Hubba Hubba

This week, we heard with sorrow of the deaths of four round-the-world missionaries on their yacht off the coast of Somalia. a yacht filled with Bibles that they were distributing around the world. This week we hear of the plight of the Coptic Christians in Egypt, brought to Egypt by the disciple Mark, he was martyred in the streets of Alexandria, but from the humble beginnings of Mark, the Christian Church grew in Egypt until, at one time, Egypt was mostly Christian. There are thousands of Coptic Christians in Egypt today, their lives are not easy, according to Egyptian law, on every form of identification, religion is specified, even on their passports. In such an Islamic country, it is difficult for a Christian to get a job. In India, converting to Christianity from Hindu or Muslim faiths, you must report such to the police or face such a severe fine. As cruel as Saddam Hussein was in Iraq, Christians were protected, there were 500,000 Christians in Iraq before the American invasion. Today, most Christians have fled, the Christian churches are being persecuted and destroyed, only a few thousand are left.

Christian history has been marked by the martyrdom of saints. One does not face death for a false religion, these martyrs believed in their religion. More Christians were killed last year, martyrs to the faith, than had been killed in all previous Christian history, an estimated 165,000. Among those killed last year, one of my college friends, Dr. Thomas Little, killed along with his missionary group in Afghanistan, he was one of the few doctors caring for people in the mountains of that country. He, his wife, children and others had been there for many years, his father is a doctor in Canada, but he chose God's work in Afghanistan. All in the missionary group were killed by the Islamic terrorists, except their guide, who kept shouting to the killers, “I am Muslim!”. Even though the guide had witnessed the miracles of healing provided by this missionary group, he escaped death by clinging to his false faith.

Many of us remember the movies of WWII, servicemen being entertained by USO troops and others. A shapely young woman would come on the stage, and from all corners you would hear, “hubba hubba”. This was an expression of approval, excitement, pleasure. The men and women who fought the Axis powers of WWII, were real men and women, patriotic, oriented to the love of God, family and country. This phoney-baloney, “Ask, Don't Tell”, anticipation for retirement pay, did not enter the equation for their devotion for country. Many times during the past 50 years, I have been in and out of veteran's hospitals. Before that, I was a staff member, as a medical service officer of army military hospitals. Service to God and country was considered an honor. In recent years, I have seen a totally deterioration of service in VA facilities, there is not one doubt in my mind that it has come from this attitude of political correctness...the employment of people who would never meet the qualifications for employment in a private facility. I said to one VA physician, “the technician outside, doing the preparatory work, does not know what she is doing.” He said, “doctor, this place is full of people who do not know what they are doing.”

There may be a computer that can count the number of letters that I have written to VA officials concerning discrepancies in veteran's treatment. Like the organization, supposedly interested in defending veteran's rights, Blind Veteran's Association (BVA), the only thing these organizations care about is getting your membership fee (DAV, VFW, etc.). Next to slavery, the greatest shame of this nation is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens. Just as Christians do not face death for a false religion, and the most repulsive thing in the world is religiosity, young men and women do not face death for a false patriotism.

I do not hold myself up as an example of anything for anyone. But, coming from the poverty of an eastern North Carolina tobacco farm, the inadequacy of a small country school (13 in graduating class), working at night in order to go to university in day time, for eight years, passing all boards and requirements for military commission. Entering the army as a medical officer, returning, 100% disabled, service-connected. I feel that, totally blind, I can offer some criticism. Criticism for the fact that veterans pension benefits are totally inadequate (mine were never established). Criticism that there is no preparation for disability (I never had one minute of rehabilitation), criticism regarding healthcare (I have never been able to obtain a white cane from VA, pay for my own talking watch).

It must be a stench in the nostrils of our blessed Lord, to see teachers and other government workers protesting in the streets about their pay and entitlements. In the state of North Carolina, a graduating college student can start teaching school at age 23 or 24, going to summer school to obtain advanced certification by a masters degree or such, and retire at age 54 or 55...30 years service, drawing a wonderful retirement check with benefits. After working 30 years, most are retired for another 30 years, retired as long as working, drawing checks and benefits. This applies to most government workers, including the double dippers, who get addition government jobs, for instance in the postal service. I know several government workers, who on your taxpayer dollar, have spent 30-40 years of their life playing golf.

The user friendly Gospel is straight from hell, user friendly patriotism leads to enslavement. Who loves you enough to tell you the truth? The pitiful politicians, pastors, and parents who know better, but want you to like them.

