Half Baked

"The redeemed before the throne--look how they shine! Hark how they sing! They were not always as they are now. They were once like us--sorrowing, suffering, sinning! But He has washed them from their sins in His own blood--and wiped away their tears with His own nail-pierced hands!" -John Newton

"All glory to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding His blood for us! All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen." Revelation 1:5-6 
  

            If you don't get in the water, you will never learn to swim; no matter how many books you read about swimming. Satan has been very effective in setting up his "firewall" of demarcation/boundary lines, in the secular world. When I graduated from the University 65 years ago this month, we were presented a bible (this from the nation's first and oldest state-supported University, UNC Chapel Hill). Now, from everything I hear, even on "so-called" Christian College campuses, Christianity is demoted to a superstition; and we now have cities beautified, with church steeples empty. My seminary professor's son was recently asked to travel to a church and attempt to resuscitate. He said, "Beautiful building, beautiful city." A building which seated 900 people, had exactly 20 persons there on Sunday morning. He had just returned from a mission trip to Japan, taking with him 14 seminarians. In Japan, the once all-consuming Shinto religion, with its shrines, now just considered a part of Japan's history...superstition.

            This writer, world traveler (Dr. Morris has made eight around the world trips, every Continent, passport stamped in 157 Countries), in Burma, more Stupa's (religious shrines) than people. In Greece, the ancient city of Delphi; above one temple in Gold letters, these words, "know thyself." In Paris, France, one of the great tourist attractions: Napoleons Tomb. The story is that, after one of his bloodiest battles, he presented a medal to each surviving soldier...which had on it, only the words, "The Battle, I was there." We Americans were here during the most critical part of our history, a time of healthcare scams, attempts to "unisex" everything from the school house to the military's front lines. We have seen the churches emptied out, but sports arena's filled in. Every Christian should remember one thing: today I am one day closer to heaven or hell.

            In China, I was at a group of caves, known for their ancient religious attraction. Three older Chinese men called me over to them, they said to me in broken English, "We believe you are a Christian." I said, "Yes, how did you know?" The reply of one, "You can always tell, a Christian has joy, and that is what attracted us to Christianity." IF there were joy in the many churches which you find on almost every corner of every American City, the unsaved would be trying to get in, and members would have the pews filled; instead of what is happening now.

            This has been the mystery of my life, a human being, chosen by God to live on this rare and beautiful planet. IF we are believers, we should be concerned about those around us, certainly members of our own family...they are going to die; "The mortality rate is still 100%," and will end up in one of two places, nothing in between. When I was a boy, I still remember one old man in our community, a dirt tenant farmer named Romey; who would go to my cousin's country store with his bible, and invite the men he knew to sit and talk with him about God's word. Brother Romey would never go on a mission trip, would never preach in a pulpit, but he was concerned about the men who farmed around him...the men he knew. I know very few pairs who are even concerned about their own children...if one would die suddenly by choking on something, or by car crash.

            Those of us raised poor, never get over the food we ate...we still sometimes prefer it to the finest foods in the finest restaurants. My mother and grandmothers have been dead a long time. But, I can still see them cooking cornbread, perhaps the cheapest food known to man (just a matter of cornmeal; ground-up corn, with water, made into cakes). I can still see my mother frying these cornbread "cakes" in a (cast) iron frying pan. She always cooked them well on both sides...they were not good half baked. I can think of nothing I'd rather have to eat, right now, than a cake of her cornbread. If only we could see our future, know that we are already living eternally...just "half-baked." Most of us do not really believe, sincerely or completely, in anything. Otherwise, we would not see the blight on the family...the curse brought on children (abortion, child trafficking and sex slavery chains). Unbelievers, even our own children, must SEE Christianity in us before they HEAR anything about Christianity from us.

Stupa (Religious Shrine)

Joseph Thomas and Sally Pittman Morris at their only daughters wedding 1970

                                                       Count Your Blessings 2019

                                                                  IF
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies or being hated don't give way to hating. And don't look to good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream and not make dreams your master; if you can think and not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. If you bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build'em up with worn out tools.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose and start again at your beginning and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone. And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them "Hold On"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you If all men count with you but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distant run, Your's is the Earth and everything that's in it And which is more-you'll be a Man my Son

                                              (written by Rudyard Kipling 1895)

