Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day

Psalm 27:  1-2

            At my father's funeral, many years ago, one of the preachers said, "When he had his stroke, he was picking peaches from trees he had planted.  I well remember those peach tree plantings...  just stalks."  You would have thought they were old sticks of wood to be thrown away but, these stalks in soil, water and sunlight grew into large peach trees.

            I well remember the day I went to Sears to buy shrubbery plantings for a rental house.  A horticulturalist who was there buying shrubbery for his own house said to me, "Tom, don't forget to prune the shrubbery each year."  I would not have believed by  looking at the straggly-stalks they would ever need pruning but, soil-water-sunlight and they became large shrubs.

            We have just had Groundhog Day, people wanting a rodent to tell us about the future.  Man has always wanted future predictions whether from a palm reader with a tent by the roadside, scriptures from the pulpit, or in this day of technology, models conjured from mathematical progressions.  Standing in the reviewing stand of a long parade, we know what has already gone ahead and what we see in front, but have no idea of what is to come in the parade.  Only God knows the beginning and the ending... our lives, this nation, world history.  The purity of Christianity is the trust that Jesus will always be at the crossroads before we get there.

            The one thing I learned in a long life of clinical care and military service is dead men all look the same.  You can not tell the wealthy, educated, successful from others.  Blind men, like those who cannot read or write, must remember things.  The mystery to this writer in dealing with men, some never think deeply or speak seriously... theirs is a casual lifestyle.  I have known men totally lacking in a museum or art gallery.  In Madrid's Prado or the Louvre of Paris, paint strokes of the masters would not be appreciated (canvases that would sell for millions of dollars).  The only strokes that would impress some men would be those on the golf course.  They clap and yell as millionaire ball players run down a ball field.  YET, in a church house or cathedral, a matter of eternal life-a matter of an abundant life, so quiet and dormant.  In a alcoholic bar setting many men sing with gusto, but in God's house, (AND, they all think they are heaven bound) you barely hear a sound when they sing "My Jesus, I love Thee I know Thou art mine."

            There are pulpiteers (preachers) whose spiritual thoughts go no further than their vestments, politicians responsible for crop controls who do not know a weed from a productive plant, Catholic priests who cannot marry who write books on family life and child care, print and electronic journalists (talking heads) who write and talk about countries they have never seen.  We hear almost daily about Obama appointing ambassadors to nations they have never visited.  (Most ambassadors buy their "ambassadorship" by raising tremendous political funds  i.e. Joseph Kennedy, ambassador to England, and Caroline Kennedy, ambassador to Japan.)

            On one of this writer's around the world trips, a trip of flying from one island to another, while on the Marshall Islands, I met two Americans who were living on a boat.  Both had been high-volume, wealthy financiers in Seattle, Washington.  One of them said to me "We got tired of the rat race, the hypocrisy.  Here, on these beautiful South Pacific islands, we live on a boat, eat fresh food, drink fresh water and enjoy fresh air.  You only go around once.  Why kill yourself in the mad, manmade gauntlet of deceit and persecution brought on by your fellow man?   God has given us life and our health has returned since we have learned to live life."

            I noticed, when visiting with them, they had many friends among the natives.  Each day was like a holiday, plentiful food, basking in healthy sunlight, rest and leisure living.  One said, "We are getting ready for heaven."  Man has the mistaken idea that God needs him.  For God to be God, he does not need anything.  Man needs God.  Living for God, living the Christian life is not complicated, just tough.  The nature of man is wanting to control.  God is able, leave the consequences to him.  "Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."  Romans 14:8

            If a deaf person has never heard music, then music does not exist.  If a blind person has never seen the color red, then red does not exist.  Those who have never known the sweat of farm work think farming is exciting.  Those who have never known the horrors of warfare, think war is romantic.  The grunts on the front lines know the horror of war.  In Afghanistan, this year, hundreds of women and children have been killed just going through the daily activity of life.  Field grade officers, lieutenant colonels to generals, gain promotions during warfare.  The only truly great Americans are those who are the casualties through death or disability during war.  These are those who are forever young.  Their families and friends will never know them as older people.  A one day widow can not be comforted by other widows.  The things that get you through warfare are the same things that get you through other struggles of life.  You become a friend to pain and you trust in the belief that this, too, will pass away.  The soldier does not look too far ahead, just to a good meal and a warm bath.  Now is all you have.

            On the farm, early in the morning, before daybreak, the sound of rain... You knew the activities of the farm did not cease because of rain water.  You walked in the rain to milk the cows and to feed the livestock.  You were their god.  They depended on you.  If these animals had this reality of this perception, then why not God's chief creation?  God does not needs us, but we need him.  And, He has told us over and over, in His book, His instruction manual, "I will never leave thee or forsake thee."   Hebrews 13:5

Groundhog Day

Yesterday, February 2^nd, was Groundhog Day. Very scientifically, the groundhog comes to see if he can see his shadow then the groundhog announces how much more bad weather we're going to have. Like most traditions, this quaint tradition came over from Europe. The prediction is true about 80% of the time but all man made predictions are true about 80% of the time. There are 8,887 promises in the Bible, many prophecies in the Bible; to this minute, all promises, all prophecies, have been fulfilled.

