#1901 Sweet Poison

#1901

Sweet Poison

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man           
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

(Jeremiah 17:5-8)

Anyone who thinks this is a small world has not looked at the globe recently.  We are a people dazzled by electronics: smart phones, talking computers, gps maps.  People in an air conditioned, pest controlled world.  This is not a time for casual Christianity, but this old, blind veteran is not "sweet" enough, broadminded enough to not have resentment about those who are in the streets protesting.  When they should be working like the rest of us, in a nation that gives them every opportunity.  These protestors have no idea about what real living and life is all about and I resent this.  They don't have to remember anything anymore, just enough sense to push a button. 

It is a matter of history, if anyone wants to study it, just what human beings have endured in the advancement of civilized behavior.  You never recover from poverty and I truly believe that most of our nation's problems revolve around the fact that most "African Americans" have not recovered from the greatest shame of our country...slavery and the blight of desegregation and Jim Crowism.  It takes a long time for the stench of rottenness to disappear.  It takes a long time for many of us to recover from the "hard knocks" of just surviving.  It takes a long time for veterans to recover from the treachery of war. 

This veteran was a field grade medial officer at an Army hospital in Alabama.  As in most Army hospitals of the WWII vintage, wards constructed of wood, connected by covered hallways.  There would be probably, almost a mile of separated wards, one after another, connected by covered hallways.  This was before the time of AC, when windows had to be opened for air.  Each hospital, at bases all over the nation, and each ward was built to certain specifications, each operated a certain way.  Personnel was constantly coming and going...nurses and doctors assigned to certain hospitals, working hard doing a job, no one keeping up with what had happened in the buildings before them, even to the very expensive medical equipment. 

I was in charge of one ward, many rooms, much confusion from newly trained personnel...just there to put in their time and do a job.  I found that there was one room that was a mystery.  Evidently, it was a forgotten room, in one ward of one hospital.  I finally got into the room...padded, no window, no light fixture, just a cocoon of absolute silence.  It was a room in which you would put a mentally ill patient. 

There was a smell in the room beyond comprehension, I have no idea how many years it had been closed, with no one with any authority to open it.  Of course, all personnel at any military facility was constantly coming and going, like me, orders for service.  You really had no reason to investigate anything...just do your job.  I asked a friend in town, who owned a real estate company, if he had heard any scuttlebutt about that Army hospital.  He said one funeral home had removed a long dead, decomposed body from the hospital, a patient that had evidently been forgotten.  Then, I knew about the smell. 

In today's computerized world, where, surely, in a hospital, there would be some record of the location of patients, mental or otherwise.  Would we have the ability to absorb such incompetence?  Allowing a fellow human being to die of starvation and thirst in a padded room, where they could hear nothing and no one could hear them: oh, the darkness-silence-horror of it all: such a death, man's inhumanity to man.  Do we have any resentment towards those who would allow things like this to happen OR as is the case of most unbelievable things we hear about, euthanasia-abortion-child abuse just coming forth with the usual mantra "Let's just move on."  ..."Put it behind us." 

As horrible as the death of a deranged mental patient in padded from of an Army hospital is, think of the millions of the most innocent, killed in the body of a child's own mother.  Yet, these protesting "Black Lives Matter" (when 72% of all black babies are aborted-killed), when courted black votes surely do matter, when members of the gay agenda get more publicity than any other class in America, when the abomination of same sex marriage-ask don't tell-immigration takes up a large part of every news broadcast, these protestors seem to have no realization about the realities of this present world...just resentment of this time in history. 

People who are dead still have much control over us.  The liberated woman Margaret Sanger, associate of Adolf Hitler, introduced eugenics to us.  She was a real democrat in the Rockefeller Republican organization.  I resent black democrats, who will not even admit that she referred to them as "weeds"...put this in your Planned Parenthood pipe and smoke it.

Christianity is built around the grace of forgiveness, one raised on a farm, knowing the "full gospel" of growing crops, so resents the new age "green gospel"...decrying food production with the use of chemicals: proclaiming organic everything.  Most of these "do-gooders" have never seen the ravages of insects, the squalor of soil from which all natural chemicals-fertilizers have been leached. 

Human life is sacred because from the very beginning it has meant a very special relationship with Creator God.  Every human being has a soul from God and at the end returns to God.  From birth, the body is constantly wearing out, the cells of your skin very different from the cells of your skin six months ago, the cells of your liver-the cells of your eye, all cells of your body constantly being renewed, constantly in relationship with Creator God.  You must have the electricity for this replacement.  Your body, like the world around you, is, in the main, electricity.  The electricity for your body is generated by muscle activity.  Now, can you understand the importance of nutrition and exercise? 

The great-warrior-general Stonewall Jackson said, "My faith leads me to feel as safe in war as in bed."  Along with the reality of body care, the temple of our soul, we need to be aware and aroused by things around us.  I resent that Christians have the ability to control elections.  Catholics make up half the Supreme Court, Catholics control a large part of the US Senate and House of Representatives.  Catholics, along with "supposed" Christian Baptists, have the votes to keep America decent and strong.  A poison, and it is often very sweet to the taste, is usurping Christian righteousness and I resent this infiltration into God's world. 

#1900 Veterans Day, 2016

#1900

Veterans Day, 2016

"The Pledge of Allegiance"

     I pledge Allegiance to the flag
     of the United States of America
     and to the Republic for which it stands,
     one nation under God, indivisible,
     with Liberty and Justice for all.

Victor Hugo said there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.  The feelings we have for other people are rarely rational.  Television and press media have separated themselves from America, from real people, at the fragile alter of political correctness Mr. Trump was right; his overwhelming election is a movement.

Only the most tranquil idiot cannot realize that changes must be made in America.  Mr. Trump calls it, "draining the swamp"; I call our present "decadent illness" and its cure, "cleaning out the hog pen", greedy sow and boar hogs.  The present elitist ruling greed class should learn that pigs get fat-hogs get slaughtered.  We have seen government, local-state-federal, seized by the misfits, ne'er do-wells, and ass-kissers.  Every god-fearing, hardworking, taxpaying citizen going to the city hall, courthouse, statehouse has seen the disgust and disdain in the eyes and body language of those "in charge".  Most people want to be nice, the disciples of Satan, who occupy these government offices, take advantage of the citizen's "meekness" AND, legislators, sitting near the money pot-wanting to put some of their friends behind a desk-wanting to attach their name to some legislation have made it so easy to control-constrain-penalize everything.  Most normal biological functions of real people are subjected to a permit or a license, along with a charge. 

So, Mr. Trump, the people who still have a modicum of education from the schools, rose up to empower you for the mop up-clean up.  The least stupid among us recognize your personality and fearlessness to attack the problem.  The more stupid among us voted for your opponent, the worst animal on Earth, a criminal female. 

