Paths of Depression

"A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl."

Stephan Hoeller

We are amazingly self centered, selfish to the core. A man's heart and mind are incomprehensible to any scientist in spite of what anyone in the scientific world might tell you. Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Now, in my 85th year, I am finally capable of looking back at my life, the bouts with depression which have so affected my living. Mine was not a pathology that would have been easily diagnosed. And, as is the case with so many unusual personalities, we are just considered "different."

To this day, I consider life a serious business. I have never had the time or thoughts for casual, undefined talking or actions. I cannot waste one minute of my valuable life watching or listening to FOOLISHNESS, such as we find on television or around some social settings.

Perhaps my depression started just in watching the inequities of life... tired-sweating-routine lives of our livestock... for instance, the work animals, mules who had no past and no future, just the dread of working everyday in the hot sun, eating the same thing day after day. It occurred to me, early in life, that most of the people I knew did not have any more future than the work animals. My parents, grandparents, other people I knew worked-sweated-daily routine, much as work animals. Their only future was getting old-haggard heading to the graveyard. The difference in the lives of human beings from lower animals, they went to church. But the church seemed just so much emptiness, here on the earth, just thinking about "Pie in the Sky."

It was during the Great Depression, poverty everywhere (People forget that 7 million died from starvation in America). My parents-grandparents were landowners... some of North Carolina's first families, actually owned an automobile, yet even they were poverty stricken.

One aunt and uncle, living on a nice farm, inherited from my great grandfather, lost their farm because they could not pay for a mule. They had borrowed money from the local bank (BB&T, the world's worst bank) to replace a mule which had died. Could not repay the money for the price of the mule and the bank seized their farm. Banks are just big ponzi schemes, making money through 97% loans. Then as now, banks are in control of your life, pals and pets of government. I still remember one aunt who stood in line all day attempting to get her money out of the bank before the bank closed down during the Great Depression. The stress killed her. My parents and others were able to comprehend such deceit and dereliction of government, but to me, as a small child, the neglect of God. I went into depression after my aunt's death.

One young mother and her son had moved into an empty house on our farm. The woman had no other place to go. There was some discarded furniture in the house and she had a few things. Her son, Ralph, was about my age and we became friends... one of the few friends I had growing up. My father, with his equipment, prepared large wood piles which we would use both for heating and cooking. My father had 300 acres of woodland and it was Ralph's responsibility to find the limbs and sticks for heating and cooking at his house. I helped him. It was at that time, I learned about Ralph's remarkable mind. He could talk about any type of plant-tree-animal, he knew about the planets. The books from school which he read, he memorized. Yet, to my certain knowledge, Ralph's mind was never put to good use.

More remarkable, every few weeks a very fine car from a nearby town would stop in front of Ralph's and his mother's tenant house on our farm. His mother would go out and get into the car with the man. He would drive up to a path and drive down into the woods. Of course Ralph, my family, everyone knew what was going on. My father would joke about going out into the woods and shooting a gun to scare the 'love for pay' activity. His mother had enough money so she could go to my cousin's country store and buy some groceries. Ralph had been to town once in his life. All of these activities did not bother him, did not bother my family. Evidently did not bother the neighbors or those at the church house. People were doing anything to survive. But, it bothered me and I would sink into depression because of such scenes. The fact that no one seemed to care, family, neighbors, EVEN GOD.

The church house and the school house were the main forces in our home. I still remember "joining the church." No one seemed to care... I did not have one person speak to me about my "decision for Christ" except one aunt, who casually had mentioned that I joined the church. One would think, if God were so important in the lives of these people that there would be much happiness about anyone, especially the child with my ancestral background, taking this stand. The crazed thinking of my relatives, our neighbors, the people in the church, is just a matter of how people, in the church, perform for God. And it was just expected that the son of my parents-grandparents-great grandparents active in this church their entire lives, would just join the line. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans, 8:31). Most church people I know just want a "checklist" Christianity, a "bellhop" faith. Satin knows that with God, nothingness to somethingness and Satin is only happy when you compromise. My church life has been marked by observing compromising members. My depression resulted more from my own hypocrisy and observing others hypocrisy than any other one single thing. It was when I recognized that Christianity is a "wrestling match" (Ephesians, 6) that you do not have a chance without God, that, "Because greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world" (1 John, 4:4).

