Next, Christian Flag

#1753

There's a royal banner given for display

To the soldiers of the King;

As an ensign fair we lift it up today,

While as ransomed ones we sing.

Refrain:

Marching on, marching on,

For Christ count everything but loss!

And to crown Him King, we'll toil and sing,

'Neath the banner of the cross!

In the countryside were this writer was raised, hard work-hard times, just God fearing, working, tax paying believers. We did not have time to embellish our thoughts with the history that surrounded us. We knew that God was the designer of sacred geometry (everything in balance, sacred biology, life of every animal and plant precious in his sight and useful for man kind). Everything had a purpose, God makes no mistakes, there is no such thing as a rebel molecule. 

Most of the farm land was owned by relatives, and it had been handed down for many generations. I had often asked my parents about a certain area of dead, wild, bushes in the middle of a big field, which over the years, tenants of the land had just plowed around. An area probably about forty feet squared, over many years, many storms, trees once there, large bushes, just a big snake pit. 

Some years ago, a cousin who had inherited the land, decided to either find out what was there, in this discarded graveyard, or just return the area to a productive part of his land. When he began to cut- burn, he found that there were two remarkable tombstones in the area, tombstones of our ancestors, veterans of the Civil War. Two of my great-great-grandfathers sons, Nathan and James Morris, both of whom killed the same day during the Civil War. It was strange that these two were not buried with other family members in the family graveyard. 

It is quite possible, my ancestors were large land owners, they could have afforded to have the bodies brought from Virginia were they were killed. It is also possible, since my ancestry dating from first landing and founding of Morris town NJ in 1677, were not active in the Confederacy. Perhaps this is the reason that the family church, then (1874) and until this day, is known as the "Union Grove Church," and effort at reconciliation. It is quite possible that these two sons, more than other family members, were sympathizers of the southern cause (some historians have called the North-South conflict a matter of slavery, others a matter of taxation). whatever the cause, these two sons chose to fight with the Confederacy, and died as confederate soldiers. 

I am surmising that their loving, grieving family, chose to bury them separate from other family and neighbors, for some unknown reason, we will never know. Young men of the South, fought and died for what they believed. Just as for some unknown reason young men of different factions of the same religion (Islam) fought and died in Iraq, and Afghanistan. One of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century, involved Iran and Iraq, Muslims killing Muslims. We do not know what type of flag they fought under. 

The flag of the Confederacy, seems to be more a matter of concealed altruism, in more modern simplistic minds, who just want to be rebels. 

Rebels have never conquered anyone at anytime. There must be more to idealism than rebellion.

Do we really think removing any physical-outward symbol, cleanses any thought?

Stinking thinking, is still stinking thinking. 

If the presentation- Parading of the stars and stripes, the American flag, does not stir your mind, then their is something very wrong 14 inches away at your heart. 

The thing that bothers me most about the removal of the Confederate flag, and whatever it symbolizes to some people, is just how long it will take for the same "book burners" to remove the Christian flag from Christian churches and Christian sinners around the world. 

We believe there are about 300,000 Christian churches in America today... Some great mega edifices, some just store front places to worship. Some churches are very evangelical, some very modernistic... Just country clubs with steeples. Almost all Christian churches, because we uphold the liberty of our patriotic, as well as our Christian liberty, have somewhere in the building, usually at the front, both a Christian and American flag. Many of my Christian friends, who did not wear the military uniform, have their casket covered with a Christian flag when they die.

How long will it be until these same élites who want to control everything, according to their own bias thinking, want the Christian thinking removed from Americana. 

Then, how long will it be before these Elites, who usually have no political or religious loyalty, will want "old glory" removed from the American public square, and anywhere else that it might offend them. 

The road to Hell is paved with empty religions, just formalities and rituals. You can get the same in a civic, or fraternal group. 

Christianity is supernatural, when a Christian, in a supernatural way, you become a new creation. This is the problem with the present day church, present day believers, who pretend to be Christians. Most have never had a supernatural experience. 

When you have a supernatural experience, the Holy Spirit of God (Birthed in your heart), the Christian flag means much to you. 

For those who have known the thrill of the stars and stripes, even on an embassy in a foreign country, or on an American ship in a foreign port, there too, is a supernatural thrill.

Perhaps Nathan and James Morris in that forgotten graveyard, knew loyalty to the Confederate flag. At least, they are buried in the land and near the family the loved. 

