Split Personality

In other commentaries, I have refereed to my many businesses over the years. One large building I owned contained a private club which would hold seven hundred people. One Saturday night, always the busiest night, the manager was sick and my bookkeeper told me I should go to the club to lend an air of gravitas to the place. I am not a club person. I do not drink, dance, gossip or any of the other things that go on in a social setting. When I was in the club, there was no doubt in any one's mind about who owned the place. I always had on a tuxedo with a dinner jacket. I was standing near the entrance desk where every member signed in with guests when two large black women came on the scene dressed in gowns , furs, and jewelry. I had a small shadow of vision in one eye, but I had never seen anything like this before. After they passed on, I said to a bouncer, “who were they?” He said, “those are two well known, well heeled, black drag queens from a nearby town. They're automobile mechanics, they own a large garage. Their fantasy world, their other world, is dressing like women on a Saturday night. They own a stretch limousine and use a chauffeur, and each Saturday night they go to one gay friendly club in the area, dance, party and have a good time. Once a week, they become a new personality, black, beautiful woman dressed in gowns and jewelery, heels and wigs. They leave their coveralls, brogands, and automobile grease behind. They ride in the back of their car, and a friend dressed in a black tux is their chauffeur.”

When God gave us freewill, he gave us an escape mechanism wherein we can be several personalities. When you meet someone, do you actually know what personality you are meeting? My cousin told me that her husband is so religious in church - great singer, loud in prayer. She said however, “as soon as he gets in the automobile and starts driving home, he is a different personality. Road rage takes over. He is cursing and condemning all the inept drivers around him.” One mother, overheard her daughter praying before bedtime. The daughter said, “God please help my mother be as nice at home as she is at church.”

Even the bible, dictated by God, written by human genius, men who themselves possess foibles of personalities. Christ, God-man, perfect in every way, chose twelve Jews, so imperfect. The Christian church has seen a slow seepage of commitment because of the tantalizing worldliness brought on by technology. Much of Christianity has become lip service. If only the faith loudly proclaimed inside the church building, survived daily activities in the world. Does your employer, fellow employees, neighbors, see the Christ you proclaim within the Church walls? If every church member were just like me, what kind of church would my church be? If every Christian were just like me, what kind of world would my world be?

The greatest thing of the split personality is the imagination. We can endure most anything, if we can imagine things will improve. A sick person can always imagine how they felt when well. A person on the battlefield can always imagine the serenity of home. As a boy, windows up at night during the summer, I could hear the frogs in the large cow pasture across the road in front of our home. I always imagined that symphony erasing military sound. Einstein said, “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.” The beginning ball player must imagine himself as a national hero. The beginning medical intern must imagine himself as a successful practitioner, a researcher named in headlines of a prestigious, professional journal. All successful men imagine a large car in the driveway at a beautiful home. You will not go any further than your dreams and imagination. As long as Great Britain imagined itself as the great superpower of the world (the sun never set on English soil), as long as Britain imagined it won wars, England progressed. Now, it has withdrawn into a quivering vestigial island, it's greatness a figment of the imagination of its people, British empire sold out to sociological entitlements.

John Wayne, in one of his famous movies, said, “You are scared to death, but you saddle up anyway.” We call upon the inner man of courage to face life and its many challenges. I believe the Christian faith is 95% courage. It takes courage to live Christ-like. It does not take much courage to pretend within the walls of the church house. The true test of Christianity is living your faith in front of your family, friends, and neighbors. Saint Francis of Assis said, “You preach everyday, use words if necessary.” The greatest books in the world have been written because of fantasy, the split personality bringing ideas and ideals into our very existence. It took an overwhelming Christian faith for totally blind Fannie Crosby, to write eight thousand hymns (Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross). The greatest symphonic and choral music in the world, written by those with a Christian heritage, a knowledge of the psalms, Handel's Messiah. What type of intelligence and skill does it take to write the lyrics or music we find in modern rap music? What type of mind produces rap music, comic books, or even ideas promoted in media, the film, and pornography industries which have completely derailed academia. Some academics, some judiciary, in the name of political correctness, have made every perversion, every moral compromise, acceptable. Did we ever think, in the American experiment, that the time would come that the bridges of total unacceptable behavior would be crossed, such as the justification of the almost complete annihilation of native Americans as in the American Indian Wars (an actual photograph, one of the earliest photographs, an Indian baby still nursing her mother who had been shot by Americans), the shame of slavery, the elimination of prayer from the classroom, the acceptance of abortion and euthanasia, and the selling out of free enterprise to social control (communism). For the American patriot, the devoted Christian, it takes a cataclysm reversal in the mind, a total split personality, to justify some things.

One of the world's greatest atheists, Christopher Hitchens, is dying of cancer. He has reportedly said “I have tried to separate superstition from science.” His brother, Peter Hitchens, is a great Christian and often debated his brother in public. Christopher Hitchens once said, “I do not believe in God. I hate God.” It is such double talk, such speaking out of both sides of the mouth, that we find constantly in political, pastoral, even commercial life. When the holy spirit of God possesses us, our minds, if not our bodies and our entanglements with the world, have been cleaned. The great Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon, once said (I attended the Great Spurgeon church every time I was in London, The only preacher whose sermons were reprinted in their entirety in British newspaper on Monday), “You do not have to point out a person's unfaithfulness anymore than you have to point out a crooked stick. Just lay a straight stick next to the crooked stick.”

Assurance of Existence

Wired within the inner being, the soul of the inner man, a need to know of a greater power than himself. On other commentaries, I have talked about various religions of the world, my inability to understand them. Perhaps it would have been different if I had been raised in a Buddhist or Hindu home, or a family that carried offerings of food to a monkey temple (Asian temples where monkeys are worshiped).

In a country guest house in Sri Lanka, I was awakened very early each morning by a brass band leading a precession of worshipers, carrying food to the monks at a nearby temple. Just as with mothers throwing their babies off the top of a temple to satisfy a ritual of worship, I cannot understand this. God has not given me the ability to understand this, except in the light of my own spiritual enlightenment...studying the laws of the ancient Jewish people, preliminary and leading to the establishment of the Christian church.

When you read in the Old Testament about the sacrifice of animals, bullocks, rams, goats, sheep without a blemish...their requirements to offer the very best of a flock, sometimes 203 a week, in observance of feast days and tithing, it occurs to you that these people: poor, needing every animal to survive, and God requiring their very best, one without a blemish. Human nature would dictate that you sacrifice crippled runts, that these people were absolute “nuts”, religious fanatics, or that they actually believed and sought righteous justification in their worship. Think of a priest, before a stone alter, blood soaked animals, and him lighting a fire to burn them. Human reasoning would say, this is a “nut” ritual. anymore nutty than a child or woman, explosives strapped under clothing, walking an congested area, blowing up everyone.

You don't have to study the Bible, just secular history and secular archeology books will teach you that there were 22,000 oxen and “sheep without number” sacrificed at the dedication of Solomon's temple. Until this very day, considered the greatest building ever built, estimated at perhaps a hundred billion. This building built without the sound of hammer or saw, covering 13 acres, the Cedars cut in Lebanon, all timber to exact specifications, floated in the Mediterranean and hauled over land to Jerusalem. We still know the exact number of men cutting trees, transporting the timbers, working on the temple, even the value of the gold in the temple. Even so, there is still debate concerning whether Solomon, son of King David, wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived, was even saved.

So it is today, those of us who give, intentionally, cheerfully, hilariously, to God...the tithe, offerings, one can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving. The essence of Christianity is Christian giving, the offering, the truest worship. Many who give, who have so many needs in life, like the ancients, are considered “nuts”, fanatics. Most Christians have heard of R.G. LeTourneau, billionaire manufacturer of earth moving equipment, who is known for giving 90% of his income to God's work. You cannot out give God, and I truly believe that God will bless your gifts, as well as you as a giver. This is the only place in God's word that God has challenged us to “prove' Him: every Christian who knows the thrill of returning to God a portion of that which is given to him, knows what I am talking about. Whether you give 10% or not, God owns 10% of everything you have.

