When Did It Start?

The greatest inner conflict of my life: if every Christian were just like me, what kind of world would my world be?

Returning from the war, young, ambitious, energetic, I simply would not give up. I had limited vision in one eye, kept trying to work, drive, constantly on the move, typical of the alpha male. I could barely see how to drive, all across the sun visor of my car, was about six pairs of glasses, different prescriptions in my attempt to keep seeing and doing. Then as now, I could not criticize others in their spiritual activity, if I were not active myself. It is so easy to criticize others: political, church, business, but the same demands are made of me.

For many years, on every level, civic, church, professional, military, I was extremely active as a giver, speaker and writer. I found that most just did not care, and I slowly lost my zeal, in fact, with each year I saw more apathy and hypocrisy. I have slowly reached the place of not caring too much about what happens to unconcerned people, I have done my part. From the starkest start, giving my eyes for your country, pay more taxes than I ever thought I would make in money, I find that I have created more back-stabbers than followers. Someone has said, “if you become so unpopular with your ideals, that both the good and the evil want to run you out of town. Get at the head of the mob and let them think you are one of them.”

Over and over, friends who hear me on the radio, read what I write, tell me that I am just wasting my time, things will have to get much worse before anyone will care. The two bitterest comments coming to me in recent years, both came from preachers...that I am silly, funny.

One lady came to me for help, she needed to talk with someone, she said, “I am at the brink of suicide. I simply cannot tolerate anymore, what I must tolerate in order to live.” I said to her, “why kill yourself when you are already dead?” (1 Timothy 5:6) I told her, as I have told myself in my state of physical darkness, “you only get life in Christ” (John 14:6) I assured her that in Him she could keep on and never be forsaken. (Hebrews 13:5)

It may not have happened to you yet, but it will, the time comes when we all grasp for deliverance from despair. Corrie ten Boom, WWII inspiration said, “there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipelago, Russian dissident, prisoner, experiencing slavery at the hands of his country, saw other dissidents beaten to death. He was working in the field, weak from hunger and sickness, felt he could not go one minute longer, he went over and sat down on a bench thinking a Russian soldier would come over and beat him to death with a shovel. An old man came over and sat next to him, said nothing, but on the ground in front of him, drew two straight lines, the Cross of Christ. It was these two marks on the ground that led to the conversion of Solzhenitsyn, that gave him a reason to keep going, the same thing that has kept most of us alive and active.

Any human being, aware of anything, must surely know that the world cannot keep going in the direction in which it is headed...When did it start? When did America set sail on the ocean of disaster? This is an entirely different country than the one in which I was reared as a child. Even as a young person, I read everything, studied everything. Of course, in 1950, when I was in college, which at that time was a very normal existence, 25% of the country's population was engaged in agriculture, today only 2%. On the farm, young people learned the basics of life, dependence on the goodness of God, Good Earth (Pearl Buck), sunshine, showers, the innocence and character of animals.

It was in the hippie movement of the 60s that we were first introduced to perversion, that we are supposed to think that wildness is normal. You see, we are supposed to be a god-fearing, civilized people, the essence of western civilization. In Africa, I saw natives, both men and women partially dressed, beating on hollow drums, dancing with frenzied yells, once in awhile, a male would grab a female by the hair and drag her off into the bushes. This was their civilization, this is the reason we send missionaries, teachers, doctors, in order to teach them a better way of life. I have been told that at some of these hippie communes of the 60s such practices prevailed, drums beating out senseless music, unrestrained sex activity. Don't these people realize, then as now, that this is self-imposed slavery.

It was about this time that a new profession came on the scene, psychology. Timothy Leary, psychologist, known for his promotion of psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, preached the philosophy, “turn on, tune in, drop out.” I met a French travel agent in Paris who was in America about that time, hitchhiking across the country, learning about America and Americans. He got caught up in some of these hippie communes, and told me the disgust, decadence and disease he felt in just being around such. He had never recovered in his disdain toward what had happened to Americans.