A Veteran's Flag

My English guide and I were at the St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery, North London. We had become friends and he wanted to help me find one of my favorite poets, Francis Thompson's grave... best known for his famous line, “[love] is a many-splendored thing” from his poem The Kingdom of God. At that time, I had a shadow of vision in my left eye.

He said to me, “you will not believe what I see coming down the walk.” A cemetery employee was pulling a small three-wheeled cart on which was a coffin covered with a tattered American flag. Walking behind the cart was a Catholic priest, along with a very frail woman in a wheelchair, being pushed by,evidently, the driver of the vehicle which had brought them there. This was the extent of the funeral cortege.

Earlier, we had almost walked into a freshly dug grave, and I spoke of the danger of such for a blind person. They stopped at the open grave and two other cemetery workers put the casket in the ground and began to fill the grave with dirt. The priest was saying some words as we walked up, he turned to us and said, “she is not very cognitive, but will appreciate your being here.” She looked at me and reached out a gloved hand, which I squeezed. I told her that I was American. She handed me the folded American flag.

The priest said they were in separate nursing homes, but had been married 50 years, he was an American veteran. You note that I said to her, “I am American.” It is like saying, “I believe God.” Many say, “I am an American” like those who say, “I believe in God.” All sorts of people believe in God, even the devil; many American citizens, traitors, say “I am an American”, but when you say “I am American”, you believe this country, just as you believe God. When you believe this country, you believe all the history, the patriots who made this country.

I sold that old, tattered flag many years ago, along with several other 48-star flags I owned. I do remember that on the hoist edge of the flag was written these words, “Battle Flag, December 1944”. This flag was possibly flown during the Battle of the Bulge. You will note that there was nothing pertaining to veterans or the military at this grave service. Like so many WWII veterans, they had probably met in London after the war, and he stayed there. But, he probably wanted his casket covered with the American flag, it still meant something to him (and her).

On this Memorial Day, we think of the 126,000 buried on foreign soil (not in a casket, just wrapped in an American flag), the thousands buried in Arlington and other national cemeteries. They believed America and would be dumbfounded to see what has happened to their country. Until Korea, most of the fallen were buried on foreign soil. I stood at the great national cemetery in Manila where 18,000 are buried, and on the 25^th anniversary of D-Day, I stood at Normandy at that great cemetery there. What a waste! What a expenditure of life: 50,000 in Korea, frozen bodies stacked like cord wood; 58,000 killed in Vietnam.

I was still in the hospital from the Korean era, when the Vietnam tragedy was going on, I still remember the screams of the woman across the street from me when her son's casket was brought into her home on his “return” from Vietnam. We have a tendency to forget the civilian tragedy of war, on both sides. Even today, while several wars are going on, drones overhead dropping bombs, missiles being fired from oceans as well as from “the enemy's” homeland...do not forget the children who will never recover from the sights and sounds of warfare, children on both sides, in the clutches of man's inhumanity to man.

Never forget that many prosper from the greed of war, fortunes have been made from war. The veteran caught in the dilemma of warfare, the one who survives...blind, crippled, sown back together, is the blessed survivor; those in the soil are the heroes. Many of us worked very hard, while others were having a good time, to get the schooling necessary to sufficiently serve our country...doctors, engineers, weapons/utilities experts. Disabled, we give up everything, accept the patriot's zeal.

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Recessional – Rudyard Kipling (1897)

Flying At Half-Staff

The flying of flags, showing the patriotism of your country probably started in Siam or certainly some Asian country. I noticed, on a trip to Bhutan, that white flags fly over a place of death. Among the early Roman legions, “standards”, cloth or otherwise, were displayed. It was said that Alexander the Great who conquered all the known world, would keep his flag, his colors, covered until the time of battle. The scripture tells us that the Ark of the Covenant went before the Jewish army, this must have been a spectacular site to the pagans standing on the walls of the fortress cities, such as Jericho. When these millions of Jews started their trek around the city with this great gold Ark, like a great “Panzer” tank, in front. That should have unnerved anyone.

Pre-WWII movies showed the German swastika flag flying in front of every Nazi business, a sign of power. Mark Twain said, “there is nothing as wonderful to the eye as the sight of an American flag on a ship in any foreign port.” I can attest to this, a flag on an American ship, a flag before an American embassy in a foreign country. There was a time when the American flag was the most important symbol of Americanism, even in America. A flag at the post office, a flag at every schoolhouse, an American flag along with a Christian flag in the front of every Christian church. Even in the smallest rural school, an American flag along with, usually, a picture of George Washington in every school room.