In the American experience, history tells us that the greatest American shame, next to slavery, is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens.  We can do nothing, now, for thousands of the finest warriors I ever knew who are buried on foreign soil and in our own nation's cemeteries...whether a national park or family graveyard.  We hear these crocodile tear laments about veteran suicide; it is well known that the Veterans Administration decided long ago that IT IS FAR CHEAPER TO BURY A VETERAN THAN TO CARE FOR ONE.  So, as one old bureaucrat said to me, "Let them kill themselves."  Or as the Chief of Staff at one veteran's hospital said to this old, blind, veteran, after I made a suggestion about helping blind veterans get around in the maze of that veteran's facility, "Doctor, we do not need any suggestions from you.  We are just waiting for you to die." 

Americans have never considered what it takes to produce a warrior, a veteran.  Only parents know the risk-ravaging of raising children, educating them, getting them to the place that they can help them and their nation.  Then, these rather innocent, hapless, young people, just ready to start life's challenges enter the shapeless chasm of military service.  For some, the discipline-opportunities are the greatest thing that could ever happen to them...for others, survivors, life becomes the world of, "Can you top this?"  Dealing with an unconcerned cast of characters filled with disdain and disgust toward their fellow Americans. 

This 86-year-old totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer, veteran of the Korean War era was raised on a tobacco farm in impoverished Eastern North Carolina, dirt road, no power, phone, water lines.  We were peasants, glad to get one dollar a day for working in the hot sun.  I flourished in a small country school, thirteen in my graduating class.  I worked my way through eight years of univeristy, at that time, no loans or government largesse of any type, to graduate with a doctor after my name.  Then, under the draft doctors' law, onto Army service: jumping through all the hoops-crawling through all the trusses involved in being able to care for sons and daughters of America's parents who had sent their children to war. 

I do not claim to be a victim of anything; military sons and daughters do not serve for any type glory.  Like anyone, chosen by God to serve, anyplace-anytime, OURS will be settled later.  There is always a settlement date: a payday someday. 

There is something about men and women who love their country enough to serve wearing a military uniform.  Mr. Trump, I hope you have seen this.  There is a glow in the eyes of those who have served.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule but most service veterans go on to serve their community: law enforcement-the professions, parenting very special children.  Where do these people come from, who are always protesting one thing or another...getting arrested for drugs-occupying every seat in rehabilitation places?  If these protestors had jobs-responsible lives, they would be busy with life and wonderful life opportunities.  Too many young people have chosen the low road of life, unwilling to aim for lofty plateaus and even peaks...whether artificial stimulation with an addictive drug or weed, the escape hatch is not noncompliance.  Mr. Trump, when will America start to appreciate those who pay the bills, those who live responsible lives, those who have served in uniform?  The disabled veteran loses his future, any enjoyment of normal citizens: recreational, economic, etc.  Lastly, we lose our dignity.  Our limited resources, the morass of veteran's hospitals we pay civilian doctors.  Now, VA wants us to further enrich Big Pharma by buying our own meds, our own disability "helps".  VA never gave me a white cane.

Dead veterans no longer speak except by their family and friends...who too often are too silent.  Disabled vets are just happy to have survived...did not enter the military for any type glory...any type remembering.  This vet was at Normandy on the 25th anniversary, has stood in the Philippines at the cemetery where 18,000 of our finest are buried.  Freedom is not free but too much of our liberty has been lost.  The first time I was in USSR, getting back on a Pan Am propeller plane, the pilot said to me, "Americans are always ready to leave this godforsaken place."  Later, I covered Russia on the Trans Siberian railroad, three trips to Communist China.  Mr. Trump, I rejoice in what America has given us. 

#1899 Hitler's Bunker

#1899

Hitler's Bunker

John Adams, our second president, served as chairman of the American Bible Society.  Speaking to a group of military leaders he said:

“We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion.  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

One would think that human beings with functioning eyes-functioning brains could see a train crash when two locomotives are speeding toward one another on the same track. 

The most capitalistic area of the world I have ever seen, Hong Kong, in 1997 British rule of Hong Kong ended and the Chinese Communist took over.  Gone were the very British double-decker buses, filthy rich Chinese.  It was a huge city bursting with foot traffic, day and night, a chaos of business action of every type.  What made anyone think that these very independent business people of this great city would submit to the control of communism?  This world traveler has seen classic communism on every continent.  In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, I asked a doctor, "How did it happen?"  He said, "It got to the place that you could not trust anyone...even your own family-your friends-your associates."  Certainly you could not trust the media or government. 

Do you dare examine what has happened in America, even in recent years?  The press..."Yellow Journalism"...lying, biased talking heads on the radio and television have all separated themselves from the average voter.  These overpaid supposed journalists, "News Readers" think they are special.  They think we believe it when we are told, by our Bible, to turn the other cheek.  They don't realize that Christians know the source of their protection...their avenger-defender.  The truth came through the ether, perhaps pilfered email: Mr. Podesta and his satanic rituals.  Others in Mrs. Clinton's "gang" the Weiner couple and their perversions and, we could go on with the former president's and others in the presidential candidate's long list of classless-hopeless associates. 

Over 40 times in our Bible, we find these words, "But God".  All of us in times of desperation...doctor's offices-bank statements-emergency rooms, at one crossroad or another found, "But God".  God was always at the crossroads before we got there.  There should be a sign in every professional office, vestibule of every church, front door of every funeral home, "But God".  There should be a sign at the front gate of every educational institution, "But God".  When all hope is gone, whether a physical body, or even our nation..."But God".  Believers know that everything in life is a gift, the greatest, "But God". 

Trump was right, his message-actions, a movement.  This solves the mystery for the biased talking heads, who theorized that the polls were wrong. 

The darker it gets the brighter a light can shine.  Christians were supposed to be the light.  In my lifetime, that Christian light has become just a "flicker".  The best example I can give you, 65% of all Americans have a dog, a pet.  The care of a dog is $1600 a year...food, vet bills, etc.  Most Christians do not give $1600 a year to God's work and, yet, they think they will spend eternity in Heaven, basking in the gift of God's grace.  Mark Twain said many things, one, "Having spent so much of my life with good people, it is refreshing to spend time with the bad."  We can understand why Jesus spent so much of his time with sinners. 

Today, our new president, Mr. Trump, is previewing subsidized government housing along with the Vice President, who too, will live in a subsidized government house.  The time has come, the gold rush is on, and those who supported the new administration will start jockeying for government jobs and all the prestige that goes with them.  This is the payoff for supporting the winner.  A winner who did not need their money, their support....can you even imagine what it is like for someone like Hillary who was capturing millions of dollars from our nation's con artists...the places of leadership in which she would have installed them?  Do we really think that those who "cough up" the big bucks are not expecting a glamorous ride?  We then wonder what has happened to our democratic republic.  Think of the press perverts, and what they get for their very public biased support. 

For many of us, our greatest concern in getting Mr. Trump elected, the Supreme Court.  We have seen how Supreme Court appointments afflict a nation.  It makes no difference what we think-believe-pray...in America, the Supreme Court is truly supreme.  FDR's first court appointment, Hugo Black, a KKK lawyer from Alabama, he was so vindictive-despised that fellow justice Felix Frankfurter would not even look at him when they were on the bench, he would hold up a piece of cardboard to keep from looking in his direction.  There is not a photograph of that court because Justice Frankfurter would not be photographed with Justice Black.  Most elitist political appointees, who did not give their money or support for nothing, are expecting in Washington DC, their own solar system.  One of the greatest things about Trump, we see that in his own children.  He will not be a victim of mediocrity. 