        One cannot honor a Earthly Father without having a special relationship with his Heavenly Father.
        In the last days of my life, 89, now dying with prostate cancer, So many has said to me "what attribute your success the answer is so easy The Salvation provided me by God and the genes provided by my earthly parents.
      My mother and father enjoyed singing they didn't go to the church house to mumble but to let everyone knew what they where singing and around the farm, you could always hear singing perhaps my father's favorite "Count your Blessings" and another hymn which he loved, "Nothing Between".
When he was not doing his chores we could hear him singing and have not forgotten his testimony.
     One must have memories, So many not ever a memory of a father. Have you ever consider what it was like for young people 100 years ago to get to know one another so that the marvelous blessing of family life can take place. I can remember when it was only one telephone in the community; few cars. A boy would be attractive to a girl he saw at the church house or school house. He would go to the home and asked her father for her hand in marriage. Good family names, integrity, blood lines, have always been important one cannot read the Bible without establishing this fact.
My parents, from two North Carolina first families were raised within two miles of one another. So anyone asked me of my success it can easily be retrace. I know about my great grand parents, grand parents and parents; family honor country. We can easily look at our own children, grandchildren and see our ancestors personalities and value systems.
      On Father's Day it's a good time to relearn where you got your valves, your treatment of others, your work ethics. The greatest joy one can know on this earth is the joy of knowing that you have not disappointed them.

   

Today I wonder the same, what about you? June 11 2019

If I Had My Life To Live Over Again

When asked “How would you have lived your life differently if you had a chance?” Nadine Stair, an 85-year-old woman, from Louisville, Kentucky, provided these poetic words as her response…

If I had my life to live over again,
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax.
I’d limber up.
I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances,
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones.
you see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane,
hour after hour,
day after day.

Oh, I’ve had my moments.
If I had to do it over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else- just moments,
one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.

I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute.
If I could do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had to live my life over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances,
I would ride more merry-go-rounds,
I would pick more daisies.

– Nadine Stair

What beautiful words to ponder. What a sweet and sobering poem. It perfectly reflects the message passed down to me from from my elders when I worked in nursing homes in my early 20’s.

Those wonderful people, who were getting close to the end of their days, taught me so much about what really mattered in life. Their wisdom set me on the path to conscious living and for that I will be forever grateful to each one of them.

In today’s world, the emphasis is on getting stuff done rather than enjoying the unfolding dance of life.

It’s not often we allow ourselves the luxury of being fully present for our precious moments. When we live like this – always trying to get somewhere instead of being here – we are short changing our lives. 

So, ponder this poem deeply my dear friends. Let it seep into every cell and molecule of your being. Let it open you up and break through the belief that the next moment will finally make you happy.

This is it.

This moment.

This is your one wild and precious life, here and now.

-Love Melli

#1948 Featherbed Warrior

#1948 Featherbed Warrior

#1948

Featherbed Warriors

Don't you wish you had purchased Microsoft stock when it came out 30 years ago, Microsoft stock has gone up 89,000%: $1000 invested then would be $1million now.

There are one billion people of the seven billion people on the face of the Earth now on Facebook.  Why are these social media sites so valuable?  This writer remembers the time when you could send a message on a one cent postcard...that was all we had; I was raised in impoverished Eastern North Carolina on a dirt road without power-phone-waterlines.  AND, we doctors wonder why aged people of that time in history possessed such clogged up insides: filled with toxicity.  Whatever the weather they had to go outside to an outhouse for elimination and they suffered with the toxicity of lack of elimination which poisoned their bodies...led to their deaths. 

I am saying all this because there is a difference in people.  Bill Gates, world's richest man, founded of Microsoft-operating out of a car garage.  Would present himself to anyone as just an ordinary man, but in his 10 Rules for Success, his first rule is that there is no such thing as fairness. 

Most of those on Facebook are just ordinary people but you never know when one is going to stand out.  Our Puritan forefathers ALL used outhouses; such was the case at the White House until the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.  Today, all over the world in a bottomless ocean of technology ordinary people use a handheld phone which contains more technology than the module which landed on the Moon.  Were these ordinary men?  Was John Glenn an ordinary man?  Men, who were willing to be blasted off the face of the Earth with power equivalent to an atomic bomb...perhaps to never return.

The first telephone was placed in the White House by President Hayes in 1877.  Its number was number one.  Hayes did not think it was very useful.  This writer was raised in a community where there was only one telephone for many miles: at my cousin's country store.  But, very ordinary people live life, did the best they knew without inside plumbing, telephones, or computers.  All this has happened in my lifetime, can we even imagine what the future holds...everything invented-produced-used by ordinary people? 

