Big Picture

He was 32, teacher’s certificate, actually felt that teaching was his calling. He had worked for me briefly while in college, married, and his wife had a very good job in the banking business. The only place he could find employment was an hour's drive from his home. An hour's drive to work and an hour's drive from work. He described the impossible situation, teaching sixth graders, undisciplined, indifferent, arrogant, nasty, rude, unconcerned about themselves or their world. He said, “I am at the end of the road, totally discouraged. I see no future for the children I am trying to teach nor for the public school profession. It is bad enough just getting there, reckless drivers, expensive gas, wear and tear on my car. We cannot afford to move closer because my wife has a much better job than me, and we like our home but, our life has become a madhouse, the stress of our lives. I am about ready to end it all”.

I reminded him that I did not want to hear any foolish talk, that too many much younger people take the suicide route, not realizing the consequences of their actions.

Our salvation is an internal transaction. When the Holy Spirit of God lives in your life, although you have free will, God is acting through you, ever available to handle any situation. Life is not about us, but what God expects of us.

The greatest thought in the world, the greatest thought in the mind of a human being, the very Spirit of God living in me.

The big picture, only eternity will know the good you have accomplished in the lives of children. The daily task of transportation to and from the job can be turned into a rewarding experience. You can do nothing about the stupid people allowed to drive cars no more than you can do anything about stupid people allowed to have children. You cannot imagine how much I would like to drive a car again, in spite of the challenges on the highway... people talking on cell phones. Be thankful for this time alone in your car, with a CD player, a time of learning and thinking, listening to outstanding speakers, great music on your radio.

You may very well be the only stabilizing, challenging influence in many of these childrens lives. In the country community where I was raised, one woman had an influence on every child in that community. Ms. Ida owned a farm which her deceased husband had inherited from his family. A very prominent, land-owning family, her husband and his brother were the only two men in the area who had gone to college... both UNC-CH graduates. Her husband, lawyer, never practiced law because he committed slow suicide with a liquor bottle. She probably had a few hundred dollars a year income from rent of her farm but, every child in the community knew that when they went by her house, (and this was before television, video games, spending money for candy bars, even if there had been a place to buy such.) she would give them a tea cake. (small cookie-like homemade cake) When handing you the tea cake she would say, without fail, every time, “Jesus loves you.” That testimony affected more people than she would ever know.

One of my aunts, dietician at O'Berry Center (NC hospital for disabled, unwanted children) would drive to her home each lunch hour, to attend her disabled husband, crippled by an automobile accident. He was bedridden for many years before his death, alone, in the house, totally dependent on her. Her neighbors, her church, her family and friends, everyone knew of her devotion to her job and her husband. I am sure she and many others reached the place in life that they just wanted to quit the whole thing, that their promises after death would seem so enticing If they did not know the challenges of the big picture.

I was in East Berlin several times, compared to West Berlin, like black and white. East Berlin was the most dismal, depraved place you can imagine. Trying to escape the hell of communism, the wall was constructed to keep the oppressed East Germans inside. Some would escape through other countries such as Hungary. Erich Honecker, convinced communist, in spite of what he knew about the prosperity of the West, refused to take in the big picture. The wall fell, he died in South America, and East Germany became as prosperous as West Germany. With most things, time cures all. We are active as long as possible knowing that God designed lour lives. Evangelist Billy Graham has said, “After the activity, when the body has slowly worn out, it is good to spend time in prayer for those still in the battle”. Character determines destination but life is a journey not just a destination. It is the bumps in the road that causes me to believe that faith in God is 90% courage, the courage to keep on.