The best way I know that you can have the assurance that God exists, is in studying human beings who know that God exists, who prove it in their life activities. I was in the Congo, traveling from Goma to Bukuvu, even then, thirty years ago, the Islamic fanatics were trying to recapture this country which had stumbled out to God, many years earlier, through through the missionary zeal of George Greenfield and other. Greenfield had buried a wife and three children on the banks of the Congo river, as undaunted, he was determined to bring the message of Jesus Christ to Africa. Just 100 years ago, at Goma, a choir of 10,000 Congolese Christians sang, “All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name” at his funeral. Since then, as in Rwanda and Uganda, Tutsi and Hutu, and until this very day, warfare between Muslims and Christians continues.

Bridges had been destroyed on the desolate Bukovu roadway, a Catholic priest driving a pick-up truck, four dying AIDS victims in the rear of the truck with a nanny goat they were milking for nourishment, talked with me about the plight of this beautiful, yet corrupted country. A country, like the world, debauched by Satanic forces, on the grace of an real and sovereign God could cause any man to give his life in such endeavor, this Catholic priest or George Greenfield.

If a Muslim mother names her son Mohammad, he is assured of heaven. I understand Islamic bombers are assured of heaven, simply by killing themselves and others. There is much about Islam, Confucius, Buddha I do not understand, but I have made an attempt to understand Christian martyrs. To whom much is given, much is required, I know that I cannot think of greater giving than the giving of God. God gave His only Son, and His only Son, has given us live. Not only an abundant life now, but eternal life.

There have always been pretenders, posers, they know who they are. Your faith demands trust in time, talent, treasure. Just as before the very foundation of the earth, many of us were chosen, elected, Christ, paying with His Own Blood for our sins and our sicknesses. Imagine living in a communist country, risking your life and your family's, for the cause of Christ. I met several Christians in communist China, Christians live and multiple in communist North Korea. I met old Christians in Russia, who have lived and multiplied under Bolshevism.

As a university student, I paid my way through many years, working at night, so I could go to class during the day. Also, I sold Bibles door to door during the summer months. In small towns I would select a boarding house where working people stayed. Ms. Lula's house was such a place, rooms rented to highway workers. Her large house was full, so she put me in a room next to a shed in the backyard. She prepared meals for all of these men, packed each a lunch. Mr. John, her second husband (her first husband had been killed as a young man), worked in construction and usually did not get home until very late. Two granddaughters lived with her, their father, Ms. Lula's son had been killed in a vehicle accident. By world standards, she had had a hard life, but you would never know it from her. She said, “God's mercy is new every day, He does not get angry with me because He has already forgiven me for all of my sins. I find something good to do for someone everyday, if I cannot say something good about someone, I say nothing.” I noticed early, that every night when Mr. John got home from work, she would have several boxes ready for him to take to certain places in the town and nearby countryside. I learned that she prepared food everyday for the sick of the community. Back then, there were no meals on wheels, very little welfare help. Ms. Lula had her own welfare organization.

In raising her granddaughters, in sending out food to the needy and the sick of the community, in being a living testimony to the many people who found refuge in her home. Her life, like the smoke from the burned sacrifices offered to God by the ancients, were a sweet flavor to God.

Ms. Lula loved religious music, kept Christian radio stations on in her house all the time. If there were a revival or tent meeting anywhere in the area, she made sure that she and I went. Ms. Lula had a real strong alto voice, everyone there knew she was in the meeting. The best thing she ever said to me, I was going home for the weekend, she said, “tell your mother, son. She did a good job.”

The Recession Is Over

In several commentaries, I have written about my memories of the Great Depression. I was born in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression, and that horror story controlled most of my life, through years of school and right until the end of WWII. There were two things my parents, grandparents, never stopped talking about as long as they were alive, the Great Depression and Hurricane Hazel.

I was away at the war, 1954, when Hurricane Hazel almost destroyed eastern NC, right on, twenty years after its onslaught, the woodlands of eastern NC lay devastated from the wind, so did many buildings. However, I believe it is easier to rebuild after a hurricane, than a depression. Hungry people, starving farm animals, church members weeping and praying in church will leave an indelible impression on your psyche. If you have normal intelligence, you will live the rest of your life a conservative, living poor whether you are poor or not, saving, so you can weather another storm, be it an act of God, or act of government.

I have weather several recessions during my lifetime, I lived so conservatively, all the time, that I hardly noticed these national government inflicted recession, this government tells us this week, that the 2007-2010 recession is over. Tell that to the probably 20% of Americans who are still unemployed, or underemployed, tell that to the millions of Americans, who lost their homes, cars, and most of their savings. The only Americans not affected by this last recession are those with government jobs, those with government pensions and retirements, those who receive government welfare checks, those who live in government subsidized housing, and whose healthcare, college supposed entitlements are paid for by government. News flash, CBO (Congressional Budget Office) tells us that the national debt is $202 trillion, most of this government largess is on the way out. Many of those at the trough will suffer along with we private citizens.

I know of no subject in the world, no power in the world deserving more attention from the human mind, than the study of the holy spirit of God. The spirit of God is mentioned in the second verse of the Bible: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2) From the very beginning, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God moves across every page of sacred scripture, and every second in the history of this universe.

One of the most interesting studies in the history of the world, the history of Judaism. One of the most fascinating characters in the Bible, a type of Christ, Joesph, son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers. It is a long story of the work of the Holy Spirit. Joesph became ruler of Egypt. The Holy spirit working through both Joesph and Pharaoh by way of dreams and plagues, miracles of God understood only through the power of the Holy Spirit. When Joesph took over, storing grain for the impending famine/depression, the people first came to Joesph, giving him their money, the next year, their herds, the next year, their lands, the next year, themselves and their children (enslavement). Here we see the nature of humanity, what human beings will do in order to have the security of food. This history, as an example, has been know for thousands of years, we have seen its reenactment over and over again. Now, again, with a Sunni Muslim, Marxist in the White House, rulers in government, national state, local, who have never wanted for anything. The masses are willing to yield everything they have, including themselves.

Why not send some parrots to Harvard University and teach them to talk economics, then have these birds who will work cheap, return to Washington and direct things. It makes about as much sense as the puppets and perverts, who are running things now. We have the greatest power in the world, the Holy Spirit of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, sovereign God available not only for our comfort, but for our guidance. The problem is, in an almost protracted, obvious, intended, dumbing-down of all intelligent life, dancing to the tune of political correctness, political power brokers, as well as the pretending pastors of churches, temporal as well as secular leaders have thrown their allegiance into the camp of the enemy, Satan...who is running things, leading the chorus of demons as they laugh themselves silly. Just think, an earth created by God, supplied by God with every needed nurture, deciding, from the wisdom of men, to yield to the temptation of satanic forces. From the garden, from the first human beings, in every moral gap in human history, to the present, choosing poverty over plenty.

In the depths of a new “Great Depression”, probably going into a “second dip”, many are unaffected, politicians, federal employees, government employees, those who are the leechers/recipients of welfare programs (college students receiving grants, civilian government contractors). This past weekend, two of my friend's wives had birthdays, they decided to go out for dinner on Saturday night. Most of the “smart” restaurants were full with people waiting (in a real recession or Great Depression, most restaurants are out of business), full of government workers, those living off the fat of the land, those dipping into the tax coffers and authorities (government authorities, airport, water, etc. entities ruled over by politician appointed boards), “cash cows”. Taxes, fees, permits, extracted from hard-working, God-fearing, tax-paying, beaten down citizens.

The one-time coolies of China, the serfs in Russia, untouchables in India, poor whites in the southern US...all victims of man's inhumanity to man, a stench in the nostrils of the holy spirit of almighty God. Another fact of history, from the beginning until now, (God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform) people and countries who thought they were so great, who worship the creature, not the creator, get a new perspective on life when they get knocked down, losing a war, losing an excessive lifestyle. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1 Corinthians 10:12)

Gently Into the Night

Many have asked me if my other senses became more active as I became more blind. Both, from a neurological study stance, and from the experience itself, I can tell you that your other senses become more acute as you lose one. I hear everything, many things I do not want to hear.

I heard an atheist Jewish friend say to a political power-broker to whom I had been introduced, and as I walked away I heard the Jewish friend say, “he is very religious, believes in fairy tales.” This is the attitude of many atheists, even Jews. Judaism the most historic, spiritual belief system in the world. I came into contact with most of the world's great religions as I traveled the world. Never did I demean any of them: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. I certainly did not understand many of these religions, such as the Jains in India. At Jain temples, people with nets all over them, so afraid of killing anything, even an insect.