I so remember, as a small child, helping my grandmother "make-up" the feather beds in our house, there were no sophisticated mattresses with programming for softness and hardness.  Much birdlife had given their feathers, one of the most intricate of God's creations in order that one could sleep in comfort on a very soft bed.  The bed, filled with feathers was fluffed and smoothed to give the tired worker some measure of sleep.  Today's spoiled young people cannot imagine the hard ground on which soldiers slept while fighting for the facilities-pleasures which they enjoy in this country. 

I am a rare book collector, own a collection of thousands of antiquarian books, there are books about everything.  I once had two young college intellectuals-millennials who were shown the pictures of a farm outhouse, they had never seen such.  They had no idea what a slit trench or other facilities soldiers had to use could not even be imagined.  They looked at a book showing the butchery of animals, hogs and cows, which they enjoy eating but the pictures of the butchery process mad them ill.  Most children have no idea about the origination of the eggs which they find on their plates...that the shells of eggs are the most intricate processes of God's creation.  Yet, ordinary people, all over the world, know about the fowl-gallus species-bird with their intricate feathers, egg shells-a marvel of physics, hollow bones which make them lighter in flight.  This writer, at the North Pole, saw the hills blackened with birds called terns, with all our knowledge of physics-geography-physiology we still cannot understand how this bird life can fly continuously from the North Pole to the South Pole in a resolution of tracking (those at the front moving back, everyone taking their turn at the front in order.)  The most sophisticated zoologist attempts to explain how the baby chick knows when to peck himself out of the eggshell, knows immediately how to hold his head in order to get water down this throat, and knows his own mother's clucking pattern from any other hen.

Many years ago, I heard Dr. Margaret Swanton, professor in the UNC-CH medical school make the statement that I have never forgotten, I don't think she realized at the time what she had said, she said, "The human body does not function the way it is written in books, every doctor worth the piece of paper he holds knows the truth of this statement."  If all science were so simple, so many things, such marvels of God's creation, so easily understood...everything fitting into a design of scientific reasoning or certainly some laws of nature.  It takes ordinary people to realize that man does not have the answer for very many things...what makes some of us so different, many so indifferent, MOST SO ORDINARY.  Letters behind your name mean very little just as rank on your shoulder means little on the battlefield.  Most war heroes were very ordinary men, most people who have the mental wiring to make great discoveries have no special metabolic structure, only blessed with an innate desire to pursue and accomplish.  Young people could still be fluffing a feather bed, which would still feel so good to a tired body but there was someone who had the ability to seek-study-select a better source of sleep-rest-comfort.  Thank goodness there was someone who pursued the idea of pushing water through pipes, using the physics of airways for sound travel, the magnanimity of electronics to bring electronic messaging into a home via a talking box: the ever present television set, the completely dependent computer (every person-business-warrior now completely dependent on the computer...a system which even a small child can operate: a child which has never seen a chick escape from an egg, an outhouse, a dial telephone).  Those of you with degrees-military rank-much wealth-good looks-gravitas of every type GOOD NEWS, remember, God loves the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, the color-scent-texture of a rose as well as the plainness but essential quality of grass. 

Father's Day 2019

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.

-Pope John XXIII

            We have known for some time that most vehicle crashes on the highway are caused by (drivers on) prescription drugs or alcohol. You should remember this each time you're speeding down a busy highway, approaching a fast car driven from the opposite direction...you are just a few feet from death, because anything could happen; failure of a vehicle, or even a doped up driver.

            Michelangelo spent forty years of his life on his back, painting that marvelous ceiling of the Sistine chapel, Vatican, Rome. When looking at that ceiling, as I did many times, one cannot imagine the talent/time involved (in its creation). In the early years before electric power, for 400 years, it could only be viewed by officials taking candles and torches into the Edifice. So, you can imagine how blackened, over the period of 400 years, it became. In more recent years, it has been cleaned. When you look at the other sculptures of Michelangelo, such as his sculpture of Moses, it is hard to imagine all that talent in the brain of just one man. It has been said that after the completion of Moses, featured at the . The statue, so real that even the artist himself hit it with a hammer and said "speak to me."

            With all the greatest of some men, we think of great world leaders, who were fathers of children; none take a back seat to the average hard working, God-fearing, tax paying father who, not only gave us life through his affections and mixture of DNA with his wife, than are own father. To raise a child, with the temptations, risks, expenses involved in today's world; that 40 years can be well inequity, on a balancing scale, with that of Michelangelo.