My bad marriages were because of depression, realizing the deceit involved. God worked me over in college, the military, my professional, political, financial activities. I do believe that my disappointment with people was the fulcrum of all depression.

After God arranged for me to sense the entire world (Dr. Morris has traveled around the world 8 times, passport stamped in 157 countries) and I realize that God's chief creation, human beings, different colors, different attitudes... even faiths are very much the same and His business. He is in charge, He is Boss. I cannot become depressed because of the world, its inequities. God has assured me that I am important to Him, that He is all I need. There is no greater blessing for the mind of man, self indulged or not, fragile-sick-crippled-blind. "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee" (HEB, 13:5), my cure and your cure for depression.

Weeds, Bugs, Disease

My parents owned one of the finest farms in the county. Handed down from ancestors, a large house which had survived the civil war, white fences, animals in the pastures, crops and fruit trees.

It was such hard work, I could hardly wait to leave, to get into a community of excitement, educational awareness, worldliness. Now, having seen all the world has to offer, I would like to be back there, on the farm---fresh water from a hand pump, fresh eggs from laying hens, a place to grow fresh vegetables, fresh meats.

On the farm, there were always weeds, bugs and disease trying to take over the crops. After long years of schooling, long hours of hard work, I became a doctor and found that disease is trying to take over the world. Now, disabled, working with technology, I find that viruses (disease) are trying to take over the world.

The world started out perfect, God put Adam and Eve in a perfect garden with just one rule, one law, one commandment: they could not eat the fruit from one tree. Given the greatest gift of all, free will, men could not obey one rule and so came imperfection, disease, weeds, bugs.

Traveling the world, learning the reasons for why people do what they do. I have found that most blame God for their problems. Oh, if all of us could have been born “white, wealthy and wise.” So many people of color have told me that it is the color of their skin that has kept them from achievement on the uneven playing field. People with disabilities have told me that it is their disability that has kept them from performing on the uneven playing field.

I have found that the people who have accomplished the most, usually had to overcome the most...poverty, unattractiveness. So many times, these people had not thought they were chosen by God to do great things. While traveling every continent of the world, I have never found a perfect person, most of us have a neurosis, psychosis, disability of some type. The problem: we usually seek help from someone in worse shape than us, a sociopath, a psychopath. We do not need someone to give us an excuse. The Designer, the One who wrote the manufacturer's handbook (Bible), has given us all the instructions we need.

Life is a matter of sowing and reaping---you reap what you sow. But, you are not stuck where you start, and your character determines your destination. I have found that it is not just the military which carry around excess baggage, external and internal wounds, hidden desperation, struggling in silence. Many find relief from their struggles in addictions...alcohol, illegal drugs, overeating, overspending, sexual promiscuity, societal clashes. In combat, you learn to depend on one another, you watch each other's backs, you pray constantly for one another. The answer for the church, for Christianity; in fact, the answer for any religion, political philosophy: if you are really convinced, convicted, committed, act as if in combat.

I have encountered brokenness many times in my life, not just me, but others. As a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran, I prayed for my restoration; convinced, as I am right now, that God, in his infinite mercy and love, could do anything, even restore my eyesight. I remember the day that my specialist said to me, “Doctor, your eyes are totally gone.” I remember the hopelessness in death, the death of a patient, the death of a parent. Hopelessness is the message of the enemy. Christ forever cured our hopelessness and helplessness by telling us He would never leave, nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5)

Long ago, in another life, one of the most remarkable secretaries I ever employed, Jennifer, had won all the secretarial awards at the Pentagon. In the Washington DC cocktail party scene, it all starts with the first drink, and alcohol had enslaved her. When sober, she was the most competent person I had ever been around; under the haze of drugs (and alcohol is a drug), she was totally incompetent, had all the problems of the alcoholic. She had totally alienated herself from her grown children. On the day of my mother's death, I was so aggravated by her alcoholic stupor, (God forgive me) I thought “why lose my mother to cancer, who lived such a clean life; while others have dared their bodies to cave from their addictive living.”