The Europe my ancestors left, seeking religious freedom in a new world, was very different from the Europe of today. The world preceding the early landings in America, was one of despotism an effort at desperate survival. Behind hedge rows, in mountainous caverns, living in ancient hubbles of every type, the poor people were just trying to eke out a living. More often than not, slaves of parasitic government and a paralytic church. When the people learned to read, when some literature in the Bible was made available to them, when they learned to socialize and discuss, the inner struggle for freedom and worship began to flow from the human heart. With tyrannical rulers, both in government and church, the people must be kept in servitude, showing freedom of will, showing any disobedience, the people were hung or burned at the stake. Such a tyrannical government-church social structure would not permit prison, prisoners eat, since the message of the church, then as now, has always been liberty, people begin to flee, such a miserable existence.

My ancestors were some of the first Europeans to flee persecution. They, like the other pilgrims landed on the east coast of America, thankful for the opportunity just to survive, just to work, just to worship.

Most of the earliest settlers, did what they had done in Europe, attempted to survive from the land, as farmers. In order to grow food, they had to till the soil, they had brought a few tools with them, by ship, as well as a few household implements. From these early beginnings, building crude structures in which to live, tilling an inhospitable soil, learning to eat much of their food from wilderness and the sea, with the help of Native Americans, many survived.

It was from these farming opportunities that business opportunities developed, everything prospered from need, a need for stores, public service such as doctors and teachers, and on bends in the rivers; rivers, the best form of travel in America, and bays that lent themselves to harbors. Slowly life and commerce emerged in this great democratic republic. It was all a matter of human mind directing and developing the work ethic which led to buildings, bridges, roads and eventual industry.

After my fore bearers left Morristown, NJ which they had founded, and moved south, it was left up to the men of the community to build dirt roads so that people could get around, it was left up to the men of the community to build the school house, the church houses, the courthouse, and the buildings of commerce which they needed for their family in a sound, progressing society. The men and women who produced the families, who gave leadership in the community, proposed and enacted statutes and laws, rules and regulations which they needed for their protection.

Today's political power brokers: local, state, and federal, I would say 99% do not know the honor of hard work. Most of these politicians and the bureaucrats they appoint to run things, have never used an outhouse, know nothing of the preservation of food, have never wanted for anything. They think food magically appears in the store, designer clothing magically appears in the shops, prestigious furniture magically appears in warehouses. The voyeurs of social change know nothing of the book-sweat, the knowledge required for licensure in caring for patients, wiring or plumbing a house, keeping a motor vehicle going, or producing anything of utilitarian value.

50% of Americans pay no income tax, most do not even offer to help push the wagon in which they riding, and which the other 50% are pulling. The white collar welfare worker, those elected, or appointed, will lie, cheat, and steal to keep their nose in the trough. It is the hardworking, god-fearing, taxpaying citizen who should be respected. It is the man or woman with guts enough to wear their country's uniform, use the armaments of offense and defense, but the heroes of the faith, the heroes of the family, the heroes of the working class, the heroes of the defending class, NOW, unlike the past, are the last to receive recognition, the last to receive any level of respect. The last standing as a ship of state, captured and captained by a deck of fools, sink.

Christopher Hitchens, always testy and tasteless in his English accent, is dying with cancer. He said that he had attempted to bring science against superstition, he seems to offer no comfort to concerned about acceptance of any faith. His brother, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian. Hitchens, like so many atheists, are in a dilemma, they want to go gently into the night with ambiguity. The Christian song says, “neutral you can not be”, the very least the atheist could do is admit that the greatness of America comes from the goodness of Americans. Goodness, mostly from god-loving, sin-hating Christians who were willing to deny sinful self and work for this great nation under the umbra of God's precious promises of prosperity. This nation has been blessed because God has blessed his own, think of what this nation would have been like if left to the scurrilous satanic forces of atheism.

Politics of Bribery

My interest in politics started as a very young child, born during the depths of the Great Depression, witnessing relatives struggling to hold onto their farmland.  Seeing my father do any kind of work to make a dollar, such as cutting hair at ten cents a head, making building repairs for very few dollars which now would cost thousands. Seeing my mother churn tons of butter to sell in town along with eggs and anything else one could sell.  Only burning an old lamp when it was so dark it would be impossible to live otherwise and hearing my republican parents, grandparents, cousins, talk about the corruption in democrat politics in the solid democrat south.  When they knew the lies of FDR and his communist vice President Henry Wallace, were a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God.

As millions of pigs were killed and buried, crops were cut down and destroyed, all in an effort at agricultural stabilization and parity. Unemployment, 18% from 1931 to 1940, nothing ever improving in spite of the lies of the democrat politicians who were elected just from the primary.  Old white men in charge of the registration books, who would never speak to a black person any other time, would actually haul them from the hinterlands to the voting precinct and give them a candy bar to vote for their candidate. There were no republican candidates locally and few statewide, but law required a republican poll watcher at each election. My mother and her cousin took turns as poll watchers for 1 dollar a day and they never ceased to be amazed at the corruption going on at the polls when ballots were illegally marked by men who would sing the loudest at the church.

As poor as we were, my parents mission in life was to educate their children, and so the school and church were the highlights of our existence.  To this day, I don’t know how he did it, but we always had a newspaper delivered and at least 2 magazines. (News and Observer, Look, Progressive Farmer)  I learned to read everything in these magazines, and certainly the newspapers. I read “Under the Dome: The politics of Raleigh” and “ Drew Pearson: The Politics of Washington DC”.

Fast forward, I am a doctor, blind from the war, successful enough to own a co-op apartment in NYC as well as my beach home in NC, traveling the world, meeting important people who gave me a glimpse under the tent of sophisticated corrupt political leaders with the entanglement of capitalist compensation and conspiracy. Always a committed Christian, I loved the Fifth Ave Presbyterian church in Manhattan, within walking distance from my home, because of music and social activity.  Unlike most southern churches, they did not shun disabled persons unless I am very misinformed, God is going to make the coals of hell very hot for supposed “Christians and preachers” who have ignored the disabled citizens of their community.  A few architects in a few cities have started designing church facilities which accommodate the disabled. (Blind, wheelchairs, walkers, etc)  Since the disabled have so many problems, perhaps it makes the congregation and the preacher uncomfortable to have them in the congregation, so they do everything possible to keep them out.  Christ was very concerned about the disabled, seven times, He healed the blind.  He and His disciples healed all types of sickness. He even broke up every funeral precession He ever met.

Another reason I attended the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian church, I understood that Norman Thomas was the assistant pastor there when Rev. Henry Van Dyke was pastor.  Thomas, who ran for president 6 times on the socialist ticket, was a graduate of Princeton University.  It is significant that this fifth avenue church presented each graduating minister of Princeton with a new suit of clothes upon graduating from this Presbyterian college. How things have changed.  Dr. Peter Singer , Princeton professor, one of the countries greatest proponents of abortion  and euthanasia, was asked "Would you kill a disabled baby?", Singer responded, "Yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole."  Singer advances his abortion stance that between fetus and newborn there is no sharp distinction. 

Norman Thomas, himself, was never an orthodox Marxist, instead favoring a Christian socialist orientation.  Perhaps Thomas, like the modernist Presbyterians, Methodist, Lutheran, etc, like to walk down the middle of the road with one hand stretched out to God, the other to Satan.  Thomas, from a  family of a Presbyterian pastor himself a Union Theological Seminary graduate, like Demus, and so many “church-goers” who “love this present world”, with all his theology training and pastoral knowledge, did not realize that “God is a jealous God.”

James Madison in 1788, said “Encroachment and enslavement of people come slowly.”  Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Roger Baldwin, Gus Hall, Saul Alinsky, have all forecast the demise of our republic and when we have learned recently that 53% of all school children believe socialism is better then democracy, we realize the atheistic indoctrination of our children in the government schools is becoming complete. In 1949, George Orwell wrote the book “Nineteen Eighty-Four” perhaps more then any other famous writer, he had the modern concept of a socialist America in place with the words “Big Brother will take care of you.” 