            At the beginning of WWII, draft boards were set up in each county to pick from the male youth of that county, those who would be selected for military service. My own grandfather sat on this draft board. In our community was a wonderful family by the name of "Acock." My grandfather told how the father/head of that family came before the board and begged that his only son, draft age, would be spared from selection of military service. He said, "I was in WWI, I know about war, please let me go in place of my son; if anything were to happen to our only son, it would kill both me and his mother."

            From the beginning of time, certainly discovering the history of the Old Testament, we now know the importance of a father in a family. Certainly, women had their place in the history of the world. But, as we so plainly see in the certain history involving men of the Old Testament....maleness, ancestry.

            Woman began to take their place in our Western culture around WWII. Perhaps it started with a cover on LIFE magazine, featuring women wearing slacks. Women started working in factories, as was the case with my mother and grandmothers. My father and my grandmother's other sons had gone to war. Women drove tractors, and even mules on the farm. They kept things going until their husbands and sons returned. Then came television and the fact that most television writers and producers were gay. You can slice it down to the beginning of time when men started designing women's clothing, starting working with women's hair...started degrading real men in theater and movie productions. The attempt has been made to make buffoons of fathers.

            This writer has been blind for over 50 years. I understand that some men now wear earrings, that seeing a man walking down the street dressed like a woman is not a rare sight. We all have been exposed to the recent epidemic of gentless marriage, unisex showers and bathrooms. You will not find this type of abomination is Muslim countries. Even Liberal, Western civilization nations, realize that a woman's place is anywhere that a woman can serve. The nurses on the battlefield work for military hospitals; more female doctors and lawyers now than male. 65% of all college students are now female, when I was in college there were very few female students, only one in my graduating class. At the funeral of a great pastor, one of the speakers referred to what I had said about the one being eulogized. I had said, "I have seen his Christianity in my home."

             I am what I am today, because of MY father, the hardest working man I have ever known. I never knew him to go hunting or fishing, any type of entertaining because there was always work to do. After working late, he, and he alone, would always milk the cows. On Saturday's, when most men were watching ball games, he would stay on his feet all weekend long and cut hair. But, my father knew the joy of all his children graduating from college, knew the feeling of having one of the nicest homes in the community, of seeing my mother well dressed. It was he who went to the church early on Sunday mornings and built fires in all of the wood stoves. In Summer, he'd go out early and open all the windows. It was he, more so than the pastor or any other member, who made sure the church was closed up after service. It was he, who with his great voice, that lead the singing, taught a class, or even preach if necessary. Talk is cheap, but it is the walk of the father that we celebrate on fathers' day. I was never that type father. My son and grandsons well know that I stand strictly on the shoulders of my ancestors...nothing I have done compares to what they did/accomplished.

As another Father's Day approaches let us never forget our Father's

Remembering Our Father's on Father's Day 2019

There is nothing as conceivable in the mind of man than the grandeur of the grace of God. Every study, secular or temporal, tells us that good relationships keep us happier and healthier, especially relationships with our own family, and especially relationships with our own parents. That great commandment, given by God to Moses with promise, tells us to honor our parents.

I have been amazed, in a long life, how many young men had no relationship with their own father. Oh! The words they would use about their father, even though they were the carrier of their father's DNA. I never knew a gay male to refer to his father, he always talked about his mother.

Mark Twain said life is not long enough to have hardness, we need softness--certainly softness in the appreciation of parents, no matter how "adrift" the biological father, who planted the seed for your life. There is no way we can know the reason for things working out as they do with couples, divorce, etc. But, God has his reason for bringing people together, for giving certain very definite DNA characteristics to someone like you, characteristics which can never be duplicated. If there had not been illicit sex between David and Bathsheba there would never have been a Solomon, known for the three W's: Wisdom, Wealth, Wives. More importantly, he is known for his great contribution to God's Holy Word.

Every day, we marvel at the courage of so-called "average" people. Every day, we grieve for people who squander their lives... So many suicides among young people.

We all must come to the realization that we cannot jump further than we have jumped already. We are not stuck where we start. That great preacher, Jonathan Edwards--pastor, missionary to Indian tribes--gave us the best definition for free will: God giving man the freedom of choice, the right to choose. Man without God in the mind is just a sophisticated chimpanzee.

Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, came to a fork in the road. A Cheshire cat was in a tree nearby. She asked the cat which direction she should take. The cat said, "where are you going?" and Alice replied, "I don't know." The cat replied, "Then it doesn't matter which direction you take."

The vast population of the world has always been made up of people with simple, genuine opinions. The greatest sound on this earth was the cry of a baby in Bethlehem... perhaps the greatest example of Fatherhood. God worked it all out in the council chambers of eternity. He chose to give us life and then chose to put on a tent of human flesh and live a perfect life among us...willing to die on a cruel tree to show us the very essence of giving. The father gave his son, the son gave his life.