Appearance, even voice, tells you very little about any man.  Hitler was small, a 25 inch waistline.  Stalin was short, barely 5 feet tall.  James Madison would not weigh more than 100 pounds soaking wet.  These men left their mark.  That great President-General Dwight Eisenhower did not even speak to JFK as they rode to the inauguration...spoiled kid from that womanizer Joseph Kennedy.  LBJ was a slob, Jimmy Carter hen pecked by a woman who was a dime store clerk. 

We don't know what the future holds; we only know who holds the future.  For the Donald, restoration of the federal government is far different from the restoration of a skyscraper.  The stock market will go up or down except in uncertain times.  How we fool ourselves when we think we know about the future.

Right here in the town where I live, an eye doctor (ophthalmologist) whom I knew real well.  He had prepared his only son to take over his large practice; his son had completed his residency at Johns Hopkins.  The waiting room had been greatly enlarged, new examining rooms, expensive new equipment.  First day there, the two doctors, father and son, went to the Cape Fear Country Club for lunch.  At the lunch table the young doctor fell over dead.  The dining room was filled with medical personnel and yet there was not one thing that could be done.  The mortality rate is still 100%, death comes to all people, all nations.  God will sort it all out.  He is in charge.  

#1898 Laughing Gas

#1898

Laughing Gas

"He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them." (Psalm 2:4)

The best treatment for any psychosis is laughter; man is the only animal who can blush: man is the only animal who can laugh. 

This morning, after what is considered by most thinking people "the most important election of our lifetime", I really feel like laughing.  I don't mean one of these synthetic laughs, such as we hear on television from people who are so anxious to just laugh about anything but laughter because we have something to laugh about.  Enough real Americans came together and cast their votes to announce to the entire world, that, "Enough is enough".  We might be picking a sinner instead of a criminal but in the case of the two we had to pick from...President Elect Trump or a sold out former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (wife of a pervert president), the choice for most of us, was not hard to make.  My joy comes more from observing the disappointment of the criminal element in the media, many of us matured during a time of media giants, who could be trusted, such as H.V. Kaltenborn or Gabriel Heatter.  Today's low-life talking heads, monopolizing news broadcasts, now do not even attempt to disguise their dishonesty.  Anyone, with an IQ above room temperature should be able to distinguish their criminal dishonesty in reporting anything and, if it were not for the obvious theft of electronic information, the dishonest media and those who they would go to any lengths to protect and project would continue to escape scrutiny.  There are many places that President Elect Trump should begin his "clean sweep" or "swamp drain" ...one very obvious place is to demand that the fifth estate observes some measure of responsibility. 

The one thing that caused me much displeasure in visiting communist countries (USSR, Communist China, Communist Yugoslavia, Burma, Togo), you never heard laughter.  The subway stations in Moscow were so elaborate, murals on the walls even large candelabra, rushing people with morose features.  Even the children looked like they were in pain, all the time.  In Communist China, and I was one of the early visitors, everyone dressed alike, uniforms, haircuts.  My family, friends, associates, even neighbors do not know what it does to human personality when the state takes away every vestige of one's real character. 

A neighbor in the community where I was raised said to me one time, "The greatest sound I ever heard on this Earth was the sound of your grandmother laughing."  I well remember what she was talking about, my maternal grandmother, and I remember it well about her sisters, came from poverty, never had much of what makes most people happy in this world but they rejoiced at what they did have and showed their joy through laughter and it was real laughter, not the synthetic type.  You can always tell the difference in the smile of a person when they really mean it and that of a person when they know they should do it, as in a place of business. 

In the South, during the worst of racial segregation, when people were victims just because of the color of their skin, when discrimination of races placed blacks in certain areas of town, you heard black citizens with real laughter.  I took delight in knowing that my black patients would laugh with me, when others, who had so much more of this world's things, were often very sullen.  I do believe that a large part of the attraction to places of entertainment such as movies, the hunger people have to let go of their emotions. 

This writer has lived in the same house for many years, right downtown surrounded by many tourist attractions.  It was not that many years ago that the people on the streets were filled with laughter; I know that our nation is heading towards communist decline because I no longer hear people laugh very much.  There is nothing in a communist country to laugh about, everything controlled, every emotion stifled.  Believe me; you do not want to live under such governmental death.  I feel much better today knowing that we have escaped one more person, who in leadership is anxious to take us there.  Hillary thought her joy came from getting rich...whatever it took.  Her husband thought his joy came from any type compromise...sexual or otherwise.  If only they could have gotten real with themselves and the world around them, could have assumed human characteristics, could even have laughed.  I do believe that most of Donald K. Trump's attractiveness, as a presidential candidate, was his ability to project the gravitas of enjoyment.  Although rich, the levity of jokes and laughter, one does not enjoy the company of a sourpuss.  As a young boy, I saw the love and laughter of women around the bed quilt that they were quilting.  I saw the love and appreciation of men in barbershops, conversation and laughter. 

I am a totally blind, 100% disabled veteran but, I have been blessed to sense human beings around the world.  I have heard laughter in African villages, as well as concert halls in the world's great cities.  It has always been essential for me to employ people to work for me, my daily living as well as businesses.

The saddest young man who ever worked for me, bitter at the world, bitter at everyone around him, never a smile or a laugh although, compared to most unbelievable talent.  He had been raised by his birth mother, a lesbian, and her lesbian lover.  Two women living together raising a son, in this perverse household, everything upside down, he never knowing the laxity genuineness of real discipline and personality.  He had just learned to hate the ravages of sin.  You heard it here, with same sex marriages, loss of privacy in the bathroom or the shower, controls of every life activity coming from government, removal of every vestige of one's own normal and God-given personal traits and individuality, we head towards the horror pit of life where there is very little to laugh about, fewer matters to be happy about.  

#1897 Raw Patchwork and Disguises

#1897

Raw Patchwork and Disguises

"Waiting on the World to Change" - John Mayer

     Now if we had the power
     To bring our neighbors home from war
     They would have never missed a Christmas
     No more ribbons on their door
     And when you trust your television
     What you get is what you got
     Cause when they own the information, oh
     They can bend it all they want 

Today's matters of importance are only important when thinking eternal.  Are our decisions made just for the expediency of the moment?  The most difficult thing for unbelievers, such as, Nietzsche (God is dead), that the Creator of the universe actually wrote a book, a manufacturers handbook.  He designed his book knowing that people would always think that they could take a shortcut, use some patchwork.  Some of us are happiest in our struggle towards ideals even though often not comprehensible or obtainable.  We mere mortals have nothing but responsibilities on this Earth: God will sort everything out: even the patchwork of our existence.

Your writer, world traveler (passport stamped in 157 countries), has found that every civilization, every continent, worships something greater than self.  In the deserts (I traveled through the Sahara and Gobi) in the tyranny of heat, it is easy to understand why so many worship the sun. 