Anagogic

The word anagogic is unfamiliar to most people, even academics, only the spiritual, the believer in the supernatural, the one who has a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of God, can know the mystical, scriptural interpretation connecting the believer with God. Our redemption is personal, only the forgiven can understand forgiveness, until you have been forgiven, until you have a relationship with God through Christ, you cannot preach, teach, or even write about this soul-cleansing experience. Only then, can you understand anagogic.

I have found in a long life of knowing “baby Christians”, those who have been Bible students for many years, and even theologians, that when it comes to religion, most people are just playing games with God. They do not know what they believe, nor can they explain what they believe. We do what we do because we believe what we believe, whether pretending in comfort on a Sunday morning or becoming a martyr, knowing the reality of faith. 85% of all people questioned said they believe they will go to heaven when they die, most of these people who think they will go to heaven when they die, know nothing about heaven. It is just a romantic thought, against the otherwise awful alternative. No one thinks he is going to hell, and no one thinks anyone he knows is going to hell. In the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5,6,7), Christ himself said, “broad is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the way that leads to live eternal.” Remember, of the billions on earth at the time of the Great Flood, only 8 survived, we do not know how many were in Sodom when the fire fell, when destruction came to the city. But only Lot and his wife survived, she looked back, there is a reason that God put in the scripture, almost isolated from anything else, “remember Lot's wife” (Luke 17:32).

The only book in the world dictated by god, a book that has every answer, that most who think that they are going to heaven, totally ignore, Paul's letter to the Hebrews reminds us to study God's word (Hebrews 4:12). We have for our instruction, revelation not speculation. The real Christian knows God, and God knows that Christian.

I thought of the above as I studied the 8 Christians killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan on August 5th. As most of you know, I am a trained, licensed eye doctor, army medical officer, and I was in school with an eye doctor by the name of Little. His father was also an eye doctor, practicing in Canada, and the one who was killed in Afghanistan, along with other doctors in his group were from New York. Dr. Tom Little, like Dr. Jim Elliot (killed in Ecuador), knew the real meaning of taking the healing arts to those who needed them most. Their healing hands came from healing hearts, evidently Dr. Little had been in Afghanistan for more than 40 years, providing eye care, along with other doctors providing other care. His wife, in America, making arrangements for the birth of their grandchild, said, “We had 40 wonderful years together — of serving together, all those years, doing what we thought we should do. And that’s enough for a life “

“He worked in an area that had terrible problems with glaucoma and was a help to thousands of people” said Rev. Lawrence Roff, of the First Presbyterian Church of Schenectady. Little moved to Afghanistan in the late 1970s and operated vision clinics and eye hospitals through one crisis after another. The Little family survived the Soviet invasion, the shelling of Kabul, endured a long civil war, and suffered through the rise of the Taliban regime. A Taliban spokesman told The Associated Press in Pakistan that his group killed the eight foreigners and two Afghan interpreters because they were spying for the US and preaching Christianity.

Tom’s wife made it clear that this was their ministry. It was their way of serving God by serving those in need, this was not a short-term, two-week trip that some make on occasion. This was a lifetime of serving others. It even included having their children with them and at times avoiding rocket attacks and worse. As Libby put it, “100 rockets was a good day.”

The God haters of the world, the pretenders and counterfeits, who play around with the church and God, “just in care there is something to it,” will never understand the anagogics involved in that 13 inch distance between the brain and the heart of man. Why should bright, beautiful people give their lives on the alter of sacrifice to others when they could have a comfortable existence otherwise? When the holy spirit of God transforms you, and you become a new creation, you will not care what others think, your joy comes from serving God...”wherever he leads, I'll go.” (Hymn, B.B. McKinney)

Rest In Peace, Dr. Tom Little and your fellow Christians.

Warriors' Minds

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. It is good for everyone to examine your life, often in the quiet hours of the night when God dictates, and analyze thoughts. This happened last night as I thought of my many trips through Spain. Once, General Franco sitting in a box just above me at a bull fight in Madrid

In Hemingway's “The Sun Also Rises”, and in my experience, the Spanish Civil War marked a turn in European religious experience. My thoughts were rampant with the news that a monument was being built in Valencia to celebrate the lives of the martyrs who died there in 1936. At the Catholic Seminary, young men in their early 20's were taken to open graves, they kissed the ropes that bound them and as they were shot, shouted, “Long live Christ the King!”. Franco's executors had said to them, “We have nothing against you, it is the Catholic robes you wear”. This gives a new perspective to the Islamic enemies we are fighting, those willing to blow themselves up in religious zeal.