Plato stated long before Orwell that there are two important rules governing a country, the first is “who teaches the children?,” and the second “what do they teach them?”  Judge Brandeis told his daughter that the first rule of life to learn is, “Life is tough.”  In Bill Gate's “Ten Rules for Success in Business“, said the first rule to learn is that “life is not fair.” Everyone wants fairness, yet a very small number of Americans pay all the taxes.  50% of the American population pay no income tax at all. 

Since the Korean War, I have been partially blind, but for the past 40 years, totally blind, expected to pay taxes on every dollar I have been fortunate enough to make, even though I never received one dollar of financial help for my education. ( At the time I went to college there were no grants or scholarships). I do not have a child who has been to a public school, I have not used your prisons, your parks, your libraries, your concert halls, your rehabilitation or other agencies.  The State Commission for the Blind has been to my house one time all these years.  The VA has done nothing for my sightless condition except furnished me a “talking watch.”  Knowing the blessings of God, as very few people have known the blessings of God, I have told several young people I would teach them what I know about real estate and securities, but they would have to study and read some books on the subject as I have done. Each one, without exception, said, “I had rather just get a check every month.” So, here comes Mr. Obama’s socialism. Margaret Thatcher, one of England’s greatest, raised in poverty in an apartment above her father’s butcher shop in Grantham England, said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually, run out of other people’s money.” 

The problem with socialism in this country is that most of our young people have never known what it is to work or to want for anything.  They have not traveled the world like this writer (8 around the world trips in 157 countries) and seen the economic depravity, starving children, adult despair, police state turmoil, that I have witnessed.  In Haiti, you are rich if you get one meal a day.  92% of the world's population have no possessions at all.  Most of the populations of the poorest countries of the world are under 30 years of age.  They have risked life and limb trying to escape their poverty by illegally crossing borders and even large bodies of water seeking a better life.  The world Muslim population grows at the rate of 36,400 a day. 

Next to the killing of the unborn, (3,500 each day) the most horrible death is the death by a machete proving everyday they do not mind killing one another.  The wealth of the western world is anticipated by revolt if nothing else. But, the wealth of the western world, as has already gained a strangle hold in Europe, is the objective of the socialist.  As was stated in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals“, the target of the socialist, now very much in control, will be attempted with the isolation of everything else.  In academia, more so then anywhere else, stinking thinking leads to our certain demise.  Our people are using emotions instead of rational thinking. The best predictor of failure is our depreciation of success.

Rebellion

Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride thru the wide-open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Cole Porter, Don't Fence Me In

These lines of a popular song in my youth probably did not start the rebellion of the hippie generation. It has always been man's nature to rebel, it started in the Garden of Eden, our first parents, not content to obey one rule in paradise. This was their only rule: not to touch one tree...the No-No tree. But, temptation in any form, even a serpent, who was probably very beautiful, is hard to resist. Oscar Wilde, the great British writer, said he could resist “anything but temptation”.

Many years ago, it seems now like another lifetime, I met one of the most colorful preachers I have ever known. An author of many books, he had come to this country from Ireland, speaking in many places. He met me at one of his speaking engagements and wanted me to examine his eyes as well as talk with me about some of my writing. It is the first time I ever heard the phrase, from the Bible, “to obey is better than sacrifice.” (1 Samuel 15:22) This remarkable man, born, educated and having lived in Ireland most of his life, started his ministry as a street preacher. He had memorized most of the Bible, because in preaching on the street, there was not enough light for reading. He asked me, since you are a committed Christian, such a Bible scholar, why did you not go into the ministry? I said, “I am not sure I obeyed, if called.” That is when he used this phrase “to obey is better than sacrifice”, and I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, he was pointing directly at my impending, complete blindness.

Natural law dictates compliance, laws, rules of conduct, can you even imagine a society, a country without laws? Every civilization, no matter how remote, has certain natural laws, even if they have never heard of Jesus Christ: laws against murder, laws against adultery, laws against the abuse of children, laws against one person stealing another person's “stuff”. God forbids adultery, and so does every decent fiber of the human body. God forbids murder, the sanctity of life from conception to the grave. Why does anyone, any political party, such as the Democrats, think they will escape God's wrath for permitting and promoting such. It is only in godless societies that old people do not receive decent care until death.

In Africa, old people are taken into the bush and left for disposal by wild animals. In the Arctic, old people are put on ice floes and put out to sea to be disposed of by wild animals. In Marxist, godless, totalitarian-controlled countries such as communist China, North Korea, eugenics and euthanasia as with Obama's death panels, old people will be disposed of quietly and quickly. This is real rebellion, rebellion as put forward by Planned Parenthood, the Hemlock Society, and other masters of rebellion.

How does a society, a school, a home live without rules, without discipline. In the home where I was reared, there were rules. My mother had rules at the table, rules about our general behavior, one of my favorite radio church services, the pastor asked children to behave in the building. Just before she died, one of my friends, Ann Evans Hendrick, who I knew when we were children, and whose father was a pastor, told me how her father took her into a Sunday school room and burned her behind up because she misbehaved during the church service. She said, “I will never forget your aunt Sara saying as I came out of the Sunday school room, 'I like to see a preacher who practices what he preaches'” She went on to live an important life, and I was with her last when I attended her father's funeral. Her father was a pastor for 75 years, a man of obedience, not rebellion.

Like my great grandfather, and other great, obedient, not-rebellious men. I give large cash awards in honor of these men each year. Appreciation, recognition for men who lived obedient lives, to rebel is easy, Satan is right there to help you out. To obey is difficult, often a real sacrifice. Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High...Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. (Psalm 107:11-17)

If liberals in government, the schools, the homes are trying to do everything possible to destroy government, schools, homes, they are certainly doing the right thing. If conservatives are doing what they can to restore government, schools, homes, they evidently are doing the wrong things. Many things are allowed, but we do them the wrong way. I believe God encourages and blesses in business, the professions, academia, but because of the influences of Madison avenue, “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” (Mark 4:19), we are tempted to cut corners. To play the games of the world, rather than holding on to the exactness of a Holy God. Even Solomon, the world's wisest and richest man, had trouble with this. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

One of the great dilemmas of my life, I studying what the world thinks, what the specialists and experts think, reading all the “self-help” books, while trying to reconcile all these matters in obedience to an uncompromising God. God made us as we are, warts and all, perfect people have become an endangered specie. God has given us freedom of will, and the human mind thrives in freedom, there are 7,000 endangered animal species in the world today, among these, Tigers. Enterprising Europeans scientists set up cameras high in the Bhutan Himalayas (4000m high), they wanted pictures of an endangered species, the Bhutan Himalayan Tiger, they have their pictures, a remarkable achievement. So it is with the great Hubble Telescope or the great electronic microscopes. The ingenuity of man is not inhibited by his rebellion to cross new frontiers, he is just required to obey the One who put up fences in the first-place. Fences of safety, laws of nature, honesty.

Memories

One of my earliest memories of the old country church in which I grew up, built in 1874 by both my mother and father's grandparents, was a boot scraper at the bottom of the first door step, such as pictured above. Public buildings like homes, 100 years ago, did not have cement walkways and in fact there were very few paved roads or streets. The country church house was just that. A large house in the country. This was before the time of electric power lines. There was no electricity in the church, no place to plug in a vacuum cleaner even if the vacuum cleaner had been invented. Our church was one of the few churches in the county that had gas lighting. A carbide system whereby gas pellets was mixed with water in an outside container and gas was piped inside the building to overhead lamps. I can still remember my cousin, standing on pews, lighting these beautiful gas lamps. Ours was one of the few churches with such lighting. Most had the old kerosene lamps, like those used in homes.

My grandparent's home, without electric power (few power lines into the countryside until 1935), had a Delco lighting system. Late every afternoon a gasoline powered generator would go putt-putt-putt and large glass enclosed batteries, in series, would generate enough electricity to have light from bulbs in the house and in outside barn areas at night. This power was not used for anything else - refrigerators, stoves, and radios. It was a real luxury, and like tractors, trucks, and even automobiles, only the wealthier families had them. But small bulbs gave more light than the old-fashioned kerosene lamp. Over the dining room table in my other grandparent's home, hung a copper shaded kerosene lamp. Magnificent beauty as you ate and some of my fine-feathered, country club nauseatingly elitist friends think they are living high on the hog when they eat by candlelight. I'm sure many of our early ancestors ate by candlelight, or even light from the fire place, but it was because they had nothing better.