In a world of lightweights, people who do not take anything seriously, think life is a joke, laugh about everything...never grasp the big picture...stumble all over God and do not realize it.  In the Kalahari, Botswana, Africa (and I had some vision then) on a great mountain ledge, I saw eagles (with wingspans of six feet) build a nest, the mother built a nest so the eaglets would be dumped out at a certain time in their maturity.  On our farm, guinea hens, never part of the chicken yard, roaming the woods and ditch banks, laid their eggs on the ground, configured and colored so you would hardly recognize their eggs.  The mother hog, a big sow, when it was time for her "pig delivery" would build her own bed even though there was a nice hog house for her.  As in, photosynthesis, the clotting of blood, and I could write books on the miracles of God, there are still those that do not believe in his disguises. 

So it is with raw patchwork, I can still see my own father, during the Great Depression, resoling our shoes.  My own mother, a light bulb in a sock (even though we did not have electric power), sewing up holes in socks.  The greatest patchwork is our not having the intelligence to understand, raw patchwork.  The seeds of a vegetable or fruit are the most important foods you can put into your body.  We know about the seed of wheat, seed of corn, beans, pumpkins, but there are so many more, such as nuts, many are hard to eat, but seeds, including the husk possess the DNA, RNA, and other properties essential to nutrition.  Can we even imagine people who eat seedless grapes-seedless watermelon?  We die when electricity no longer flows through the body; the only thing that keeps us alive is adding nutrition to the body and removing toxicity from the body. 

God designs life and designed the Earth with everything to sustain life.  Studying his miracles, the honey bee, the bee's miracle of flight, bringing sustenance from different flowers to create honey, particularly yellow flowers and, there is no greater medicine on Earth than raw honey-patchwork to health.  We, in the healthcare fields, find that weak-stupid human beings just want a quick patch to everything.  Big Pharma and big medicine, really capitalize on this laziness.  We talk about "fixes" the average patient wants quick fix with some hard to read writing on a piece of paper.  Everyone wants a pill to take care of today's problems, patients not making any changes in lifestyle at all...what we eat-exercise-amount of rest.  When was the last time your doctor asked you about your food intake-exercise-rest?  Why not?  Next to physical care, spiritual care, the average sinner, at the "mourners' bench", just wants church membership as a fire insurance policy to stay out of hell but to keep living as with fellow sinners without making any changes in lifestyle at all...repentance, forgiveness, the grace of faith (faith: action based on belief, sustained by confidence).  I find that most human beings have no sustaining power in spiritual or physical living.  Just as your health is up to you, so is the power of God's love for you.  We love life more than anything else, fight the angel of death when hovering over us.  We see lower animals fight to the death, wanting to stay alive.  All of us, intelligent animals or stupid animals will endure any patchwork to keep us alive. 

The patchwork and pathways of life are more than just nerve endings, we try so hard to please, want everyone to like us.  It is so important to realize that God loves us, that as we stand on the street and watch others go by, it is difficult to find one that God does not love. 

There are 43 million words in the Encyclopedia Britannica; there are more bacteria in one's body than the number of cells in one's body.  We don't deserve what Christ did for us, redemption from the cares of this world into the caresses of God, talking about patchwork.

In the philosophy of reductionism, the mere mortal, thinking on the human level rather than the heavenly level, bridges to be built here on Earth.  We know that one half of the population does not consume one fruit or vegetable a day.  Most people eat just as a matter of habit, taking in useless filler-no nutrition therefore, most stay hungry-get obese-cannot fight off disease.  Why so much cancer?  Every living human being has cancer cells.  Cancer cells secrete a coating which limits their destruction-self immunity.  They are smarter than other cells. 

Your cure comes from the kitchen not the drugstore.  Disease comes from lack of nutrition.  Our soils have been depleted...anyone can say organic, can advertise organic there is a continuous need to take supplements, real patchwork.  Stay off that "if only" treadmill: if only I had eaten better, exercised more, gone to the doctor more often.  Stay away from addictions, drugs, and the lust for gourmet foods...stay with the basics, colored vegetables, and the concentrated elements-minerals in seeds.

Someone asked the great writer G.K. Chesterton, "If you were marooned on an island, what one book would you want to have with you?"  Of course this pious person expected him to say, "The Bible", but Chesterton said, "I would want a book on ship building."  God designed many of the most important things of our life in disguise all around us.  He left us with everything we need to survive.  Useless filling trash foods, useless filling lifestyles, are just temptations.  One woman, about to be baptized, immersed, said to her wonderful pastor, "I want to be baptized so I will have no more temptation."  He said, "I must keep you under the water a long time."  

#1896 Eunuchs In Chains

#1896 Eunuchs In Chains

"God Give Us Men" - Josiah Holland

     GOD, give us men! A time like this demands

     Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;

     Men whom the lust of office does not kill;

The world entices us to live in an endless state of desire.  Christians were always seen as subversives because they do not have the desires of this present world...would not worship the emperor.  Christians and patriots turn in a common wheel with those around us but we cannot afford to come out of the wheel like them, wanting what they want-liking what they like.  We cannot afford to become morose by what we see, hear, sense around us.  Fifty percent of those in any group (church-college-club) will always pick the low road of life. 

The greatest GPS known to man is the word of God.  The separating faith of Christianity, from any other religion, and certainly from the atheist, that the creator of the world and everything in it would write a book, inerrant-infallible.   Everything in our experience is dying-rusting; the human being starts dying around the age of 25.  This world traveler visited the city of Petra, in North Africa; it was the first sanctuary city.  (In Jordan built entirely of stone, long entrance so narrow only one horse at a time can go through the entrance.  Now, long vacated its massive stone edifices remain unchanged.) 

I can state without fear of contradiction that everything around me, that everything I study has made drastic change of my lifetime.  More Christians died for their faith in the twentieth century than all the other centuries combined.  2012, Tunisia, 20 Christians, beheaded by Islamists, many others since including a Catholic Priest beheaded on the alter of his church.  Christians and patriots are now the most "unwanted" people in America.  I was given a bible when I graduated from the university at Chapel Hill.  I was the first professional man to become a member of the Gideon group.  (Gideons are an organization of men who place bibles in hotels-motels, and public schools.)  Now, colleges and even Christian and Catholic churches do not "believe" the Bible.  I define faith as follows, action based on belief, sustained by confidence.  Make a list of your sinful ways; these could be cured, not just treated, by Christian faith.  In the Rome Basilica of Vincoli you find Michelangelo's Moses in Chains.  Perhaps the greatest change I have witnessed in humanity during my lifetime, the captivity of the male.  We must trust that God knows what he is doing, he made both male and female, gave great importance to both sexes: the hardness of the male: the softness of the female.  The offspring of this couple, needs both, babies need the softness of a mother but, in human biology, with maturity, the boy needs the "hunt and capture" instincts of the male, just as the girl needs the touch of the hairy face of the male in achieving her maturation, sexual development. 