We need to get back to patriotic symbolism, with the overrunning of America by illegal invaders, our seemingly inability to fight wars. Globalists, after the pocketbooks of the world, the taking over of the banking system by international financial banks, we should either fly our banner high, or at half-staff ...particularly on federal holidays, because America is in trouble, and should be sad. After 9/11 there was much playing of the song “God Bless America”. Why should God bless America? A nation up to its elbows, threatening other countries, the 20th century was the most evil century in the history of the world, and because of anti-Christian forces in American government, America will pay a great price.

When did our adoration for winners cease, whether millionaires playing ball, playing golf, or driving race cars. We had guard dogs on the farm, some farm animals, such as boar hogs, could get very frightful when a young puppy, so cute when small, came running back to the house frightened, when it was his duty to get a hog or cow back in the pasture. We got rid of that dog. A dog might come back injured, but he came back a hero, he had done his job. My mother knew how to cull laying-hens, to see if they were regular layers. The hen may be cute, but she is not being fed that expensive chicken feed not to produce. The hens that did not lay eggs found their way on the table as “chicken stew”. My father knew how to look over the belly of his “gilt pigs” (female hogs). To see which would make a good “brood sow”.

The world has become so politically correct about everything, anything and everything is tolerated. Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU, its executive from 1920 to 1950, objected to any national borders, any license of any type, any restraints on anything.

As a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, at the medical school, the librarian, Ms. Pickard, asked me to keep the library open one night, late, because of a meeting in the room. The large room with its tables and chairs was seldom used for anything but library work. It so happened, on that night, Dr. Alfred Kinsey (Kinsey reports, University of Indiana) was there to speak to school personnel and other interested atheists about human sexuality. Evidently, at that time, certainly not today, the university was careful not to have such controversial gatherings at regular academic settings, and certainly they did not want the media to know about the controversial topic. Each person attending presented a card of invitation.

I sat there astounded as I heard this pervert (Dr. Kinsey is well known as a sexual pervert), talk about the laxity which would come to America involving sex. He talked about the oncoming promiscuous behavior of heterosexuals and the oncoming agenda of the homosexuals. He talked casually about pedophilia, how natural and good it was for children to adapt to sex at an early age. Now this was 60 years ago, but we have seen everything he discussed that night, which at that time was as foreign as “moon-walking”, come into total acceptance, without an inkling of non-belief. Slowly but surely, like a leaking faucet destroying a mansion, decadent sexual behavior is destroying America.

The only thing that has kept the sinful acts of debauchery, thievery, lying, deception from full popularity in the world, happened for the very foundation of the world. The threat of judgment by the Creator of the universe, Who despises sin...Who sent His Son (God putting on a tent of human flesh) into the world, to give us a perfect example of love and redemption. Surely, any thinking person can see what is happening, Satan wants the church destroyed, the Christian is in the forefront of survival. From the mosque controversy in Manhattan has evolved one thing, synthesis. From every direction, no one cares if the mosque is built, everyone thinks a mosque should be built. But, a shade-tree preacher from Florida, antithesis, starts an international disturbance concerning the burning of the Koran. Another Jones (you remember Jim Jones of the Kool-Aid deaths), Satan does anything he can to create a problem involving the embarrassment of Christians. We are told about rioting in Pakistan between those who have not drowned in the floods. In every Muslim country, where were these non-violent Islamists concerning the threatened cartoon drawer, or the nine American missionaries killed in Afghanistan after working there among needful people for forty years?

If you were to look up the word “paganism” in the dictionary, you would probably find a photograph of New York City. I understand there are already 50 mosques in New York City, so another one will not do much harm, or evidently, much good. In the city in which I live, and indeed, in the towns and cities across America, there are churches on almost every corner. Evidently, they are not doing much good...there is more poverty in America now than in 1964 when the war on poverty started. More illegal drugs are used in America now, than before the “war on drugs” started, more people are smoking now, tobacco or something else, than before the war against smoking started. There are more terrorists in the world now, than before the “war on terrorism” started. It is estimated that there are thousands (probably 10,000+) terrorist cells are already installed in America, just waiting for the signal, to create havoc: bombings, perhaps chemical or biological warfare, or even fires, such as we hear about everyday.

I wrote long ago about meeting Gus Hall, chairman of the American Communist Party, the communists, like the terrorists who despise this country already have the plan for the burning down of America. It can happen almost overnight. Have you heard any concern? During WWII, there were bomb shelters, and churches open day and night for prayer, in desperation, at a time of conquest, the flag is flown upside down.