The first place the power company ran the electric power lines in the country was to the school houses. One large light bulb hung down in each class room. But, back then, most of the children who started school graduated from school. I did not know of one third grade or high school graduate who could read or write. In the historic churches, as in the historic schools, there was heat from wood stoves. My father would get up early on Sunday morning, go to the church, and start fires in all the church stoves so the church and the classrooms, would be warm when the others arrived. In the early public schools, boys in the school and men in the community cut wood for the school's wood stoves. Our ancestors had a passion for worship and a yearning for learning. I have little patience with today's school children and less for college students who are not willing to take advantage of the marvelous education opportunities because of the blood, sweat, and tears, not only of the veterans, but of the greatest heroes I know, parents who have made sacrifices to keep their children in school.

At the church, I can still remember the singing of hymns with gusto. The smiles of my cousins, uncles, and aunts who sat in the amen corner. Through hard times, and good times, and they were mostly hard times, those in the churches knew the truth of joy. Seventeen times in Paul's love letter to the Church at Phillipi, even from his prison cell, he wrote of joy. The reason most Christians do not have joy in their life, is because they are trying to walk down the median of the highway, trying to hold onto the world with one hand, and God with the other. There is no longer a mud scraper at the front door, anywhere. The sticky mud of sin and unconcern is tracked into every building, every life. There is no more dangerous place on the highway than the median. Make up your mind, you cannot serve two masters, you will learn to love one and hate the other, and “you cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

The great writer, converted Christian from atheism, C.S. Lewis said, “you do not have a soul, you are a soul.” Every non-believer I have ever known, could recognize hypocrisy, the muck and mud of sin, if nothing else. They might not give you credit for any of the good you do, but can condemn you for any inconsistency. If Christians lived their faith, the world be converted, so desirable would be the committed Christian life. The problem with most of us who bear the name of Christ, we are consistently inconsistent. The world is so attractive, Satan so desires us, and Satan will do anything possible to taint and damage our Christian testimony, particularly before others, especially before members of our own family. If one can be a real Christian at home, with all the tattered problems we face on a daily basis, if one can be a Christian before his employees with all the unexpecteds of business, if one can be a Christian before his neighbors, with all the trials of climate and government, if one can be a Christian in his given, with all the demands from his pocket book, he is truly a Christian.

My father's youngest brother was a soldier in World War II. He and his young wife so desired children. He went to the war, she worked many jobs - matron in an orphanage, dietician in a hospital, clerk in a department store. When they returned, finally, after so many years, at an advanced age, they had a baby girl. The baby was born with erythroblastosis fetalis (blue baby), a blood and heart defect. Later in life, I knew the pediatrician, and the fact he was a drunk. She had called him about the baby's persistent crying and he told her to double all medication, which killed her child instantly. She told me that my uncle went to the funeral home and purchased a small casket. She dressed her child and before she put the child in the casket, sat by her child's bed and prayed all night for God to restore life. I was away in the military at the time, but I understand there was a graveside service the next day. Thankfully, she did have another child, but how do you account for these disappointments? Whereby Rabbi Cushing tried to answer this question in his book “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.” You can spend the rest of your life asking “why”. Why were millions killed in the great flood, surely there were some innocent children, why have millions been killed in recent wars... more wars in the 20th century, more people killed in the 20th century, than any other time in history. Why was it necessary for a perfect man to take the sins of the world, the sicknesses of the world, to the cross. God is in charge. He is Boss. It is up to us to have memories of good in spite of bad.

Two men built houses, one on a rock, one in sand. The storms came, the house built on the rock stood (Matthew 7:24-27). Joy comes in knowing you are firmly attached to solid rock. There are 11,000 animals on the endangered species list. The Christian home, the Christian church, the committed Christian, all are on the endangered list. A family sitting around the table is something of the past. There is not much love among Christians anymore, even in the church, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35). Churches multiply by dividing. Along with the fried chicken for lunch, there is more fried preacher than prayers for the preacher. News media thrives on exploiting weaknesses of Christians and even Christian churches. They love to promote the Islamic mosque. Why does not some enterprising reporter investigate how much good Muslims have done for the world, feeding the hungry, building hospitals, building colleges, making life easier for women and children. How many of the world's great inventions and products of research has come from Muslim minds or Muslim money. I have traveled to forty predominant Muslim countries in the world, the most desolate, desperate ,deprived places on earth.

Western civilization, America, has its warts. God, who created the Universe, who put on a tent of human flesh, and came to earth to dwell among us, has shown us how to live and how to die.

Memories

One of my earliest memories of the old country church in which I grew up, built in 1874 by both my mother and father's grandparents, was a boot scraper at the bottom of the first door step, such as pictured above. Public buildings like homes, 100 years ago, did not have cement walkways and in fact there were very few paved roads or streets. The country church house was just that. A large house in the country. This was before the time of electric power lines. There was no electricity in the church, no place to plug in a vacuum cleaner even if the vacuum cleaner had been invented. Our church was one of the few churches in the county that had gas lighting. A carbide system whereby gas pellets was mixed with water in an outside container and gas was piped inside the building to overhead lamps. I can still remember my cousin, standing on pews, lighting these beautiful gas lamps. Ours was one of the few churches with such lighting. Most had the old kerosene lamps, like those used in homes.
My grandparent's home, without electric power (few power lines into the countryside until 1935), had a Delco lighting system. Late every afternoon a gasoline powered generator would go putt-putt-putt and large glass enclosed batteries, in series, would generate enough electricity to have light from bulbs in the house and in outside barn areas at night. This power was not used for anything else - refrigerators, stoves, and radios. It was a real luxury, and like tractors, trucks, and even automobiles, only the wealthier families had them. But small bulbs gave more light than the old-fashioned kerosene lamp. Over the dining room table in my other grandparent's home, hung a copper shaded kerosene lamp. Magnificent beauty as you ate and some of my fine-feathered, country club nauseatingly elitist friends think they are living high on the hog when they eat by candlelight. I'm sure many of our early ancestors ate by candlelight, or even light from the fire place, but it was because they had nothing better.
The first place the power company ran the electric power lines in the country was to the school houses. One large light bulb hung down in each class room. But, back then, most of the children who started school graduated from school. I did not know of one third grade or high school graduate who could read or write. In the historic churches, as in the historic schools, there was heat from wood stoves. My father would get up early on Sunday morning, go to the church, and start fires in all the church stoves so the church and the classrooms, would be warm when the others arrived. In the early public schools, boys in the school and men in the community cut wood for the school's wood stoves. Our ancestors had a passion for worship and a yearning for learning. I have little patience with today's school children and less for college students who are not willing to take advantage of the marvelous education opportunities because of the blood, sweat, and tears, not only of the veterans, but of the greatest heroes I know, parents who have made sacrifices to keep their children in school.
At the church, I can still remember the singing of hymns with gusto. The smiles of my cousins, uncles, and aunts who sat in the amen corner. Through hard times, and good times, and they were mostly hard times, those in the churches knew the truth of joy. Seventeen times in Paul's love letter to the Church at Phillipi, even from his prison cell, he wrote of joy. The reason most Christians do not have joy in their life, is because they are trying to walk down the median of the highway, trying to hold onto the world with one hand, and God with the other. There is no longer a mud scraper at the front door, anywhere. The sticky mud of sin and unconcern is tracked into every building, every life. There is no more dangerous place on the highway than the median. Make up your mind, you cannot serve two masters, you will learn to love one and hate the other, and “you cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
The great writer, converted Christian from atheism, C.S. Lewis said, “you do not have a soul, you are a soul.” Every non-believer I have ever known, could recognize hypocrisy, the muck and mud of sin, if nothing else. They might not give you credit for any of the good you do, but can condemn you for any inconsistency. If Christians lived their faith, the world be converted, so desirable would be the committed Christian life. The problem with most of us who bear the name of Christ, we are consistently inconsistent. The world is so attractive, Satan so desires us, and Satan will do anything possible to taint and damage our Christian testimony, particularly before others, especially before members of our own family. If one can be a real Christian at home, with all the tattered problems we face on a daily basis, if one can be a Christian before his employees with all the unexpecteds of business, if one can be a Christian before his neighbors, with all the trials of climate and government, if one can be a Christian in his given, with all the demands from his pocket book, he is truly a Christian.
My father's youngest brother was a soldier in World War II. He and his young wife so desired children. He went to the war, she worked many jobs - matron in an orphanage, dietician in a hospital, clerk in a department store. When they returned, finally, after so many years, at an advanced age, they had a baby girl. The baby was born with erythroblastosis fetalis (blue baby), a blood and heart defect. Later in life, I knew the pediatrician, and the fact he was a drunk. She had called him about the baby's persistent crying and he told her to double all medication, which killed her child instantly. She told me that my uncle went to the funeral home and purchased a small casket. She dressed her child and before she put the child in the casket, sat by her child's bed and prayed all night for God to restore life. I was away in the military at the time, but I understand there was a graveside service the next day. Thankfully, she did have another child, but how do you account for these disappointments? Whereby Rabbi Cushing tried to answer this question in his book “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.” You can spend the rest of your life asking “why”. Why were millions killed in the great flood, surely there were some innocent children, why have millions been killed in recent wars... more wars in the 20th century, more people killed in the 20th century, than any other time in history. Why was it necessary for a perfect man to take the sins of the world, the sicknesses of the world, to the cross. God is in charge. He is Boss. It is up to us to have memories of good in spite of bad.
Two men built houses, one on a rock, one in sand. The storms came, the house built on the rock stood (Matthew 7:24-27). Joy comes in knowing you are firmly attached to solid rock. There are 11,000 animals on the endangered species list. The Christian home, the Christian church, the committed Christian, all are on the endangered list. A family sitting around the table is something of the past. There is not much love among Christians anymore, even in the church, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35). Churches multiply by dividing. Along with the fried chicken for lunch, there is more fried preacher than prayers for the preacher. News media thrives on exploiting weaknesses of Christians and even Christian churches. They love to promote the Islamic mosque. Why does not some enterprising reporter investigate how much good Muslims have done for the world, feeding the hungry, building hospitals, building colleges, making life easier for women and children. How many of the world's great inventions and products of research has come from Muslim minds or Muslim money. I have traveled to forty predominant Muslim countries in the world, the most desolate, desperate ,deprived places on earth.
Western civilization, America, has its warts. God, who created the Universe, who put on a tent of human flesh, and came to earth to dwell among us, has shown us how to live and how to die.