American males have become castrated eunuchs in chains.  Proffered on the alter of political correctness, a sacrifice to the politics of feminism.  The lesbian females have decided that women do not need men.  That famous liberated female, Gloria Steinem said, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."  It is probable that life has always projected a man's world but even in the racial-sex centered word of God, where male ancestry was so important, many women stood out (Esther, Ruth, Deborah, etc).  In secular history, prominent women of law and science (Madame Curie, Golda Meir), young, I never knew a female doctor or lawyer, only one girl in my class.  Now, women control everything in the legal and healthcare professions.  When I was young, I never knew a male cosmetologist-dress designer.  Now, the female hires a male to "do her hair", "decorate her house".  With "Ask don't tell", women on the frontlines, as well as chiefs of staff, women in the robes of judges, scrubs in the hospital, on most boards as trustees, leaders of commerce, mayors of cities, legislators-congresspeople...the male  has retreated along with his gonads.  My own wonderful mother, "really" ran things but she would tell us to "get out of daddy's chair".  Her children gave homage to the male she had chosen to father them.  With the "disembowelment" of the male-father figure, most males have chosen to just become participants instead of actors in the very important games of life.  We get the picture of the typical male languid in his la-z-boy, watching millionaires on the ball field instead of participating in any activity himself.  There was a time, my childhood, when the male took pride in earning a living for his family-going off to work, returning happy at the end of the day to a well-kept home and children, the honor of labor, whatever it is, brick layer or stock broker.  There was a time when men received great satisfaction in paying money into the government rather than getting a government check that others had paid.  You either work or you steal from those who do work...your children-offspring know the difference. 

It is not just Hillary or Bernie who know what the gutless gonadless people want.  Be careful of what you ask for, you may get it.  I have seen communism, upfront and close-Russia-China-Burma.  You may get "lots of free stuff" but you also must get permission to get married, to have a child...in the controls of communism...what you eat, how much you eat, what you wear, every action in your day and night.  One of my Chinese guides, on one of my three visits there, in the one child Chinese Communist policy, told me his gutless gonadless brother-in-law had strangled five daughters to get one son.  I saw, with my own eyes, four families sharing a kitchen and bathroom...what it was like for the father of a family just to be an additional mouth for the government to feed...nothing more or less, hardly distinguishable from the robots, who work in the factories. 

America, proceeding on the schedule of the liberals, I see a tranquil valley...golf courses, etc...  Just a stud farm for selected males who will impregnate selected women to keep the population going.  Like prized horses, some semen collected for prized women...in this world, and you hear it everyday, everything artificial-virtual-superficial.  Why not, we have not won a war since WWII?  Now against enemies that have no military training grounds, tanks, or planes.  From the pulpit to the parapets of industry gutless-gonadless males who have forgotten the prize of winning know only the agony of defeat: as in communist China, Russia, in our new world, crematoria for the dead.  We have submitted to those who had rather see our country burn so they can rule the ashes.  We now have descendents, who as in communist China will see the tombstones of our fathers, monuments of our leaders broken down into gravel to build highways.  We already know about squealing on one another, no respect for one another, love for one another.  Gone, the time when the male was interested in inventing and discovering; lacking the enigma of sexual competence.  Most males now paralyzed by laziness, just wanting a cookbook world.  As with Peter in prison at the Antioch...God, shake off these chains.  

#1895 Tip Toeing Around the GPS

#1895

Tip Toeing Around the GPS

"Your Love Never Fails" - Jesus Culture

     And when the oceans rage
     I don't have to be afraid
     Because I know that You love me
     Your love never fails

It is not a perfect world, very few perfect people...everyone attempting to appear "non-fragile".  Grasping with our own ideal images, it is hard to tolerate disappointment in self or disappointment with others. 

Your writer, born in poverty on a dirt road in "plagued" Eastern North Carolina, no power, water, or phone lines...refuses to be identified as a victim but feels he did the very best he could with what he was given: hardworking, God-fearing, taxpaying parents, deprived country school.  Working through eight years of university education BUT why, why, why did I not invent wheels on a suitcase, the way to fold plastic for the opening of a milk carton, the discoveries-developments that have led to riches for so many people?  Why could I have not been the one to package tobacco into cigarettes, as did the Duke and Reynolds families?  (Philanthropy of Duke and Wake Forest Universities)  I was raised on a tobacco farm, knew all about tobacco, why did I not promote the toughness found in the materials, structure of the corn "shuck"?  The oil found in the seed of cotton?  I was raised growing corn and cotton, I studied chemistry at the university, knew about equations, even know about my IQ, why, why, why in the council chambers of eternity, before the foundation of the world, when God was designing his GPS for me, was I not blessed with the ability to create something, write something, paint something that would have made me "rich and famous"?  Anyone can paint by numbers on a canvas, anyone can stir a can of paint and paint a building, anyone can pick cotton-harvest corn but, let's face it, whether just plain luck or very special wiring in the brain, a very few have been blessed to come up with things that separate them from the rest of us, giving them the prestige and money of inventors-developers-discovers-or entrepreneurs AND, it is all in presentation every idea, development, discovery must be presented correctly. 

Faith is more caught than taught; more mere mortals are won to Christ by seeing a sermon than by hearing one.  No matter how much you tap dance, tip toe around the GPS of going in the right direction, ancestry-education-your own energy there are still absolutes-axioms-antecedents which we are wise to follow.  Prisons have been filled, reputations have been ruined, and families have been broken by those who took shortcuts.  There is no shortcut to honesty-integrity.  There is no shortcut around the building of character.  There is no abbreviation about one's soul salvation.  I don't want to go to a doctor who does not believe in absolutes.  From one end of the world to the other, no matter what language-nation the notes in the music score are always the same.  The Russian piano plays the same as an American piano. 

Mystery of the ages, the hardest part of your life: essence of Christianity: fanfare of the common man, anti-provocateur or warfare "to love one another" (John 13:34).  This world traveler, from one side of the world to the other (I attended a Rotarian meeting in Hong Kong, Salvation Army meeting in London) there are the "do-gooders", philanthropist, religionist, who have a sincere desire to make the world better.  America sends out more Christian missionaries to the rest of the world than all the other civilized nations together, there are more Anglican churches in the African country of Nigeria than Episcopal churches in the United States of America.  American philanthropic largesse from rich people and foundations have impregnated the world.  So, I ask you, why are family members so hateful to one another...have so much trouble just getting along?  Why, why, why would a Christian, one who stands in church and sings about "others Lord yes others" is perfectly willing to see members of his own family, people on the streets where he lives or works with everyday, die and go to hell without ever saying or doing one thing to prevent it?  We often say we have a right to certain things, we do not have a right to anything, we have responsibilities for everything.  All my life, childhood upward, I have had a destination in mind, even fingers on my pulse...for years, one day at a time nothing spectacular a very ordinary existence.  Then, I awakened, my future was extraordinary..."welded" to the GPS of Creator God...willing to stand out from the crowd...willing to point out the inequities-frailties of OUR existence.