It was about this time that Saul Alinsky wrote Rules For Radicals, Mr. Obama is his prize student. President George H.W. Bush, Bush 41, was head of the CIA, he was scheduled to speak in New Orleans. Some of the communist protesters, followers of Alinsky, planned to protest outside the building in which Bush was to speak. Alinsky advised, “no, get tickets and go inside.” Anytime he says something on which the American public will agree, that is patriotic, you stand, put on your KKK hoods, hold up your KKK banner, applaud and shout “we support you!” This will incite more interest, get more results than protesting. It is much like another black dissident, OJ Simpson, who told Sports Illustrated, “if I had killed my wife, it would have been because I loved her so much.” This is how irascible, how depleted intelligence has become in American life.

We have learned to categorize, personify everything, the personification lead us to put everything, good and evil, happening between Arabs and Jews, in just one basket: “the Middle East”. It causes us to put everything, Good and Evil, involving forces of freedom and tyranny into one grouping called “mankind”. It causes us to put everything concerning disease, preventative medicine, killing of the unborn, euthanasia of the elderly, into one policy called “healthcare”. The personification labels, leaves government and government agencies to put fake and real foods, aspartame and other toxins, FDA approved drugs, poisons of our water systems such as fluoride and chloride, all into one file called “nutrition”. We are rapidly putting military forces, police forces, border patrols, transportation protection, all under “homeland security.”

Americans have learned to accept the activism of evil, we do not believe in absolutes anymore. Can anything be more absolutely evil than abortion...from the time of conception, right on until partially out of the mother's body. Can anyone think of anything more evil than the homosexual agenda, as if there is not enough confusion in the minds of young people regarding sex, same-sex marriage, 50 admitted lesbian and gay priests in the episcopal church. 1963, prayer taken out of the schools replaced by police officers in the school. 1973, Roe vs Wade, abortion made legal on demand, leading to the killing of 53 million babies.

We are a nation of things, cell phones, computers, everything I own owns me. Never satisfied, always searching for something newer and better, we let our desire for things replace the denial of self for the better good.

I decided to sell my car, low-mileage, almost new. The church secretary, from North side Baptist church, came to look at the car, with her, her husband, who stayed in their truck. She found a scratch on the car which no one else had seen. She wanted me to lower the price because of the scratch which was not there, she, knowing I am blind. Angry, she walked off, saying, “I hope you will find God.” God forgive me, I could not help but retort, “I did not know God is lost.” Perhaps the decline, perhaps the dependence on others for everything, perhaps the taking over of the church by the tares sown in the good grain among us. Government instead of God, nihilism instead of absolutes, and it all got started.

Abortion Survivors

I am a lover of great music and I own thousands of the old 78 rpm recordings of the classics.  But, the greatest music that thrills this old man's heart is the sound of laughter of children.  Near my house, on the same block in which I live in the historic district, there is a children museum much of which is exterior, where the children enjoy playing. It is good to know that parents are still having children and that children, in their innocence, are still happy and laughing.

Since 1973, children have been the survivors of abortion. Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, will not hold this country guiltless for the slaughter of 63 million children. We expect such slaughter in Godless communist countries such as Russia and China. I was one of the first Americans into China after it reopened and among the other horrific medical procedures I found going on in the hospitals, was the forced abortion of children (God's greatest creation and the most innocent of life) as well as the limitation of families to one child. My guide told me how many baby girls were found drowned in the rivers around every commune.

I am an old man, I was raised at a time when children were a blessing to a home in spite of the responsibility of rearing them. My mother and her mother did not read Dr. Spock’s book “ Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. “ Most of today’s problems can be traced directly to Dr. Spock.

The hippie movement of the 60's, the use of modern idol of television as the babysitter, and the fact that children of that generation are now the power brokers in government, industry, particularly academia.