Citizenship Day

When I was a child, even in a very poor rural school, we had citizenship clubs, and “citizenship day”, on which the outstanding student in each grade received a citizenship medal (I always received the outstanding citizenship medal). Later in life, the Woodman of the World, a fraternal group, gave a county citizenship medal. I still have that medal, along with my military medals in a frame. In another commentary, I have spoken about my being the North Carolina Young Man of the Year. Citizenship, like living the Christian life, is a dual responsibility, you cannot be one and not the other. Christianity compels you to be a good citizen, and I have never known a “real Christian” who is not a good citizen. September 17th, citizenship day, was once called “constitution day”.

Our country is sick today because we have so many sick citizens, sick citizens who have forgotten the magnificence of their constitution. Sick citizens because they have forgotten the sovereignty of the Bible. The system is sick because law enforcement is sick, judiciary is sick. The only salvation for America, the American way of life as dreamed by our founding fathers, is to return to the instructions found in God's Holy Word. The depths and breadths afforded every citizen by the promises of the Constitution. Once, in a group of disabled citizens, a blind man stepped on my foot. He apologized and said, “you know I am blind”. I said, “yes, only the blind know things as they are, and only we can be magnanimous in forgiving others who should know.”

James Cagney, famed actor, said, “there are only three types of people: those who can count, and those who cannot count.” I have experienced one man who told me he was sure that he was going to hell. Most people, regardless of their lives here on earth, think they are going to heaven, and for some strange reason, so does their family. The man told me he was so sure he was going to hell because he could not stand “religious people.”

Only those who have been to war know the horrors of war, and want to escape war. Only those who have lived a life of paganism should want to escape paganism. Even before Christ, there was slavery in the Greco-Roman empires. The first African slaves were taken to Portugal around 1425, but there were centuries of slavery before that: slaves pulling the oars of ancient ships, slaves working the mines of ancient rulers, slave girls and women, forced prostitutes. For centuries, Christians like Wilberforce of England have tried to erase slavery from the face of the earth. Yet, even in the 21st century, like the selling of children, pornography and drug addiction, there is more slavery in the world than ever before. And, even in America, we vote for slavery, slaves to increasing taxation, slaves to a complete loss of privacy, slaves to increased government controls.

On this Citizenship Day, which also happens to be my eightieth birthday, I want to devote the rest of my life, in fervent prayer, for a new day of citizenship in America. Realizing that when American loses the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, that the rest of the world becomes just one big cauldron of enslavement. Because, since America's founding, America has been the one nation on Earth to which people all over the earth have found hope in helping them find freedom, and citizenship. God, in his tender mercy, in his love for every person, from conception to the grave, instills the desire for citizenship, a citizen of the earth.

Twilight Zone

One of the worst nights I ever spent in my life, this was not in a war, a foreign country, aboard a ship in time of storm, and I have experienced all this. Hearing the screams of a wife, as her husband abused her.

I had a problem in my house, the construction man advised that I sleep somewhere else. To save money on a motel, I decided to stay in a furnished duplex which I owned, all I had to take with me was clothing and some bed linens. During the night, in the adjoining duplex, I heard this awful abuse going on, a man beating his wife as she screamed for help. I had interviewed the couple before they moved into the house. He was a high school football star/player, and both had responsible jobs. They always paid their rent on time, and I had no complaints from anyone else. Other neighboring houses was not like hearing through a wall. Of course I did not have phone service in this apartment, had more sense than to interfere.

The next morning, I called my friend, the local sheriff, he said, “I will look into the matter, let me handle it. You stay out of it, don't ever get involved in a domestic dispute. More law enforcement officers are killed involving this than anything else.” One other time, years later, I witnessed the same thing, a small maid's apartment under my beach house had been rented to a couple. I heard the same type abuse one night, a young man striking his wife, she crying and screaming, begging him to stop. The next morning, I put a note on their door telling them to vacate immediately. One day on the beach, together, they both yelled insults at me.

I am convinced that there are people, particularly women, who thrive on abuse. These masochistic personalities are usually attracted to sadistic personalities. I can think of nothing more evil than a sadistic person, whether the abuse is toward another human being or an animal. We have all known animal abusers, and court records are full of human abuse, particularly children. Discipline is essential in the training of children, but abuse of any kind, on anyone, is never justified.

I cannot imagine a woman, any woman, sleeping in the same bed with a mate who is physically abusive. I have known several psychiatrists and psychologists in my professional life, they have told me that I would never believe the things they have heard in their practice. Nor, can I understand people who worship in an attitude of abusive conformity, death to unbelievers, the elimination of infidels. You may not understand why someone else does not appreciate your religious beliefs, and you may not understand their religious belief or unbelief, but you can still have a good relationship, you either decide in the beginning not to discuss your spirituality or discuss it with a motive of learning.

We all have needs, secular and temporal, physical and spiritual. The German people on the Wiemar Republic were desperate, destitute. Otherwise, you cannot explain why these intelligent people would elect Adolf Hitler. Since WWI, they had been swimming in an ocean of self-indulgence, trying to reclaim the good life, hyperinflation had taken over. Strife and bigotry ruled the day. German debt, Hitler's promise to solve the problems, made socialism inevitable. Envious eyes grabbed at savings and bank accounts, many of the financial speculators were Jewish, hyper-inflated German money was called “Jewish confetti”.

As has always been the case with academic atheists, communism, the ends justifies the means, it was easy to blame the minorities, because someone had to be blamed, someone must pay the cost. So, to the death chambers went the disabled, the disenfranchised, the Jews. The same old mantra still heard at every funeral home, every case of euthanasia, “better off, would not want to be a burden, in a better place.” Supposedly, these victims went to these death chambers, projected as work camps. They worked as slaves for I.G. Farben, and other chemical conglomerates. A sign at the entrance to Auschwitz said, in German, “Work makes you free”. It was German citizens, torturing and killing their fellow citizens.