Perhaps, it was when I attended the annual Hazel Scott Piano Concert at Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill, this stately black woman, concert pianist, was the wife of Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York City, a member of Congress and Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.  Yet, when Scott's annual performance at Chapel Hill she was not permitted to even stay at the Carolina Inn (a spectacular hotel owned by the university where dignitaries stayed) because of her skin color, she stayed with a black family on the edge of town.  When Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of a president, lectured at Memorial Hall, she was feted at the Carolina inn.

There is a constant war of the flesh...lusting of the flesh, noone escapes, even though we were designed in the image of God.  The warp and woof of religion, the greatest epic in this democratic republic which we call America, our GPS pathway, with its many twists and turns...maybe we will get there, in spite of lust, in spite of shortcuts, in spite of our being mere mortals.

#1895 Tip Toeing Around the GPS

#1895

Tip Toeing Around the GPS

"Your Love Never Fails" - Jesus Culture

     And when the oceans rage
     I don't have to be afraid
     Because I know that You love me
     Your love never fails

It is not a perfect world, very few perfect people...everyone attempting to appear "non-fragile".  Grasping with our own ideal images, it is hard to tolerate disappointment in self or disappointment with others. 

Your writer, born in poverty on a dirt road in "plagued" Eastern North Carolina, no power, water, or phone lines...refuses to be identified as a victim but feels he did the very best he could with what he was given: hardworking, God-fearing, taxpaying parents, deprived country school.  Working through eight years of university education BUT why, why, why did I not invent wheels on a suitcase, the way to fold plastic for the opening of a milk carton, the discoveries-developments that have led to riches for so many people?  Why could I have not been the one to package tobacco into cigarettes, as did the Duke and Reynolds families?  (Philanthropy of Duke and Wake Forest Universities)  I was raised on a tobacco farm, knew all about tobacco, why did I not promote the toughness found in the materials, structure of the corn "shuck"?  The oil found in the seed of cotton?  I was raised growing corn and cotton, I studied chemistry at the university, knew about equations, even know about my IQ, why, why, why in the council chambers of eternity, before the foundation of the world, when God was designing his GPS for me, was I not blessed with the ability to create something, write something, paint something that would have made me "rich and famous"?  Anyone can paint by numbers on a canvas, anyone can stir a can of paint and paint a building, anyone can pick cotton-harvest corn but, let's face it, whether just plain luck or very special wiring in the brain, a very few have been blessed to come up with things that separate them from the rest of us, giving them the prestige and money of inventors-developers-discovers-or entrepreneurs AND, it is all in presentation every idea, development, discovery must be presented correctly. 

Faith is more caught than taught; more mere mortals are won to Christ by seeing a sermon than by hearing one.  No matter how much you tap dance, tip toe around the GPS of going in the right direction, ancestry-education-your own energy there are still absolutes-axioms-antecedents which we are wise to follow.  Prisons have been filled, reputations have been ruined, and families have been broken by those who took shortcuts.  There is no shortcut to honesty-integrity.  There is no shortcut around the building of character.  There is no abbreviation about one's soul salvation.  I don't want to go to a doctor who does not believe in absolutes.  From one end of the world to the other, no matter what language-nation the notes in the music score are always the same.  The Russian piano plays the same as an American piano. 

Mystery of the ages, the hardest part of your life: essence of Christianity: fanfare of the common man, anti-provocateur or warfare "to love one another" (John 13:34).  This world traveler, from one side of the world to the other (I attended a Rotarian meeting in Hong Kong, Salvation Army meeting in London) there are the "do-gooders", philanthropist, religionist, who have a sincere desire to make the world better.  America sends out more Christian missionaries to the rest of the world than all the other civilized nations together, there are more Anglican churches in the African country of Nigeria than Episcopal churches in the United States of America.  American philanthropic largesse from rich people and foundations have impregnated the world.  So, I ask you, why are family members so hateful to one another...have so much trouble just getting along?  Why, why, why would a Christian, one who stands in church and sings about "others Lord yes others" is perfectly willing to see members of his own family, people on the streets where he lives or works with everyday, die and go to hell without ever saying or doing one thing to prevent it?  We often say we have a right to certain things, we do not have a right to anything, we have responsibilities for everything.  All my life, childhood upward, I have had a destination in mind, even fingers on my pulse...for years, one day at a time nothing spectacular a very ordinary existence.  Then, I awakened, my future was extraordinary..."welded" to the GPS of Creator God...willing to stand out from the crowd...willing to point out the inequities-frailties of OUR existence.

Perhaps, it was when I attended the annual Hazel Scott Piano Concert at Memorial Hall in Chapel Hill, this stately black woman, concert pianist, was the wife of Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York City, a member of Congress and Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.  Yet, when Scott's annual performance at Chapel Hill she was not permitted to even stay at the Carolina Inn (a spectacular hotel owned by the university where dignitaries stayed) because of her skin color, she stayed with a black family on the edge of town.  When Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of a president, lectured at Memorial Hall, she was feted at the Carolina inn.

There is a constant war of the flesh...lusting of the flesh, noone escapes, even though we were designed in the image of God.  The warp and woof of religion, the greatest epic in this democratic republic which we call America, our GPS pathway, with its many twists and turns...maybe we will get there, in spite of lust, in spite of shortcuts, in spite of our being mere mortals.

#1894 Gorillia's Eyes

#1894

Gorilla's Eyes

"Pray About Everything" Luke Bryan

     Don't worry 'bout nothing
     Let it go, see what tomorrow brings
     Don't worry 'bout nothing
     Pray about everything
     Pray about everything

Looking at the world through God's eyes is different from looking at the world through your eyes.  If only I could have observed some of the "sights of history", think of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants, Caesar returning from African wars crossing the Hellespont with caged beasts never seen in Europe.  Think of that giraffe marched from Rome to Paris with peasants lined up three deep.  Have you ever considered a tsunami such as that in 2011 that wiped out entire Pacific coastlines?  We are all products of "stinking thinking" but think of the atheist philosophers of the Nietzsche "tribe" (God is dead fame) who have told us that life began with spores on this Earth from a spaceship.  Stainless steel appears unharmed by a battering BUT when President Trump takes over, it will be a sight to behold and there will be some battering.  Please God, let me live and see him inaugurated, see him start the process of cleaning out the hog pen. 

This writer owned-maintained an apartment in Manhattan for many years, near the Trump Tower...for those tinged with communism, national news media plus their willing cohorts in federal government, we will see what happens with real diversity. 

Mr. Trump is not a fistula abnormality of recent political corruption...Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons, and their ilk.  The heathen of the talking box (TV) "yellow" editorial pages, wimpy so-called journalists and news people, cannot understand a real man...a successful man, a man who can attain without "kissing up" to every agenda group (gays-women-minority skin colors).  NEW TO AMERICA, THE WINNER OF A POLITICAL CONTEST, WHO, LIKE THE REST OF US, IS A SINNER BUT NOT A CRIMINAL. 

Unlike the Clintons, when they vacated the White House, he will have no need to steal America's property from the furnished dwelling provided for the president.  Compared to Trump Tower and his other homes, he and Melania will probably consider 1600 Pennsylvania Ave as a shack.  He will have no need to impress lowlife contributors by having him sleep in a bed there (Lincoln bedroom).  His private airplane is as large as Air Force One and, like the brush arbor preachers of old, he was not afraid to say what he thinks...does not cover up every sentence with political correctness.  Americans who work hard, pay their taxes, attempt to raise decent children, cling to the promises of Creator God were refreshed-delighted to see a non-pretender. 

