living way out in the country (Grantham, Wayne County), she had been left a large inheritance by her family. She had never married, lived in the same house in which she was born, still used a hand pump to get water out of the well. Once, I remember this more than anything else, I had a full head of wavy black hair, which is now white and she said one day, “I just want to put my hands in your hair”. I felt, since she had never had a man to love, I could grant this gesture. Her extensive family were all members of a Pentecostal church where she played the piano for 75 years. They asked me to speak at one of their homecomings and I haven't forgotten the nice box of food she insisted I take home with me, knowing I lived alone.

One morning, her aging brother called and told me that Miss Lilly had died in her sleep and that nothing would please she or her family more than to have me say a few words at her service. I came face to face with real death, a real funeral, a real burial.

The large, framed church off the main highway was overflowing with community people (black, white, rich, poor). Her cheap, plywood casket covered with cloth, had been brought from her house to the church on a pickup truck (remember this lady was a large landowner, a woman of wealth who drove a car at least 50 years old). As the casket was taken out of the truck and her two brothers and four nephews took it into the church, the large crowd all sang Christian hymns. Every one of her former pastors, who were still living, spoke for about 5 minutes, giving the Christian message of death. The fact that she had already died to a life of sins ruin and Christ redemption many years earlier and had been baptized by immersion, thus, showing to the world her death to the old life of sin and rejection and her raised into a new eternal life. This was only clinical death whereby her weightless, vision-less soul without mass would go on to the glory for which Christ had redeemed her, having escaped through clinical death.

Several members of the community spoke about her Christian witness. I will never forget one old black man, weeping openly, who said, “There was much sickness in my family over the years and I could always depend on seeing her old car coming up the path to my house with food for my family”. This is the way she was known throughout her community. She and I had discussed, many times, the healing touch through the Holy Spirit in our hands. She always put her hands on the forehead of any sick in the community.

I only spoke a few words, I said that in her presence I felt the inspiration of Christ. I knew that Miss Lilly had not only been with Jesus but stayed with Him every moment of her life.

At the end of the service her two brothers and four nephews took her cheap casket out to the churchyard/graveyard to an open grave, which they had dug themselves, and with ropes lowered the casket down into the ground. Then, as the family and friends stood around singing (“Rock of Ages” and “In The Sweet By and By”), members of the family with shovels filled the grave with dirt. To this day, I can still remember the sound of the dirt hitting the casket.

This is the way death was handled by our forefathers who had the courage of faith, who knew that the splendor of life and death, the reality of trust, the assurance of faith, who knew nothing of political correctness or the insensitivity of letting a funeral home handle everything, except just a few minutes at a hypocritical service...a visitation with people staring at the corpse, the most insensitive, inhumane act of life.

Often, the funeral home goes to great extent to make the dead look better in death than in life. One of my friends, a mortician, said, “The wealthiest families have the very least to do with the deceased. Many never even look at the deceased after death, they just throw the church pall over the casket and it becomes “party time” for family and friends,...eating, drinking, celebrating”. One can celebrate the “home-going” of a Christian, but it is a sad thought to think of an unsaved, deceived loved one spending eternity in hell. The charisma of a beautiful inter-spring casket, adornment with expensive clothing, extravagance with flower arrangements, eulogies by lying, deceiving preachers do not change the eternal destiny of the soul, the real person, as the “shell” is buried, entombed or cremated.

All's Well that Ends Well