Hitler did not hire foreigners to run his holocaust operation, any more than Janet Reno hired foreigners to come in and kill 85 women and children at the Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. It was FBI, American citizens, killing other American citizens. It was not foreigners brought in to assassinate a president, blow up a federal building, or the killing of Americans at Ruby Ridge (Randy Weaver's wife and child). Locally, the sheriff of New Hanover County did not hire outsiders to shoot a university student behind his door, it was a cold-blooded killing by a law officer who killed a young man going to open his door, and they not only killed the young man, but killed his dog, because it was barking. It was Americans, for some strange reason, sanitizing an area of Americans.

Coveting wealth and power, loving the adulation of men rather than God. Trying to satisfy lusts and greed, rather than yearning for the saving graces of all souls. Men and nations do what they do because they believe what they believe. And many times their beliefs are just rotten and evil. God “backed up” his message of love by giving up His only son on the cross for the sins of the entire world, which includes the sins of all nations and all people, even killers, whether an unborn baby, or a mother in a gas chamber. Jesus Christ was the personification of love, the perfect God/man, in the three years in which we have record of his life, He loved everyone and everyone loved Him. Almost always, there was a crowd around Him. He was rich, but for us, became poor. Born in a borrowed stable, buried in a borrowed tomb, never owned anything except one robe. Faith in him has worked for everyone who has ever tried it. It is a historical fact that although his followers might fail Him, He has never failed them.

Can any religion promote killing? In Islam, if you are not a Muslim, you are an infidel, and all infidels must die. Even in Mohammed's treaty of Hudaybiyyah, a treaty he made for his followers at Mecca, and those at Medina, clauses of the treaty call for death. In the 1988 Iraq-Iran war, 900,000 Muslims were killed. Thousands of Muslims have been killed in the Sudan-Darfur war and other areas of Africa, multiple thousands have been displaced. The beat goes on, rather, and the blasphemy of everything sacred to mankind: life, liberty, happiness, fades into the Twilight Zone of religious irascibility contrasted with the verisimilitude of love and grace

Hard Times

The song “Hard Times Come Again No More” was written by Stephen Foster in 1854. It was sung both by the North and the South and became very popular in the Great Depression. I don't believe today's baby boomers, and the younger generation have any idea about the horrors of the Great Depression. Baby boomers have never seen a cheap casket, baby boomers have not yet started walking or riding a bicycle, their car permanently parked because they cannot afford repairs or gas. Overeating, fat Americans know nothing of hunger pains, children in school cafeterias are still throwing away their food, paid for by tax payers, simply because they do not like the way it tastes or looks.

One of the bitterest women I ever met in my life, her bitterness destroyed her life as well the life of her poor, disabled husband, and the people around her could hardly live because of her bitterness. They had been very wealthy before the Great Depression, the Hoods were the most prominent family in town. The couple, both he and she, came from old colonial families. He had a thriving business, but because of an early stroke, he was very disabled...could not live and would not die. Trying to save the business, trying to save farmland which had been left to them, but because of their heavy borrowing, the bank not only took the business, their farm land, but eventually their beautiful home.

They wound up living in a duplex apartment, which they owned and formerly rented to the public. They were no longer in the country club, at the top of the list of invitees to social functions, courted for their political influence. Then, on top of everything else, their only child, a son, was killed in a vehicle accident. As she said to me, “we have lost it all.” He had become increasingly unaware of everything. I had been asked to talk with them because as is often the case, they had left the church and had a toxic attitude toward God...if only Christian, the only thing that could have seen them through. God told us that there would only be a remnant of believers at the end, those that will endure.

You can be sure that we will be tested, there is only one thing that man understands completely...obedience. The first couple refused to obey, and they had to leave the garden. For five thousand years, God's chief creation, mankind, became increasingly evil so that he finally destroyed them all with water, except for eight human souls, Noah and his family. Then we have the history of the Jewish nation, a people chosen by God. A people He so loved that He chose them for the birth and living of His only Son. History just involves this one nation of people, Jews. Gentiles, the rest of us, only as we come in contact with the Jews. God had a special relationship with the Jews, from Abraham, the first Jew (4000 BC), right on until a Jewish lawyer named Paul, and the establishment of the church. Christ's disciples were Jews, all men, they never ordained anyone but men, and so it was with Paul and the church. The church, the bride, Christ, the bride groom.

It is a spiritual relationship, and where the spirit of God is working, there will be a spirit of obedience and a spirit of giving. Man is completely incapable of understanding the mind of God, we think we know so much, have made so many great advances. God knew all these inventions, advances, and we have no idea of the blessings, the gifts, he has for us, if we would only obey. Nor, do we have any idea of the methods he has for keeping us in line. Just as the Jewish nation were stiff necked, their history is that of sin's ruin, back into submission, finally dispersion. If history has done anything at all, it should have taught people to fear God. We find the admonition to fear god 365 times in the Bible. Yet, the sinful heart of man always rebels, thinks he knows best. Satan loves nothing better than the rebelling, sinful heart of mankind. Man loves deception, loves to deceive, for instance, we know that America deceives its citizens: CIA staging terrorism attacks, CIA manufacturing Bin Laden tapes, CIA involvement in torture and even the killing of leaders (Benazir Bhutto). Much of the daily news is concocted, a student with bomb in his underwear in Chicago.

The present administration was going to give people jobs, the unemployment was 7.7% in 2008, now it is almost 10%, 7 million people on food stamps, more people losing their homes than ever. The congressional budget office (CBO) states that America owes 202 trillion dollars in debt, mostly entitlements. We know that the debt at present is $14 trillion, and that the debt had increased $4.4 trillion since Obama has been in office. At least, at the beginning of the Great Depression, money was backed up by gold. At least until 1971, money was backed up by silver. Today, money is backed up by thin air. They had not learned yet, the simple elementary school fact, you cannot continue to write checks when there is no money in the bank. As more and more fiat paper money is printed, it will take more and more fiat paper money to buy something, as was the case with the Weimar German Republic, before WWII, it will soon take a wheelbarrow full of money to go to the grocery store.

In Zimbabwe, there are sign in bathrooms, “Do not use money.” Paper money is cheaper in Zimbabwe than toilet tissue, the trouble is that paper money clogs up the sewers. In the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe they have ceased to use all money including the rand, only the American dollar and Euros. At the time they stopped using their own money, the inflation money was an unbelievable quindecillion novemdecillion percent (65 followed by 107 zeros). If America had kept her industry, not shipped everything overseas with NAFTA and CAFTA, America would have jobs. At the time of the Great Depression, America still made things, at least, you could barter. Some tomatoes from your garden, for some chickens grown in another yard. Now, just as the American government knows about your savings from your bank, your retirement funds from your IRA and 401 tax program. Your government legislates gardens and the raising of animals. Like industry, the small farmers has disappeared. We cannot all be community organizers or financial advisers. How many salesmen does it take on a used car lot? How many waiters in a restaurant? The Great Depression ending in 1941 when we went to war, most businesses by that time, had closed.

In government, just as in our spiritual life, there are non-negotiables. There is nothing more basic than work, jobs to support a family. There is nothing more non-negotiable than deep religious convictions, we cannot negotiate abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, or women preachers and priests. Knowing nothing of the love of God in the heart, Lucifer not having a soul, governments and churches have been enticed to forget common sense. Just as Christ cleared up confusion in the synagogue about what goes on there: buying and selling, such as today's yard sales to support His work.

We must get back to fundamentals everywhere and in everything. Sin's ruin and Christ's redemption. Repentance for sin, the power of prayer for a sin cursed nation and word. The solution for hard times: hard work, hard discipline, hard heads.

Stalactites

Almost as remarkable as icicles frozen from water dripping down, is the formation of stalactites in many of the world's caves.  There are caves in this country that have such formations (Mammoth KY), but the one I saw in Elephanta, India, were truly remarkable.  The caves can only be reached by boat on the island of Elephanta.  The huge caves have been transformed into Hindu temples and the entrances have been sculptured to represent a temple.  Like the constant drip of water to make an icicle which will sometimes extends down many feet before being broken, the stalactites are formed from the top of the cave with a constant drip of moisture, and very much like coral in the ocean, it develops into a thing of natural beauty, which no artist could duplicate. 