There have been more books written about Abraham Lincoln than any other president.  Back before the Truman porch, back before the indelicacies of Johnson-Clinton perversion, Lincoln was once found polishing his shoes sitting on the steps of a White House staircase.  The visitor said, "Mr. Lincoln, why are YOU polishing your shoes?"  He replied, "Why not?  I am the one who wears them." 

There is a tornado of confusion with poor and middle-class people who always want to be at the top.  Most politicians have sought financial security, notoriety at the expense of the taxpayer.  They were willing to take any shortcut to get there, prostituting themselves on the aggrandized alter of compromise.  By the time they get into public office, from a lowly city official to federal prestige they have very few of their ideals-convictions-concerns left.  The playing cards on Air Force One, gold trimmed, they cost $8000 a deck.  Of course, you could not keep them on the plane because they were all stolen.  The White House, our nation's capitol, our nation's temporal of government have all been overrun by people with low morals.  I certainly believe there has been some computerized, "note taking" at the Trump Tower.  Please God, let President Trump turn the whole stinking place upside down...show this tainted Democrat news media how to escape through the backdoor, these "Rhino" (Republican in name only) members of the so-called RNC where to go and how to get back.  I hope he will not even invite former presidents Bush, 41 and 43, to even watch him take the oath of office.  They would not support him, why should he even acknowledge them?  Many of us do not believe that paying promotes goodness.  Even Dante's Inferno tells us that there is a special place in hell for hypocrites. 

For most of my life, I have had great doubts about leaders who are so insecure.  Dillying  and dallying in every personal action, yet willing to expend audacious vocal interest in promising to take care of the problems of others.  We are tired of being fed myths, in a democratic republic built on a foundation of truth.  From childhood, we were taught, honesty is the best policy...honest people look better, live longer. 

Do you not tire of the putrid dribble from talking heads, who are paid such tremendous salaries to say absolutely nothing?  There are so many important things for them to read into the teleprompter...for instance, the greatest health hazard to any living metabolic being, the fumes from combustible engines.  America has the world's largest prison population, 78% of those released go back in, even though they took postgraduate courses within the walls on not getting caught.  Meekness does not mean weakness; forget the bluster of gay aloofness found in most male politicians and male bureaucrats.  Forget the lesbian vernacular found in most female politicians and female bureaucrats.  Forget the gorilla eyes of elitist media types and political pundits when they stare "down" at you.  Most of us know the stability of the rock on which we stand. 

One of the world's great political leaders, the only man who really conquered the world, Alexander the Great, owned a great horse; his horse would not allow anyone else to ride him except his master, Alexander the Great.  If a horse can comprehend greatness, surely it is time for mere mortals to get educated.  

#1893 Fat Cats and the Hustle

#1893

Fat Cats and the Hustle

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  (Mark 8:36)

"Fanfare for the Common Man" - Styx

     Another new day takes up on you
     A fanfare wakes the land
     The naked lives just a shining down
     At the dawn of the common man

As our senses are bombarded each day with the unbelievable there is no better way to measure the signals-signs-symptoms of our moral decay than how one of the world's leaders-former president and pervert, Bill Clinton, has become a "fat cat" using his presidential candidate wife as a whore...by leaders of nations spending great sums to spend time with her or funneling funds from desperate Haitians to their own sordid foundation.  Even their own daughter Chelsea, said the actions of their Clinton Foundation sounds like a hustle.  Between the three Clintons, there is as much talent or integrity as that found in a block of wood. 

We may as well accept the fact, this day, 21st century, that there are those among us willing to burn down the country in order to rule the ashes.  Listen Democrats, so obvious JFK, RFK, and certainly Senator Teddy would have sold their "mamma" for just a little more power.  Listen Republicans, Bush 41 and Bush 43, like "grandpa" who traded with Hitler were willing to climb any tree-cross any ditch for more money and power.  Trouble like decay has a way of wearing off on other people.  In politics: Kennedy's-Clinton's-Bush's and other fat cats like them who will never have enough money, here comes nepotism, family horror show, political junkies, who could never succeed any where else to fill all the seats of the so-called civil servants.  They are not servants at all but wanna be masters.  Anyone, who has ever spent ten minutes at a city hall, courthouse, or veteran's facility, has seen these political appointees whose eyes are filled with such disgust and disdain toward you.  They are truly the ne'er-do-wells on whom our future revolves.

The first Jew, Abraham, grandson, Jacob, twelve sons who became the tribes of Israel.  Eleven brothers sold Joseph into slavery for twenty pieces of silver.  Just one of Jesus' twelve disciples sold him for thirty pieces of silver.  With politicians, pastors and their packages, administrators and their "anal kissing ability", to say nothing of "big shot" scions of commerce enough is never enough. 

This writer, world traveler, was once in the African country of Niger, early one morning, my walk, I saw a donkey being engorged by quicksand, the poor natives were attempting to get their valued beast loosened from this entrapment.  They could not afford to get into the quicksand themselves, were using poles to try to free the animal, and the animal was constantly jumping BUT as with the fat cats of our world-those who hustle for everything, the entrapment finally killed the animal and then the destitute natives just let their means of transportation sink on into the sand as his final burial place. 

Bureaucrats will fake or fawn anything to get near the tax-money pot. Politicians will prostitute self to gain that certain security of knowing that they are forever financially fixed with election.  When the voters no longer trust them there is always some lobbyist job or board of trustees that will absorb them.  You may have to sacrifice every iota of decency to which you adhere to become a fat cat.  After all, they truly believe that shrouds have pockets.  We farm boys knew that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.  I was slapped in the face with the lifestyles of the rich and famous when I left the farm and went to college, there I saw the costumes-vehicles (mostly expensive convertibles) of those whose families had inherited life's lottery.   No matter what town they always knew the rich people there.  They never had any knowledge of those who subsidize their rich friends' lives.  Those in higher education, those in legislative halls of justice, those chased by fraternal groups-civic and country clubs, those who buy things they don't need-eat from expensive menus have never known what life is like when not allowed to cross the drawbridge.  The moat of disability-unattractiveness-ancestral dependence will never allow most of us to get into the castle...never across the drawbridge.

The fairy dust and sideshows provided every person with eyes from the talking box has shown everyone with any intelligence at all. just how unequal-different the inhabitants of this world happen to be.  Those who patrol the parapets of the walls of success are fat cats, who got their mostly by the hustle.  In the shell game of subsidies and socialism, the entrepreneur, industrious human, "go-getter" thinks he has succeeded on his own, thinks he is above the "down and outer" who just did not have what it takes but, did he sell his birth right for a mess of pottage?  Lying is difficult when the other side knows they are being lied to.  Do we really fool ourselves when we know we got there by compromise?  "Attainers" of success become addicted to our own affirmations. 