I was amazed at how smart my own father was when I went to college. It did not take me long to have a new appreciation for him, the workingest man I have ever known, and probably the smartest. He did the best he could with what he had...intelligence, work ethic, frugal living, faith in a sovereign God. On the day of his funeral, just before the service started, a large funeral wreath was brought in to join all of those already there. The funeral director came over and handed the card to me and I put it in my pocket. Later, I had someone read the card to me. It was from the local General Assembly State Legislative Senator. "In memory of the only man who ever asked me about the welfare of my soul."

At the university, I was so impressed by men with PhD and MD degrees. They could not begin to measure up to my father, who could understand and cultivate anything. Like his ancestors before him, he prized freedom and knew the meaning of the words "Christian" and "American"...no pretending. From the "Good Earth" they had learned to live from the soil, knew how to raise livestock for survival (hogs and cows, which could be slaughtered for meat, even how to use wild animals from the forest), how to budget time, live frugally, and return to God a large part of income after paying honest debts (debts for fertilizer, seed, building supplies). He knew how to care for his farm animals and would not allow anyone to milk our beautiful cows except him.

We would have been considered peasants in Eastern North Carolina, growing "cash" crops, such as tobacco, cotton, corn, soybeans, to take to the auction market... carefully preparing everything. He and my mother were the stalwarts of our church (built in 1874 by both my mother and fathers' great-grandparents). We had the nicest church in the community, just as we had the nicest home in the community, and just as we had the nicest car/clothing/furniture. You could hear their voices at the church singing. I can still hear him singing as he was around the farm, early in the morning, feeding livestock, "nothing between my soul and the Savior," and many other hymns.

He was not ashamed of his faith. He would work on his tractor until 10 o'clock on Friday night and then stand on his feet all day on Saturday, cutting hair in town to help out the barbershop there and make extra money for us. Then he was up early on Sunday morning, heading for the church to build fires in the wintertime/open windows in the summertime. He was chairman of the school board, and the principal only had to come to him for problems, whether the problem be with a door or a student at the schoolhouse.

My father's four children all graduated from college. After I had returned from the military and had lost my eyesight, and because of the values he had taught me, I would have my driver take me up for a visit. My mother had died much too young. My driver would say, "he will be sitting on the front porch watching for you."

At the front of most churches, you will find the table from which the large supper is served. On most are these words, "In memory of me." Jesus did not tell us to remember him at Christmas, Easter, or any other time...the only time was at the Lord's table, partaking of the bread and wine. His broken body...broken for our healing, his shed blood... every drop for our redemption. Fatherhood has been a failure if you raise children who go to hell, who go to prison.

Teaching Generosity Passing on

Dear Dr. Morris

I hope you remember me. My name is George Griggs. I was the recipient of the William Byrd award back in 2017. I hope you don’t mind, but I made mention to Gary that I had been thinking of you and he gave me your email so I could contact you. I was pleased to hear my letter of appreciation that I wrote following my award, was successful in its conveyance of my unimaginable gratitude. So sorry it has been so long since I last wrote to you. I asked Gary if he could give me your email so that I could write to you. I have been thinking of you lately and have wanted to see how you were.  I really wanted to let you know how your gift was used to help so many people.

Firstly, my friend whom I mentioned in the last letter had suffered the heart attack, he is doing very well. He and his family were able to get back on their feet thanks to the kindness of people like yourself. So many wonderful people band together to ensure they had everything they needed. I was able to make some much-needed repairs to my mother’s home. I have been slowly chipping away at them for years. Through your award, I was able to drastically shrink the list of needed repairs. My wife and I also started that account for my daughter Remi. It is an amazing feeling being able to set your children up for a brighter future. I am pleased to be able to do it for my kids. Yes, I said kids. We have started a second account for our new daughter Riley Alysse Griggs. She was born on May 15, 2018. She was near adulthood when she was born, weighing in at 10lbs 11oz. Pretty sure I saw her driver’s license fall to the floor. We just celebrated her first birthday. She and her sister are little blonde haired blue eyed angels. They can be devils when they want to be. But this is what God intended for us and I could not be more grateful. We have recently purchased our first home. We are excited to be able to make our home in Goldsboro NC. For a time it seemed as if I may have to leave UMO. That is an option I really don’t want to entertain. Thankfully things have worked out for the moment to keep me here.