I was waxing eloquently in one church, describing the majesty of God's work when he sent down fire from heaven to demonstrate in front of King Ahab's 450 Prophets of Baal, on Mt. Carmel, after they had prayed all day trying to offer a sacrifice to Baal. Elijah poured barrels of water on the sacrifice which filled up the trench with water, fire came down and not only consumed the sacrifice, but all the water and all the rocks of the altar. An elderly lady on the front row said, “Dr. Morris, where did Elijah get the water? It had not rained for three years, it was a terrible time of drought.” I said, “dear lady, I do not know where the water came from, the barrels, or even the bullets, perhaps the sea. God is silent about many things in His Word.” 95% of faith is courage, courage enough to believe. One other time, a young girl, school age, asked me a similar question, “will my cat go to heaven?” I said, “Your cat does not have a soul but if having a cat in heaven will make you happy, you can be sure you will have a cat in heaven.”

WWII ended 64 years ago. When you ask who was the greatest General of an Army, you always ask the enemy. The enemies of America, those we fought in Europe during WWII, are all unanimous: General Patton. General Patton was a greater General than the Commanding General and later President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Patton, according to all the books and other things written about him, was very disappointed that America and her allies, gave to Russia, on a silver platter, the Balkans and even half of Germany. With this handover of so much land, property and power, thousands of Europeans would die in the Stalin death camps. Patton would have pushed Russia back to her border because he knew that eventually Russia would turn out to be our greatest enemy...just think of the money spent on the Cold War, the Korean War, Vietnam...all because Britain and America handed over, to Russia, most of the spoils of WWII.

Like the assassination of JFK, by those who knew that JFK had looked behind the curtain, had seen the garbage accumulated there, was attempting to correct some of the problems such as the attempted Cuban/Missile threat. Patton had decided to return to America, resign his Army credentials and then reveal to Americans the rotten situation involving Americans such as the Rockefellers, the Bushes, the British and the German chemical giant IG Farben (winner of 17 Nobel prizes for chemistry who, by using slave Jewish labor, kept the Hitler war machine going for 5 years with synthetics) who held all the formulas for synthetic energy which could change every prediction, every conflict, every financial calamity taking place in the Middle East, and elsewhere, during the past 60 years.

So, like Kennedy, Patton was assassinated. It is not fully known whether by Stalin or by his own country. We know he survived the automobile collision as no one was injured in his Cadillac except for him. The sniper was supposed to have killed him but, he survived and even showed improvement in the Heidelberg Hospital. However, an assassin got to him with poison. Books have been written on this but this is one prediction, made by General Patton, to his staff, that has come true in every respect...the Geo-physical military industrial complex which has lead greedy international investors to keep our country involved in a war and Patton knew that he would probably be assassinated. If only Mrs. Patton had agreed to an autopsy so the world would know about the assassination...the predictions of his death...the involvement of the entire world in the results of the Russian enslavement of Eastern Europe.

Now, we are seeing the enslavement of our nation in a cocoon of Communist ideology:

We have lost our industrial base. 70% of all the World's construction cranes are now in China. China controls the automobile market, more cars built in China than anywhere else, China does not have clunkers...just new cars.

Unemployment is now at 18%, the unemployment rate of the great depression. By the end of this year it will be 25%. There will be no increase in employment except in government jobs and, since the private sector must be taxed to pay for these government jobs and since the banks have taken over the financial climate of the nation I predict a bleak future for the economy. If all the houses taken over by the banks were put on the market...multiple listing...the country would panic. In Arizona, 1% of all houses go on the market each month.

I predict a total demise of the public education system...a system more interested in indoctrination and entertainment than education. Liberal Democrats should rejoice in the obvious fact that the American people have been brainwashed, enabled by a state controlled news and print media. In many states, such as Arizona, schools are being closed, programs shut down.

There are not enough people working, flat on their faces in taxation, to support all those who do not work, those with government health care. I predict a total failure of the social security system, Medicare, Medicaid, and the grant programs to academia.

The GNP in China is increasing 10% a year. Americans are buying foreign stocks, trading in foreign currency. It has already been announced that money funds will be frozen. I predict the Federal government will clean out all safety deposit boxes and take possession of all corporate,state and local government retirement funds.

I predict you will still have a faith to cling to, a faith to depend on if you know Jesus Christ and God knows you. The most beautiful story in all literature is found in the 15^th chapter of Luke's Gospel. In 150 verses, a young man leaves home, throws away his inheritance, but his father, always loving and watching for him, sees him returning with a broken and contrived spirit. His father welcomes him home. I predict many of the escapees of this country's goodness will eventually repent and return home. “Home is where the heart is”, and those who have broken the heart of God, who has so blessed America, will eventually realize their loss.