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12:34, Luke 6:45). The tares have taken over the church, corruption has taken over government, greed has taken over the banking and financial institutions. On every hand, hypocrisy and outright sinfulness seems to prosper. What do you say to someone who has tried to live right, dependent on the mercy of God, and yet sees the wicked prosper. God told us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The apostle Peter told us that our troubles and trials are more precious than gold. (1 Peter 1:7)

If all believers in God prospered in this world, if all Christians were blessed in this world, it would be difficult to find an atheist. If unbelievers were the only ones experiencing deprivation of any type, everyone would board the heavenly express. Remember the apostle Paul's great message to the church: rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

Get A Goat

Sophocles (c. 497 – 406 BC) perhaps one of the best known Greek philosophers and playwrights (123 plays written, 7 survived), reportedly left the Greek state of Athens and went to Egypt inquiring how the fabulous Egyptian culture had been established. The Egyptians want us to know the same thing from the Greeks. He was told that the surviving Egyptian culture was a remnant of the lost city of Atlantis. Sophocles told the Egyptians that at the time of the Great Flood, some Greek herdsman had survived along with their goats by clinging to the tops of Greek mountains. He said, “with a goat, man can survive, because a goat can eat anything and nothing is better for you than goat's milk.”

In another commentary, I have described one of my heroes, a Catholic priest driving a pick-up truck; like me, waiting for a bridge to be repaired in the Congo. On the back of his pick-up truck, four dying AIDS victims with a nanny goat for nourishment, all heading toward Goma, where he hoped to find some healthcare for the victims.

If I had walked through the streets of a Japanese city, days, or even weeks, before the earthquake/tsunami carrying a sign, which on it said, “prepare”, I would have been considered a nut, telling the highest IQ people in the world to prepare for a disaster. They were evidently not prepared in any way for the disaster, even having witnessed the last great tsunami, just a few years ago when 300,000 were killed. The Japanese, like Americans, like everyone, fail to prepare for contingencies.

If I were to walk through the average American city carrying a sign that says “Prepare!” I would be considered a nut, probably a “religious nut”. You don't see them now, but when I was a child, there were “Burma shave” signs up and down the highway with funny sayings but all winding up saying, “prepare to meet God.” Every cemetery, every gravestone is a testimony that most did not prepare to meet God. Every news broadcast, every synapse of the human brain, tells anyone that it would be good to prepare for a disaster. They are coming so fast we cannot keep up with them. 300 earthquakes in the Pacific area alone, just recently. We have already forgotten about Christ Church, Haiti, Chile.

Only those who were loved, have not left those who will not quickly recover from these disasters. Only those who suffer the poverty of recovery from disaster, know the cutting aspects, the neurological leeching of hunger, thirst, need for shelter, the desire to do something for an innocent, uncomprehending child. Only a man who has experienced war, knows war. Only a person who has experienced God can know God. God always knows what He is doing. As 19 year old Joan of Arc said, just before she was burned at the stake, “I was born for such a time as this.” On the authority of God's Word, on the authority of everything I have ever read, every experience of my life, I can tell you that there is one psychological disease from which there is no recovery. It is the traumatic disease-experience of poverty, I don't care what anyone says, prophet, preacher, poet, you never recover from poverty.

Even though I was born to prominent, early, established families on the shore of America...just hard-working, land-owning farm people. As a child, there was never any doubt about my parents, grandparents, right on back, affections and afflictions, God, family, country. The church always came first, then the family, then community activity, predominately in the schools. The government was supported through paying taxes, and at time of war, records of family members who have died in conflict.