Your award was even more of a blessing than you could ever imagine. It helped to make so many positive outcomes for so many people. The University and its family are blessed to have someone like you helping to promote the idea of charity. The stories that Gary has told me of your generosity and faith has motivated me to want to do more. I think one key to a happy life is to realize that it isn’t about what you have, but rather what you have to give. If you are blessed, then be the blessing for others who need the miracle.

I have tried to get the IT Department more involved with the community as of the last few years. I was fortunate enough to have been able to organize an annual toy drive to help support the Pediatrics Department at Wayne Memorial/UNC Hospital. This past Christmas was the 2^nd year. Combined we have collected around 400 toys. I am working on an idea of possibly doing a toy drive in July for them as well. The head of the department mentioned that they tend to run low on toys around the middle of the year.

I was happy to have recently worked alongside Dwayne McKay to donate some gently used computers to the Boys and Girls Club here in Mount Olive. Dwayne approached me about the idea, which I took to my boss Robert Pruett, who agreed wholeheartedly to allow me to prepare the computer for them. When we update our systems here at the University, we are left with some really good systems that will likely just be tossed. The systems they were using were so old that the kids could barely use them. Now they have some good quality computers for them to utilize for play or schoolwork. We have also donated some systems to the Woman’s Shelter in Goldsboro. They take in so many battered and abused woman and children that they really were struggling to afford technology that could benefit the families in play and work.

It is awesome to work at a place that allows and encourages you to spread charity. I want you to understand that you have been an inspiration, not just to me but to everyone who has had the honor of coming to know you. I hope this letter helps to lift your spirits. You are in my family’s thoughts and prayers. Thank you for everything you do for others.

                                                                                                           

  Sincerely,

George Griggs

George Griggs

Infrastructure Administrator

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) Administrator

System Support Technician

Department of Information Technology

University of Mount Olive

634 Henderson Street

Mount Olive, NC 28365

1-800-653-0854, ext: 1350

DID: 919-635-2783

Email: GGriggs@UMO.edu

New Life From Tom Jaski

New life   When one thinks of this time of year, "new life" seems to sum it up. The spring season brings blooming plants and green leaves that have been dormant over the winter. For the believer, we also celebrate new life as we commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is indeed the high point for the Christian, the pinnacle of all of Christianity, even more so than our celebration of Christmas. Paul reminds us of the importance of the resurrection by explaining our condition had the resurrection not occurred: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Cor 15:17) But thankfully, Christ has been raised, and thus has won victory over sin, death, and the grave! And it is this new life that every Christian experiences through repentance and faith in what Jesus has accomplished. This semester, our Ratio Christi club was blessed to have been able to witness the amazing miracle of new life. A little over a month ago, a student named Nathan was walking on campus and had seen the chalking that some of our students did on the sidewalk, advertising our weekly meeting that Monday night. The chalk message asked "Does God exist?" which was a question that Nathan had really been struggling with as an atheist/agnostic. That night, he came to our meeting, met many of our students, and stayed for the teaching. He came the next week as well. Then on the Sunday after our annual Ratio student retreat, we received this message in the Ratio GroupMe:                           This is exactly why we do what we do - so that people may experience new life in Christ after living this life dead in their sins. And for those of you who prayerfully support our Ratio Christi ministry, you are a participant in what God has done/is doing in Nathan's life! Please continue to pray for him in his new walk with Jesus and that many more students will also experience the same thing. Conference update As you were probably aware, we had our second annual apologetics conference last month here in Wilmington with Sean McDowell as our featured speaker. And like last year, it was a huge success! We had approximately 250 people in attendance, and our new venue of Grace Baptist Church worked great! At the end of the conference, we announced the date of next year's conference, March 28, which will be held at Grace as well. We already have secured our keynote speaker for next year, Dr. Michael Brown. If you're not familiar with him, here's an excerpt from his bio on his website: Dr. Brown is a national and international speaker on themes of spiritual renewal and cultural reformation, and he has debated Jewish rabbis, agnostic professors, and gay activists on radio, TV, and college campuses. He is widely considered to be the world’s foremost Messianic Jewish apologist. Mark your calendars for our annual apologetics conference on March 28, 2020. It will be an incredible time! Thank you for all you do in supporting me, my family, and our Ratio Christi ministry! Have a blessed Easter as you celebrate Jesus and the new life that He brings! Blessings, 910.233.2636 tomjaski@ratiochristi.org http://tomjaski.ratiochristi.org P.S. - If you ever want to get together with me - for coffee or a meal - and discuss anything about Ratio Christi, about how you can be a part, or even if you simply have a question about faith or apologetics, please don't hesitate!