I was in the Yucatan in Mexico, met a man about my age who most of you would recognize because his picture was on many advertisements. He told me he came back to his homeland each year to visit the grave of his father, who, like the martyrs in Spain, was killed because of his faith. He said, “My father was forced to dig his own grave but onlookers said that, as he was shot and fell into the gave, he shouted “Long Live Christ the King!””. Do we actually have patriots or pilgrims of Christ persuaded to prove their love for God and country? The events of the past week, speaking of the second 9/11 at an army facility in this country, should cause every American to think about the enemy.

I was assigned to the Army hospital at Ft. McClellan, Alabama. Young, inexperienced, having already been baptized by military superficial warfare, the doctor I was replacing said, “ This is the weirdest place you will ever encounter. I don't know what is going on here but it will come out some day”.

I noticed right away that many of the doctors, and others at the hospital, were unusual citizens. From the hospital commander, right on down, most were depleted, gaunt, shadows of human depravity. It occurs to me now, more so than at that time, that this remote army facility was probably being used by the government as a repatriation medical point for the CIA and God only knows who else. Professional refugees being brought in from Europe and Asia following WWII and the Korean conflict. There were only two schools of any significance on the post, the Woman's Army Corp Center and the Army Chemical Center. The mission of the hospital was just to care for the people of these schools. I noticed right away that there were many CIA and FBI people being processed at this hospital. Since I was part of the processing clinical review, I had to look in everyone's eyes, I saw and heard things which I let pass by. For instance, one of the ranking nurses, Colonel Kornfeld, was supposedly a refugee from the uprising in Hungary. The hospital commander was a German drunk medical officer by the name of Marx, his ex officer, another German drunk by the name of Correl, all the other ranking officers at the facility possessed German names. I am convinced that this remote hospital the nearest to Huntsville, Alabama was a part and parcel of Red Stone Arsenal...back then the rocket and missile knowledge facility of the country. One of my dentist friends, a German war survivor, was always being asked to talk with Europeans. The entire hospital was a galaxy of unbelievable intrigue. Frankly, I was glad to leave the place and to this day do not understand all the entanglements with the super secret areas of government, but one thing has not left my mind.

I was a young, brash, serious officer. I evidently caught the eye of a nurse who was a little older than me, but much more experienced in life. I do not flatter myself but I think she wanted to get an affair started with me. I let her know right away that I was a Christian and that my life revolved around my work at the hospital and my church (Parker Memorial Baptist, Anniston) in town. I fully believe there are people who do not have a conscience. If God wants you, he will make the necessary arrangements to get you. She evidently had so many problems with her life, enough to want to talk with me about her soul. I do not look like a priest, nor do I have a confessional booth, but she talked with me at length about her past life.

In Japan, following WWII, she was assigned by the CIA to be the whore of one of the commanders in the Japanese occupation. She lived with him in one of Tokyo's trendiest hotels. In other words, she was a domestic spy, a spy of our government, against and for, our government. She reported to the CIA or FBI about this general's entire lifestyle, everything he said and did. Obviously, things had developed so that she was assigned somewhere else and she was parked in this Army hospital's parking lot. I am convinced that this hospital was being used by secret government agencies to prepare foreign officers brought into this country for living among us... a sort of halfway house between former enemies, who had much to contribute to the country, and government agencies who needed their knowledge, or perhaps needed to use them in some other venture.

I have worked at other Army facilities and at no other place were there so many unusual characters. The truly Americanized officers and enlisted personnel, were either there on a short time basis (as this officer), or were misfits just waiting for retirement. I have tried to remember several “normal” people at the hospital (but remember this was 50 years ago). The only normal people I remember being employed there, male or female, were civil service. Remarks made to me by several of them, at one time or another (and I did not have enough abstract psychological training to understand their insinuations), went completely by me. After all, one does not seek problems...not in the military. Starting any type confusion, even to the writing of a political letter, will show up on your officer's efficiency report. This instrument used almost entirely in your promotions.

Books are being written and under the “Freedom of Information Act” CIA and FBI activity in warfare, and everything else, is being uncovered. If we had a true interrogating press, if journalism were a profession, many of the dalliances and extravagances of government would be revealed to the public working hard, sweating, trying to pay the bills. Perhaps fear of reprisal keeps many of us from making known inconsistencies and observations. It is not just our lives but our country which is at stake. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (John 4:18)