We often do nothing because we cannot do everything.  Take some satisfaction in throwing a blanket over the largest challenge possible.  We are told to always give a robber your pocketbook.  The robber does not have time to hustle you but your friends and enemies will take the time.  I have never known a conman I did not like...a man on the fast track to becoming a fat cat.  Anyone can paint by numbers; any low life can tear down a beautiful architectural building.  It takes real artist to turn out an expensive canvas, a true carpenter to build a structure of beauty.  It is difficult in early years to be sure of anything.  First we must learn to differentiate between real gold and fake gold...real friends from fair-weather friends...that some believe that punishment is a part of sincere religion.  We mature, we grow up, and you never grow down...you face the winds of life knowing that no tree will grow without wind.  Most of all, you learn there is no conviction without charity.  The fat cat, through the hustle, has chosen his own destiny.  Discipleship and discipline has chosen your destination.

#1892 Texting, Tweeting, Trusting

#1892

Texting, Tweeting, Trusting

 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

An experienced fisherman recognizes the pull on the line.  The course of true love never runs smooth.  There are generations of people, particularly in America, who let others speak for them, particularly in song lyrics, movie and television shows, letters to the editor, and especially radio talk shows.  

Every religion in the world blesses humility and the poor in spirit, those of us who were not winners of life's lottery, those whose candles burned out without ever making much of a glow, those girls who never wore a chastity belt BUT, unlike the caste system I saw in India there is no reason why all class should have disappeared in America...people who knew how to use utensils in eating, who knew how to dress when going to church or a funeral, people who sought knowledge for the sake of learning: who knew how to write thank you notes: who showed a rudimentary knowledge of manners.  This old, blind antiquarian-octogenarian remembers when men, when they still wore hats, would tip their hat at any female...lady or not.  I still remember wives, who would introduce their husbands as mister, children who showed manners at the table when eating out, above all, sons who would seat their mothers at the table and even in this day of liberated women, would open the car door for a member of the opposite sex or an elderly citizen.    

Why were we put on this planet, chosen by God for life, given "freewill" in our lifestyle?  Variety is the spice of life and God certainly wanted variety in those he chose to occupy his Earth.  Because of his writing in the "Lamb's Book of Life" he certainly knew that some would believe on him and some would not.  That a very few would have MENSA intelligence (MENSA founded in England a fraternity of the super intelligent), he knew that his perfect creation would not remain perfect...not with human beings.  He knew that some men and some women would prefer the hog pen...would not be bothered by wallowing around in filth, using rotten language-appreciating rotten music, with little ambition about anything.  However, he created everything that pleased him, along with man to manage what he had created.

In our spiritual relationship with God, we are tainted even there with inequalities...sacrosanct of not interfering with one's personal relationship with God. I cannot conceive of any human being not having a need for worship, honoring a power more sovereign than self.  What prophet is honored in his own country?  Most of us underestimate God's mercy.   Tainted by elitist media, that old refrain of family members, "What will people say?"  I found in my own thinking and exploring the thinking of others, that most of us put limits on self.  It is that rare human personality not tethered with a limiting chain who will explore everything...certainly books...certainly the sound waves of radio.  You can stay in the valley of mediocrity or climb the mountain of superiority, it is all in the mind, the choice is yours. 

Some convicts keep scrapbooks of their notorious exploits.  Some college professors keep scrapbooks of their academic attainments.  Some politicians keep scrapbooks of their rise in power, their political advertisements.  We spend too much time listening to ourselves and not enough time talking to ourselves...listening to why we should not do something, rather than telling ourselves we are capable of doing anything.  Every mother and grandmother keeps scrapbooks of her children...photographs as they mature.  How many parents, grandparents, tell their most precious possessions that life is mostly vanity?  How many fathers tell a son that "one man plus God and anything is possible"?  In my home, my mother, every time we went out "courting" or anything else, she would say, "Remember who you are."  Now, with a bottomless ocean of technology, wireless everything, texting, tweeting, teasing, why not instill within the minds of young people the phenomenon of trust? 

With all our warts, even rottenness, God requires from us just trust, nothing else.  I find that most of my fellow citizens, even at the church house, want God created in our image instead of us created in the image of God.  When one is created in the image of God, the holy spirit of Jesus in our mortal body, there is an overwhelming presence of peace and class.  What has happened to class...that presence of decency-modesty-self assurance?  I remember the time when customers dressed for air flight.  As one of my friends said recently, "The people who did ride buses now crowd airplanes."  I remember the time when people, even non-believers, wore their "Sunday best" when they went to church.  A pastor friend told me that many want to wear beach clothing shorts-flip flop-tank tops.  One boy came in his church carrying a "tin can" so he could spit his chewing tobacco.  Another said, a girl went on the platform to sing a special, wearing a mini skirt.  We know it happened at the schoolhouse, just entertainment and indoctrination.  Has it happened at the church house, just entertainment-laughing-clapping, educated musicians on the organ and piano replaced by just someone beating on a drum? 

Before the fall of Rome, the Circus Maximus, just entertainment...even if it meant lions chasing Christians.  In depressing Moscow, a destitute communist people, I went to their great circus...the only time I saw Russians laugh. 

This writer has lived most of his life in the solitary confinement of blindness; I can well imagine the hopelessness in the solitary confinement of prisoners.  THINK NOW IN MY LIFETIME, A SATANIC-PERVERTED MEDIA VIA THE TALKING BOX (TV) HAS LOWERED EVERYONE TO THE SAME MEDIOCRITY.  When watching or listening to the mediocrity pushed into our homes, do you not feel you are drowning?  There are no cultured thoughts in homosexual behavior, ugly-coarse language, and sexual innuendos.  Your writer is blind but knows full well that relationships with everything ignite in the eye.  In speaking to a Southern Baptist convention long ago, I said, "If Satan had wanted to invent something to make mankind just as mean-evil as possible, he would have invented a television set."  Perhaps, even worse, the computer...every wicked porno shop attraction, right in your own living room. 

I do not worship a part-time lord and I do not serve him on a part-time basis.  I have failed him so many times but he has never failed me.  But, I must beg everyday for him to give me class.  We have all heard of art nouveau, art that does not make much sense.  Now, we have trash nouveau, up to our ankles with satanic manure that does not make any sense.  There is no class in the hog pen.  Thank God I lived at a time, at least part of my life, in spite of skin color, ancestry, limitations of one kind or another, I knew people with class, showed their class in spite of what goes on in the world. 

For many years I owned a very fine apartment on the eastside of New York City...near the United Nations.  Because of my world travel, etc I was invited to many receptions.  One USA-UN official was a black man from Georgia like me, raised in the South at a time of segregation-Jim Crow.  He said, "I came from a family of black people with class, poor but decent, minority but at peace with the majority.  My grandmother, wife of a black physician would say to me, 'Don't ever forget who you are, if you get out and get into a mess and get hauled off downtown to the jail, don't expect us to come downtown to get you.'"  We have seen the lack of class even at the White House, the 42nd president who will go down in history for his antics-perversions in the Oval Office.  Power and money do not provide class, it starts in the mind, and it shows up in every action.