A Narrative I Think You Will Appreciate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8rkxLBCn80&feature=youtu.be

Happy Valentine's Day

Life's Battlefields

A veteran of the Korean and Vietnam conflict era, every day on the battlefield you think of home, and every day at home you think of the battlefield. The people of Vietnam are going through the third generation of Agent Orange mutations...still endangered by landmines planted 40 years ago.

My cousin had just come back from WWI, the war to end all wars, he had been gassed on the front lines in France. Back to home, poor beyond comprehension, it was still the best thing on Earth to him. Away for several Christmases, he decided to liven up the annual Christmas tree celebration at the country church, where people had very few reasons to smile, by putting a young rabbit in a shoe box wrapped with nice paper and ribbons addressed to his “old maid” Aunt. The gifts given out at the church at the annual Christmas party were for the children. Imagine her surprise when a gift was delivered to her. She gingerly opened the box and this young, scared rabbit jumped out, causing her to shriek. The rabbit ran all around the church to the delight of the children. He had accomplished his purpose, bringing laughter to a poverty-stricken community at the most festive season of the year.

Later, during WWII, the pastor of the church (my cousin) took over the orphanage supported by the church. He told me later in life, before he died, that he cared for 80 homeless children on a budget of $10,000 a year. Two of my Aunts worked with him at the orphanage-- large, stark buildings almost totally dependent on the generosity of people who did not want children to go hungry. My Aunt told me that at Christmas, from what was contributed by churches and interested individuals, each child received one gift. If everything went well at their Christmas meal each child received one orange and a small bag of chocolate candy. This was Christmas in the 1920s and 1930s in eastern North Carolina.

Once in London, I visited the founding church center of the Salvation Army. General William Booth, who founded the Salvation Army in London, in his lifetime saw the army facilities grow around the world. One Christmas, he wanted to let each of his quasi-military Evangelical citadels know he was thinking of them. Always careful about spending valuable army money, he sent a telegram to each with just one word: “Others”. This is that time of the year in every Christian life. If you have bought into a part of the season which the world offers--spending, spreeing, overeating, overworking, over-entertaining--it is your fault. This is the only thing the world has to celebrate. You have the blessed memory of WHY Christ was born in this world and you KNOW where to celebrate the reason, at His table.

Don't let your Christmas celebration be artificial...artificial trees, artificial greetings, and efforts at artificial entertainment. Don't let your worship of your Savior be artificial...mixing secular music with majestic Christian hymns. I heard recently that one church raises money for their church by selling Christmas tree ornaments. You buy an ornament to put on the church Christmas tree. Much like another church which sells a rusty nail to be hammered into a wooden cross. Does anyone think God appreciates this type of worship giving?

We know it is difficult to separate the truth of the season from the lies of the season. Imagine the quandary of a small child taught to be truthful... A fat man with a beard in a red suit covering the world with flying animals and a sled full of toys. Most children, more competent than their parents with a computer, know the folly of most fairy tales. Most children can well understand why their parents are so deceived by the hoax of global warming when the Earth is getting colder, the scams of socialized health care, the debauchery inherit in telling them they love them while permitting the worse education system known to man, and enslavement by unending government debt and taxation.

Eleanor Roosevelt, on a trip to North Carolina, while I was still at the University, said, “during the poverty of the 1920s and 1930s we could have easily slipped into Marxism.” It would surprise her to know that with the increasing wealth of the nation this century, we are now ready to accept this most decadent form of government... A form of government already discredited everywhere it's been tried... A form of government in direct antithesis to the Christian way of life.

A light in the window at Christmas time originated in Ireland in a time of religious persecution there when the secular humanist, godless, communist form of government had taken over. This largely Catholic country would identify Catholic homes where Christian Christmas was being observed by a candle in the window. It is time this year for every Christian home to put a candle in the window to let people know you know the real meaning of Christmas.

The Cheerios Tree

If 

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Any black person, any disabled  person, any person of a minority in America will always tell you that justice in America is always hit or miss. Those who are convinced of God's grace and mercy, those who are concerned, committed to the goodness of Jesus, have trouble at the schoolhouse, courthouse, poor house and often times even at your house, have trouble controlling the fact that others are often everything I hate in a human being. You don't get certainty in this life. This is the beauty of Christianity. God keeps us from crossing over the boundary/setting up certain guidelines, because of his willingness to sacrifice his only son, Jesus. Jesus died so that we can erase hatred from our thinking, is willing to forgive and forget every transgression against others/every word or act against Him and His blessedness. We love God because in the council chambers of eternity He chose us for life and living. Even so, we must cling to the cross of Christ for forgiveness, for healing, for direction and He is more than able to give it, we can trust Jesus. Most of us have learned, that in this life of sorrows, He is the only one we can fully trust. The atheist who wants a Saviour of his own design, actually believes that his redemption is found, not on a rugged cross but in a cheerios tree. One schoolboy, when asked where his cereal came from said, "from a cheerios tree".