It was during the Great Depression, I had heard of inside plumbing, water coming through pipes into a building, only a few relatives had such. My mother picked out the patterns for her dresses from the hog feed sacks, she made her own so my sister could have store-bought clothes. My grandparents, old, worn-out, trying to keep large farms going with hired help, while their only son was in combat in the South Pacific. My father, all his brothers, involved in military service or the war effort, my mother and her children keeping the farm going.

I will never forget the old men of the family, and the community, who always wore shoes split, so as not to aggravate bunions (callouses from tissue and joint enlargement around the bases of the toes), this came from wearing ill-fitted shoes as children. Nothing, I repeat, nothing has gnawed at my faith like poverty, good people living exemplary lives, totally embalmed by faith, eeking out an existence.

From a small country school (13 in graduating class), I matriculated at our state university. Always aghast at those in the state elite...prep schools, fraternities, expensive sweaters and convertibles. I remember listening to these recipients of elitist state genealogy, profiteers of wealth, laugh about the “country hicks”, “country girls” they had besmirched. I thought, “they are talking about my people, my relatives, my sister.” Even today, I hear the country club generations talking about their great chefs. At Chapel Hill, I allotted myself $1 a day for food, 25 cents for breakfast, a bowl of grits and coffee, 25 cents for lunch, the cheapest sandwich and coffee, 50 cents for supper, a vegetable plate. You see, we never knew what it was to eat a large piece of meat. I still have the large cast-iron fireplace cooking pot which my ancestors used from the very beginning to cook their food in one large pot. They were still using that when I went to college, cooking in one large pan in the oven. My entire university career, eight years, it gnawed at me, night and day, as I worked every night in order to go to school during the day, economizing to survive. The question, why is God so unfair to his own? They have so little, while Satan's crowd, through his magic, have so much.

Back in the council chambers of eternity, our Blessed Lord had already made all these decisions, it is just up to us to obey. For instance, he wanted to see what I would do after living a live, such as I have lived, as a child, teenager, college student, commissioned medical officer. He wanted to see how I would react after I have lost my most precious possession next to life itself, my eyesight.

The test of man, the test of a believer, is not what he does when everything is going well, but what he does when everything goes wrong. Then, he wanted me to scurry around the world, smelling, hearing, asking questions, finding out, truly, how most of the world lives.

Surviving, preparing, everything about life involves preparation, sowing and reaping. Until you understand the sower, you will never understand our Blessed Lord's plan for the universe. I will never recover from poverty, but I am filled with thankfulness that I was shown survival on the family farm. I have also been allowed to see much wealth in the world, and I truly cannot comprehend how these individuals whether on Wall Street, “K Street” or Oxford Street, could depend on a goat for survival.

The Great Disappointment

Out of the Second Great Awakening, a religious revival which took place in the New England states (1790-1844). One Baptist group was convinced that Christ would return to earth on October 22nd, 1844. Many were prepared to leave, and when nothing happened, there was a falling away in that Baptist movement, headed by William Miller.

Since then, there have been others who have predicted a time of Christ's return. At present time, a large following on family-radio located in Oakland California, believe that Christ will return on May 21st, 2011. Under the preaching of a long-time radio preacher, Harold Campen, who has followers around the world in the millions, no secret is made of the impended rapture. I recently had my assistant print out the complete 39-page statement giving all the historical details. We are certainly told that no man knows the day or hour, and we certainly know that it can happen at anytime. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32) Like death, we believers should be prepared.

There are many uncertainties in life, increasing as we speak. One couple, both with advanced academic degrees, high salaries, having climbed the corporate ladder, were living in a penthouse in a Hong Kong hotel. Like any thinking person, they knew it was just a matter of time before a nuclear strike or some other event, creates a disaster. Life is too short, and children too precious, to stay in such a place. Most people do not realize that in any American town, there is only enough food in stores to last for four days, there are not that many warehouses, most food comes in on trucks, and in the case of a disaster, there will be no trucks transporting anything. I have encouraged people over and over to store food supplies. Even the South American Indians went to the mountain tops with their roots, fruits, meats, and freeze-dried them for any pending disaster. Those who prepared, survived.