Critical Madness

In 1974, I was in Athens, Greece for New Years. A group of tourists from the King George Palace hotel went as a group to a large Athens restaurant and night club. Of course, they wanted me to go along and I still enjoy eating and being around people who are enjoying life. The food was good, the entertainment better, but at midnight, all of a sudden at the strike of 12 they went to throwing all the dishes on the floor, threw glasses at the walls, and all the employees danced on the tables. As a blind person, you can imagine how that scared me and I dove under the table, where a very frighted Japanese man also sought shelter. He had evidently lived through WWII and thought the place was being bombed. This is the type of madness, critical madness, some people enjoy just as some enjoy weird movies and books.

Again, New Years, Malaga, Spain; I was visiting a doctor and his wife, a couple I had met in Boston. At midnight New Years, everyone went to throw their glasses into the fireplace. For someone who doesn't throw away anything, I have seen too many hungry people in the world to throw away one spoon or food. I considered it critical madness to destroy perfectly good glasses.

This week, Copenhagen, Denmark we are seeing critical madness of a type heretofore never experienced by human beings. To think that a few disreputable scientists have actually bought this hoax and scam of global warming, temperature change, a perfectly normal geological, anthropological, astronomical change in the world just to make a few people rich (Al Gore, Barack Obama, etc.) and hopefully to improve the lives of some people in some countries. Promises, Promises. The same critical madness that has kept Democrats in control and now the effort to control the world and bring additional taxation. Promises, but never any changes.

In 1971 in Darvaza, Turkmenistan (a part of Russia) scientists exploring for natural gas, the natural gas began to burn much like a release from hell, and has burned since (almost 40 years) releasing much gas and deposits into the atmosphere. The area is as now as large as a canyon and the Earth keep on falling into the large pit. At Papa New Guinea I saw the volcano Mount Lamington which last erupted in 1951 killing 3,000. In Java, I witnessed the Kelut volcano which still spurts out gases and lava and has done so for many years. Through out Asia, there are erupting volcanoes, just last week one erupted in the Philippines. With all the smoke stacks in China, and Chinese scientists know the foolishness of trying to control global climate, man-made carbon pollution has almost no effect when considering global God-determining pollutants. At this critical madness in Copenhagen, it has become a debate about a ½ inch change in ocean level.

At the harbor in Hong Kong where ocean levels are very important to ferries, tunnels, and a huge population, the change over hundreds of years is measured in millimeters. It is the critical madness of hacked computers, quackery in science, and an embarrassment of politicians determining this critical madness. The hardworking, sweating, God-fearing, taxpaying citizen who does not travel the world in polluting jets and limousines. Pockets have been picked enough by the tax assessors of the county, state, and federal governments. Now the United Nations wants to inflict the working people of the world with a world tax.

.
For many years, I owned a co-op apartment at 12 Beekman Place (this is a street in which Auntie Mame lived, and 2 blocks from the UN secretary). I got full exposure to the United Nations types. I do know how to stay quiet and just listen, and did know how to get invited to all the great receptions. The United Nations is the sorcery of Manhattan; the most vindictive, promiscuous, self-embellishing, belligerent bureaucrats you could ever meet. It is grandeur on an international scale and the UN can hardly wait to completely control the wealth of the world. This attempt at global climate control is the key which they believe will unlock the door.

In the great and exciting city of Hong Kong, I found that when a new business opens, there is madness beyond compare...great banners, much animation, and fireworks beyond description. The Asians consider critical madness of this sort as an essential in getting started well in business. But, it only influences a small area of the city. In America, millions are paid for television exposure, especially on New Year's Day. This year during the Super Bowl, a 30-second advertisement will cost $2.6 million.

I have traveled to Benin, Africa twice. On lake Ganvie, a tribe of 30,000 Tafinu people living in huts built on pylons 2 feet above the water. They move about place to place on boats. Can you even imagine the filth and sludge? This much human activity contributes to the lake which is little more than a sewer. I have had my passport stamped in 157 different countries in the world. There are many needs in the world, such as the one described. Children raised in absolute filth, always hungry. The 100 billion which these limousine liberals-radical politicians are seeking to extract from the pockets of concerned world citizens should be spent on Earthly needs not fakery in the stratosphere.