The First Commandment, we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind. God is jealous, will not forsake His glory to anyone. So many get confused in the first chapter of the Bible, that from nothingness came somethingness, came everything. I actually heard a Catholic priest say, "Millions of years before Adam and Eve there was the Neanderthal man." Where in the world did he get that? Simply because some archaeologist found some bones that they don't think measure up to the 7 days of creation. I saw Dr. Leakey in the Great Rift valley in Africa where the genus homosapiens got started and where I saw Dr. Leakey still looking for bones. He was attempting then to explain creation and as far as I know, he and his ancestors have never stopped...refusing to believe God's word about creation or anything else. If we cannot believe God's boundaries concerning creation and the creature as well as the Creator, we might as well be like the schoolboy and believe in the cheerios tree, or like the woman in my church who said that "David was the apostle who was killed by the giant, Goliath". I had one woman working for me, in her 60's, in church all of her life, who had never come to the realization that the Bible had an Old and New Testament. I said, "what do you study at church?" She said, "I go to church because that's where nice people go. I like to be around nice people".

The fastest growing religious group in America, "the none's". They do not want to be like God but rather God to be like them. They want a bellhop Christianity, you call upon God only when you need him. Most men or women only use the name of God or Jesus when cursing. I have yet to hear a believer or non-believer in profanity say, "Oh, Buddha", "Oh, Allah". In the Muslim religion, a mother is assured her son has a place in Heaven if she names her boy Muhammad. Have you ever considered how many Muslim boys are named Muhammad? Christianity is not complicated, just tough. It's beauty, genius, God putting on a tent, and dwelling among us. The inner satisfaction in my soul, that Jesus enjoyed people, that He enjoyed visiting with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus; that He enjoyed seeing the plight of people around Him, poor people, most of the population of that time were slaves. I'm so happy that Jesus probably enjoyed laughter with His disciples/food with His friends/the bubbling personality of children. When this writer stood on the shore of The Dead Sea, looking up at Harrods palace, I thought that God could have chosen for Jesus to be born in a palace, wear fancy clothing. Those who eat from gold plates in this world, whose lives are festooned by the glamour of the rich and famous have made their choice. Why should they learn the plan of salvation twice when so many people in the world have only heard it once?

Like reading the entrails of a goat we have entire professions who think they can understand mankind by studying the psychoses of those who have chosen Satan instead of Christ. There are those who have picked Marx instead of the giant forefathers of our nation. Trust in Jesus is not an emotion it is a decision, trust in the American way of life is not an emotion but a genuine fact. The Bible and the American Constitution, side by side are wonderful bookends for living and dying. I don't know which is fading faster, Christianity in America or patriotism in America. This writer is approaching 88 years of age and it is amazing the change in the church and crucial patriotic beliefs in my lifetime. The more we humanize animals the more we dehumanize human beings. The more we humanize technology the more we dehumanize the sovereignty of God. You get the feeling the person you are talking to on your cell phone is very human...so much artificial intelligence, more dependable than human intelligence. And to think that animal parts are now being transplanted into human beings. Photosynthesis by plants, eaten by animals, having a direct bearing on the human being that eats the animal that ate the plants...a whole new science...a cheerios tree. Holiness is a gift from God, not a human creation enjoyed by robots or cellphones.

In Tammy Wynette's mansion, in Nashville, there was an $8000 crystal bowl. In the crystal bowl, she had bowls of cotton. She never wanted to forget her beginnings, picking cotton. My parents, grandparents, knew what it was to pick cotton, the heat, the briars, the hedgehogs, but, the difference, they knew the Creator, able to convert plantlife into the making of fabric. They knew the planting of corn seed, often called maize, the most generous plant on the face of the earth. The 1000's of acres of corn around the world, feeding so many people, yet, the simplest, cheapest food nourishment known to man. Would you not like to have been 1 of those to sit at the table of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Jesus, eating the cornbread that Martha cooked? This writer would rather have his fried cornbread his mother cooked than the fanciest cake ever found in a Starbucks or any other bakery (this writer has never been in a Starbucks). The schoolboy was not far from wrong when he said his cereal was found on a cheerios tree.