When the disaster happens, act of man or act of God, the most important thing you can have is food and water. People in India started harvesting water many years ago, because they know there will be a shortage. The greatest problem facing the poverty-stricken country of Yemen is water, they have a 40% rate of unemployment, the country is destitute, but their greatest problem will be water.

The Hong Kong couple moved back to America, he continued with his job, she active in controlling production and survival on a farm which they had purchased. They felt it necessary to become self-sufficient, perhaps taking it to the extreme, but are able to grow all their food needs.

Professor of Anatomy, UNC Medical School, Dr. W.C. George said to me, “tell me about the farm on which you were reared.” He, like Dr. J.T. Dobbins, Professor of Chemistry, came from farms and wanted to hear all about farm-life when I was a boy. Our farm had been in the family for many generations, since the family moved down from Morristown, NJ. Each branch of the family had their own land, their own lifestyle and boundaries. All came together at the school and church, but I know that each branch of the family tree, cousins, all, had the same ideas, same methods, same practices.

On our farm, we had many apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, pecan trees, one great arbor for black grapes, one for white grapes, there were fig bushes, blueberry bushes, a large barn and pastures for cows, several pastures for hogs, a large pen for laying hens, a large pen for growing chickens. On the four hundred acres, crops were grown, mostly for sales, there were large gardens for the growing of vegetables, much was canned, dried or preserved.

This family farm, like most family farms of that time, was self-sufficient. There were wells for water all over the farm, there was a smokehouse always full of meat, a wash-house for laundry, this was before the time of appliances: electric stoves, refrigerators, washing machines, etc. There was even a cider-mill, for the making of your own vinegar. Probably from the first landing of Americans on the east coast, such as my ancestors, they were self-reliant, not depending on anyone else for anything, certainly not government.

Wood was cut from the woodlands for cooking, and for heating the house in winter. You made your own medicines, such as blackberry wine, you cared for your animals yourself. My father's mules all knew that they went to the pasture on Sunday, on the family's day of rest. Every girl knew how to cook, sew and quilt; every boy knew the essentials of farming, carpentry, shooting a weapon in order to protect the family and property. Finally, battery-operated radios, and the farm family knew about the rest of the world, that world dependent on the food-stuffs, fiber (cotton), other cash crops which they grew (tobacco, soy beans, corn, wheat, etc.) which they grew, and which they sold in town in exchange for factory-produced equipment and commodities.

Until power lines came into the country-side, our family farm, like those of my cousins, had a Delco Light system (gasoline generator with large batteries connected in series, producing enough electricity for lighting in the house and in the barns). My grandparents was one of the first farms to have a tractor, a large noisy machine, large spikes on the metal wheels (early tractors did not have tires). Most of the farming was done with mule-pulled cultivators and machinery of every type. The innovation and self-sufficiency that has made America great, on farms, factories, in commerce, is still needed. I encourage every family to stock up.

How wonderful it seems, now, in spite of the ease with which we have learned to live; just flipping a switch for everything, to have the reliance of a hand-pump for fresh water, good soil for the growing of seed, laying hens, and even family work-dogs for protection. The true test of our Christian faith will come when it will be necessary to defend, our homes, our supplies of food and water, against our fellow human beings, who have not prepared...thirsty and hungry, who will try to take such from us. “The Great Disappointment” is in having accomplished so much, to have a lifestyle of luxury; the great disappointment and useless of it all.