I have beautiful pieces of coral and shelves from the island of Mauritius and the Seychelles (Indian Ocean).  When we consider that it probably takes hundreds or thousands of years for the formation of the coral.  Each shell, coral, or stalactite starts with the granulation of one small animal which over hundreds of thousands of years increasing modulation of moisture and temperature leads to a spectacular result.  The Great Barrier Reef in Australia, 1250 miles long, including many islands of the coast of Queensland bordering the Coral Sea, started with small animals called coral, much like a jellyfish,,that died and over a very long period of time led to this natural barrier, large enough to be seen from outer space.

Can one even imagine or attempt to compute the microscopic organisms involved in the formation of this great reef. The formation of coral and many other estuaries or the formations of stalactites, formed in much of the same way in caves, not only in India and Indonesia, but around the world. All these sculptures of nature become tourist attractions and phenomena of artists, as well as atheists.

From the beginning of the 20th century, and certainly in my lifetime, we have seen this  country become a stalactite, slowly but surely, layer upon layer often almost microscopic and unnoticeable, certainly unreported, we have seen stalactite formation of the socialist agenda with a certain communist result. The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not.  But to the skeptic, study your history and look around you at what has happened to your country.  If you do not see this slow layering of socialistic ideas, you are more blind then this writer. (I am a totally blind 100% disabled service-connected veteran).  THINK ON THIS. 

Secular security has replaced sacred sanity.

Political correctness has replaced patriotic principles.

Addiction has replaced accomplishment.

Corrupt voyeurs has replaced patriotic competence.

Purulent art has replaced antiquarian masters.

Compulsive disorders have replaced Christian doctrine.

Drums and drama have replaced quiet worship.

Subsidized wants have replaced necessary needs.

Government checks have replaced God’s omnipotence.

At a time when government controls manipulate every area of your life, you must have a permit or license to do anything, when failures are honored with “bailouts” and “payouts”. When an ROTC student gets a larger government check each month than a 100% disabled veteran. When hospitals, schools, jails, are overrun by illegals who have entered the country, a country supported by hard working tax paying citizens, whose previous family generations had paid the taxes and built the inner structure which the illegals now compromise. When the dirty book stores, once located in back alleys, now have their wares for view in every living room. When the trash on television attracts more watchers than political nominees seeking votes. When, instead of the church changing the world, the world has absolutely changed the church. When TV preachers are more entertaining, with their laughter and clapping, than night club comedians...we can know that God-less collectivism, control, and communism has taken over.

 We have seen political tyrants seize countries and exploit citizens by taking their property and their sexuality as in Africa, Latin America, etc. But, for a country, built on the principles of freedom, rights, even though it has been hard coming to many people, no one could have foreseen that we would vote for enslavement. Slavery is much easier to the slave master if no resistance is offered. The slave master is very happy for the slave to show obedience, hard work and willingly turn over the results of his labors to the owner. In the Roman Empire, slaveholders furnished a circus or some other entertainment to keep the enslaved happy. Willing accomplices in the entertainment industry keep the slaves occupied, when not at work, in front of their most valuable idol, the TV set. Dependence on the blessings of God is not important when you can depend on government subsidized housing, health care, education, food stamps, and meager living expenses.

In world travel, (8 around the world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries) I was in each communist country (crossed Russia on the Tran-Siberian railroads, one of the first Americans into China after the Nixon reopening), I can say with all sincerity and honesty, even though it was a matter of using my other senses rather then my eyes, this country now has a perfect communist system, without a revolution. In China, Russia, Korea, Cuba, etc, the people fought for their liberty.

We hear politicians talk much about freedom and liberty just as they always say at the end of a speech “God bless you”. What God are they talking about? Most know nothing of almighty God, if they, did their lives would be different. Like the Christian church, we just talk and plan, if the Christian would live the Christian life before his fellow man, the entire world would, by now, been converted to Christ, and the stalactites of communist takeover would not be so completely obvious.

Highminded

Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; (1 Timothy 6:17) In the richness of His mercy, from the very beginning of humankind, men have sought to do it “their way” (most want to sing “I Did It My Way” all the way to hell with Frank Sinatra). After a very seductive, attractive serpent seduced Eve and henpecked Adam joined her in disobedience. Losing their innocence, they discovered they were naked, no one had to tell them. Then as now, they wanted to do things their way...strung some leaves together to cover their private genitalia. But God, knowing best, in His mercy, “made coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). He wanted them clothed sufficiently, it is the first time that blood was shed, it was necessary for God to kill animals.

Around 8,000 years later, 2000 BC, pharaoh and the Egyptians were anxious for the children of Israel to leave Egypt carrying most of the wealth of Egypt after plagues had been visited upon them (Exodus 9:14, Exodus 12:33-39). When a nation has suffered sufficient catastrophe at the hands of God, that nation is ready for change, ready to rid itself of those and that causing the problems. The Egyptians were glad to see their slaves leave, carrying much Egyptian wealth, taking their herds with them.

Americas are beginning to awaken to their slavery, over and over, whispers from the “tea party goers”. America has become just one big ponzy scheme, America is just one big Bernie Madoff experiment. Facing a $202 trillion debt according to CBO (congressional budget office), private businesses and private homes, raking and scraping to keep body and soul together. As the federal bureaucracy grows, and as the shackles of slavery tighten, the small businessman, small farmer, small school, even small church, all find they can no longer stay in business. The past six years has seen an meteoric awakening of the American psyche. The common man has decided that he is master of his own destiny, that those who are supposed to be smarter, are not smart. It has always bothered the slave master, that the slave always pities him and his decadence. It has always bothered the butcher in the slaughterhouse, with the knife, to think that the animal does not care what he thinks of him, that death is about as satisfying as life.

The Christian Chinese slaughtered by Mao, the Christian Russians slaughtered by Stalin, Christians all over the world who have been left bereft of life's earthly values. Unlike the soulless animals, have a soul and know there is a better place awaiting. Hardworking, god-fearing, taxpaying Americans are tired of the fight...the fight against evil. For the past six years, we have seen a total failure in the integrity of government. The Republicans are as much to blame as the Democrats, when the Republicans were in charge, just as completely as the Democrats now, with both houses of Congress and the White House, they were just as impotent, callous, a stench in the nostrils of almighty God. It has taken this Sunni Muslim-Marxist President along with his ilk, czars and decadent stars, to make us realize what we have lost in what was once the greatness of America. When our blessed Lord, had His feet bathed by the woman who broke the alabaster box, and gave everything she owned, it was a time of total giving, Christ reminded us that wherever His Gospel is preached, what this woman has done should also be told (Matthew 26:13).

There are always two sides to giving, God gave His only Son, His only Son gave His life, that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Giving is the most important worship (worth ship) in the Christian's life, and Americans from the very beginning, landing on these shores, have given. Military cemeteries are full of those that have given their all, veterans know about giving. From the beginning, however, there have been thieves, Cain killed Abel, Jacob stole a birthright, Christ went to the cross and a thief went to the streets, Judas, in true form, like most of today's bureaucrats and politicians, lamented about the poor.

It is so obvious to anyone with two purkinje cells functioning in the brain, that in the class warfare brought on by the last six years of federal government, the ideology, from both the elitists who monopolize both parties, to bring most of the population to a common level of poverty. I've traveled through every communist country, it was always the same, whether Russia, China, Burma, Africa, the politicians, the politician appointed bureaucrats, the ruling class had the jobs, the money, the vehicles, the good life. The masses were in an economy of survival, did anyone ever think, so quick, so intentional, we are already there. As surely as corruption thrives in federal, state, and local government, as surely as every vestige of independence and privacy has been removed from the common man, those who thought they had a pension, whether social security or otherwise, will find every person working or not working, will live on the same level. The social security trust funds have been confiscated, the $17 trillion in pension funds will be confiscated, increased control dictates that this must be a totalitarian, collectivist society. It has never worked anywhere else, but Satan always convinces his followers that it was not done right there. It will be done right here, Satan has convinced enough that they are “ready for change”. Can you still hear them screaming that at the Obama rally?

After 9/11, which anniversary we celebrated this week, flags were flying and many sang, “God Bless America”. Why should God bless America?