We were taught the value of a dollar, the importance of demonstration (don’t be surprised if your child becomes a drunkard when he saw beer in the refrigerator his entire life), that rest and routine are important in life as well as eating nutritious food.  In my home, my mother did the meal planning and we were not allowed to complain about food on the table or “I don’t like that.”  Unlike today’s spoiled children, we often ate leftovers, food was not thrown away.  The only time we had some thing special was when we came home from college, my smart mother knew our favorite food.  And, on a special day such as a birthday, we enjoyed special desserts.

It is unfortunate that all children cannot be raised on a farm where they could learn about the care of young animals, gardening, and work. As soon as we were able to do anything, we had chores, but the greatest part of my rearing was the example set by my parents; self discipline, value of routine, the knowledge that animals depend on you for their food and water, and the value of work. The greatest value of having several children is that the older children train the younger. Just as in the military, the older sergeants train the new recruits, and in time of stress or warfare, leads to a more dependable unit. 

Every scholastic evaluation shows that the coach is always the most popular faculty member of any school. The coach has rules and he coaches athletic games that depend entirely on rules. The coach makes sure you are dressed properly, that you show sportsman like conduct, and children from the lower grades through college always appreciate rules.

It is the parent that wants to be a friend to his child instead of the trainer of an untrained child that has the problem. But the same parent will take his dog to a kennel club for discipline training. When I have an employee that cannot show up to work on time, who does not know how to dress or talk to an older adult, I know more about the employees parents then I do about the employee.

We live in a very sanitized society, we spend more time with the conditions of a child’s surroundings, than we do with the sanitation of the influence of media sources that pollutes and contaminates their minds. The sanitation even extends to the more unpleasant areas of living such as death. Most children have never been to a funeral, their only contact with death is what they see on television or in the comic book. Children should be informed early in life that death is a reality. I can think of nothing with more grief than parents following a casket to an open grave containing a child who thought they were invincible.

The greatest education you can give your child is an appreciation for his ancestry.  My mother would say, before we left home for a date or anything else, “remember who you are.”

The most satisfying part of my life has been the people who express their appreciation for my parents.  Once, an effort to get home with my old car and get gas from my father's gas tank which he used for the farm vehicles, the gas gave out a few miles from home. I went to a house in a community which I was completely unfamiliar with. All I had to do was tell the man who came to the door who I was, that I was a student at Chapel Hill and my gas had given out. But as soon as he heard my fathers name he and his wife and everyone in the house went into action. He told me that their was no way he could do enough for my father.

My parents were great singers, they visited all the churches in the area. Many people would tell me the revival at their church never got started until my parents visited. As soon as they heard them singing in the audience the spirit changed in the church.

The greatest distance in the world is the distance between the brain and heart. This is the parents greatest challenge. Stephen Hawking, perhaps the worlds greatest mind and victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is totally paralyzed except for the movement of one finger in which he can move 3 millimeters. To understand that much motion the distance between the eyes of the average person is about 68 millimeters. But, with the understanding of a brilliant assistant, who understands and can interpret these motions. He has written and lectured to the most prestigious minds of the world. His greatest contribution was his lecture on “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes.”

Parents have the obligation to discipline a child toward achievement, excellence, and to face the future with confidence, even if by some chance disabled. I will shout on the highest mountain top (and my disability is not to be compared to Stephen Hawking) that Satan’s greatest weapon in his arsenal is to defeat the disabled person by discouragement. ( I am a totally blind, 100% disabled service connected veteran for over 40 years).

I can count on the fingers on one hand how many times in these many years of disability that I have had any encouragement from anyone, particularly family. I have said in the media, as I repeat now, I will give 1000 dollars to anyone who can show that any veterans group, civic club, or church, has done anything for me in spite of the fact that I give a large part of my income to charity.

Disabled persons experience much exasperation, but think of the exasperation of children trying to raise themselves. I have nothing but contempt for the child abuser (those who survive the abortionist) who expect the child to have the knowledge and judgment of an adult.

We have all heard the expression, “ life is hell and then you die.” Those of us that survived the abortionist in spite of genetics or disability, only have one life, there are no trial runs.