Thinking Outside the Cage

One of the great families of Eastern NC was the Weil family, a remarkable Jewish family, owner of large department stores, farms and other investments which employed many. Their largess was felt around the world. Once in Jerusalem, I was in a large hospital and in the meeting room, I saw a dedication to Miss Gertrude Weil. This was one of her many philanthropies. In Goldsboro, their was a large park, called the Herman Weil Park, a gift and memorial of the Weil family to this great man. There was a large bandstand, many rides for children, animal cages (monkeys, lions, bears). As a child, and on through life, the bears were always walking from one side of the cage to the other, testing the bars, a sign of mental depravity. It was obvious that even if they could escape their cage, what would they do on the outside of the cage. Behind bars, they had everything to maintain life, shelter, food and water. On animal safaris in Africa, I saw every type animal in the wild, with absolute freedom. I know what Darwin meant by survival of the fittest because the animals actually blended into the foliage. But, they were free and had everything needed for their freedom.

It is such a tragedy that so many tears, so much blood has been spilled for the freedom of the American people. I was just talking with a lady in her 90's about her friends who are now caged into nursing homes where they have shelter, food and water and never have to worry about anything. How sad it is and what a rebuke to the hardworking people who have made this country great that today's children are content to sit inside the cage with the felonious pacifiers of television trash and game sensations. Children, like welfare recipients, become victims of the cage life, food, drink and entertainment.

According to the CDC, ¼ of all children in the USA are overweight. There is a diabetes epidemic. There is no cure for diabetes, only treatment. The reason for diabetes is that children and even adults put the wrong foods in their throats and do not get enough exercise. It's as simple as that!

Until 1900, 70% of all Americans lived on a farm. Farm families today comprise !% of the population. Farm land has been taken over by large corporations such as Monsanta. In fact, farming has become a corporate production. These large farming corporations are buying land in the Ukraine, Brazil, Canada. Farm corporations where there is large machinery and agricultural specialists like the production and bottom line chicken and hog factories, produce much more with much less. For instance, in Brazil, you can produce two crops in one season. As the combine harvests the crop in a field, the tractors are going behind turning the ground making ready for a new planting.

On the family farm everyone worked. The soil had not been depleted of it's God-enriched minerals. The food at the family table was healthy. The many children necessary for the farming operation did not complain about boredom or lack of exercise. According to today's federal regulations my father would have been accused of child slavery. Fifty years ago, members of the government, commerce, military professions all would acclaim the virtues of hard work, risk and responsibilities and the hard life of farm living, and how it had contributed to the nourishment of this nation.

In the farming areas, which covered all areas, except a few villages and towns, if there was trouble on the farm, each farmer had a tin horn which he could use to call for help. Imagine a time without telephones, electric lights, piped water. Most farms had a large iron dinner bell, which summoned all the farm workers to the house at meal time. At a time of fire or other disaster, the horns and the bells would signal distress. Since most fires began in the kitchen, and it was necessary to keep a fire going in the kitchen fireplace constantly, the eating-cooking building was separate from the rest of the house. Today, you can go to most any large country home, one that survived the civil war, such as the one in which I was reared and it is obvious how the cooking rooms have been added to the living-sleeping house, by connecting rooms. The stables for the work animals were located away from the barns because a barn fire, one of the greatest tragedies of farm life, would burn the horses and mules. Farm life was a matter of survival and through experience they had learned how to do it. Farm families, working out of the cage, (little time was spent in the house), knew the God-given integrity of putting seed into “the good earth”. Farm children knew the excitement of the birth of a calf or pigs. Farm children were even excited about the birth of a new child in the home or community. I cannot fathom a child reared on the farm not appreciating the gift of life.

From the present president to the sheriff, most of today's political, academic and spiritual leaders are evil people. They are sold out to the devil. If you can find 1 or 2 born again Christians in your local city and county leaders, your state legislature, your national congressional membership, you have truly done some looking. Let us pray for politicians and pastors who hold fast to God's Word and the precepts of the Constitution of the United States.

Thou hast commanded thy precepts to be kept diligently. O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping thy statutes! (Psalm 119(118):4-5, RSV)