The Cheerios Tree

May 5, 2020

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.

4-28-2020                                                 
Normal?
No word has been over worked during this pandemic of Covid 19 is the word Normal. Every day the public conversation on public matter by talking heads wants everything back to normal. What is normal nowadays?
In this county, we have a well known female politician who has served in many public offices even the N.C Senate who is a well known lesbian. She makes no secret of her sexual preference, recently on the radio said that she would be glad when things got back to normal. Do she think that her sexual preference is normal.
My mind must be different from the normal, I think of things for instant, those 300 million slaves that was taken from Egypt . By Gods movement must have the daily human matter such as bowel movement. We do not have any direction from any where that these people even own a shovel.
On African Safari, in the mornings, and certainly always available where everyone knew where to find it, a shovel. In the mornings the men would claim a shovel and move in one direction and the women would do the same in another direction. I often mused what these ancestors as well as my most recent ancestors considered in managing these matters. My early ancestors who landed the beach in New Jersey ( founded Morristown) must of had critical moments especially during the rain-ice-snow of living in that area of the world. As they try to  keep " body and soul together" as they attempted the rigors of life can we only imagine what life was like during those "normal days".
Can we even imagine what life would be like for our ancestors and others, as they invaded this unpossessed land from which they had to ekal a living. Can we even imagine what life was like for the academicis as they tried to established higher education, can we even imagine what life was like for the small businessman trying to established himself for the risk of others? Living though terrors of bad weather( hurricanes, tornadoes etc). Most of us love old things, but those museums filled with items of the past can hardly explain the tremors of those first trying to master things: and we call this normal.
Every time I look at a patient, every time I walk through "stacks" of the university library I was over whelmed with the recollection of what mere people had gone through to advance us to this stage of life living in this world and we call this normal.
Every time I visit a graveyard or cemetery particularly those in the country, I was chosen for the knowledge what these departed people had gone through in their life on this earth and yet, they was gone forever. Digging down, you would find and expensive casket or a rotten wood box in which we give our last respect. So, you are born, to go through all this trauma to learn to live and then learn to deal with everything life has to throw at you ( sickness, disability, social problems) and we ask ourselves is this normal. God asked us for two actions in returned for his Grace Mercy and Love for us: Faith and Trust. Is this normal? When I was a young boy around 10 years of age, I remember sleeping in my grandfathers room one night and I heard him over in his feather bed praying all night long, he like all the rest of my ancestors was farmers and at that time, from his home in town, he manage the crops on the farm including tobacco acres and tobacco which  drowned so easily so he knew that all his tobacco land would be drowned and even though my grandparents like my parents and most of my ancestor before me clung to the promises of God, was this normal?  Should he actually have expected answers to his prayers? Should farmers-businessmen-even the lumber and brick or bread company expect to have a profit. When my ancestors was trying to eat out existence with hand tools they brought from England the small amount of protection from the elements ( protection from the rain and harsh cold). I saw the instruments involved in the early delivery of babies, the instruments in early surgery the books involved  in all the academic subjects so little knowledge so narrow the method of getting it to you not knowing what to do in a time of health care crisis can we even imagine how few drugs,how little knowledge was available to care givers at that time and we call this normal.
All these things are human disappointment was the challenge of many years ago. We have the greatest nation on earth because we was able to meet the challenge. It is the matter of the windshield not the rearview mirror which will give us some direction during this time when things are anything but normal: in our way of thinking.You would never had convinced my grandparents or any ancestor I knew if from whom I never heard a four letter word from which our children hear on TV-radio-streets, that they hear today is anything but normal today.
God told us to come Boldly to his throne of Grace we was never very good at following instructions he told our grandparents in the garden, that they had all the beauty in the world available to them. He just pointed towards one tree " Don't touch that tree". Of course they brought all the sin and trials of life right to our mind body and soul this just as a torn in a bush of beautiful roses. We will learn that normal is only our impression of normal. When I saw elderly black women walk all day long in the bush of Africa just to find water to bring home for food, just as I realize that normal includes one woman who because of her royal highness controls most of the population of the world that most of these people in Africa never seen a hand pump never long running water yet, the Queen of England has 75 bathrooms in her house for the use of she and her feeble older husband Prince Philip. Lets get our impressions of normal refresh in our minds.

April 27, 2020

To my Family and Friends

Dear Gary,Mike,Teresa, and all my other family members and friends

    Here it is the beginning of another week with all the problems brought on by the virus, the only one that can handle this virus like he handles everything else, virus, cancer, problems fade with the knowledge that God has us in his sight. I so enjoyed and was thrill with the service from Robert's Grove Church, thank God I was raised in a bible believing church raised by saved parents always with certain knowledge that God was with my parents, grandparents, family and friends.

    I am so glad that my parents and grandparents wasn't subject to this virus and mere mortals to control it. God has told us in his precious word to com Boldly to his throne of Grace that we will obtain Mercy and Grace in time of need. I am so thankful for Gary at the organ, his family and friends in the church proclaiming Gods marvelous Grace. Dwayne reminded me some time ago that people now better understand what my life is like being a shut-in, seldom going out and then mostly to a doctors office. We continue to have that almost desperate need to pray for one another.

    I am so happy on this day, to have the blessedness of friends such as you to see me, us well as so many others through these tough days, His Grace is Sufficient.

    Sincerely

    Tom

March 31, 2020

"We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28 

To know that nothing hurts the godly, is a matter of comfort. But to be assured . . .
  that all things which happen shall cooperate for their good, 
  that their crosses shall be turned into blessings,
  that showers of affliction water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more
--this may fill their hearts with joy until they run over! 

"As the wicked are hurt by the best things--so the godly are bettered by the worst things!"William Jenkyn

"Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride." Richard Sibbes

"God's wounds cure--sin's kisses kill." William Gurnall

"I am . . . 
  mended by my sickness,
  enriched by my poverty, and
  strengthened by my weakness. 
Thus was it with King Manasseh when he was in affliction, "He sought the Lord his God." 
His iron shackles were more precious to him than his gold,
his jail was a more happy lodging than his palace,
Babylon was a better school than Jerusalem. 
What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! 
These, however difficult, are our best friends! They are not intended for our pleasure, but for our profit!" Abraham Wright

This 85 year old veteran, American citizen, committed/concerned/convinced Christian would never have believed, as a child, that he would spend most of his life sightless...in a cocoon of blackness only by faith, not sight, do many of us walk.  (2 Corinthians 5:7)

God forgive me for having so little patience with those around me, family/neighbors/associates who have so much and appreciate it so little.

I was in the depths of Africa, I believe around Goma in the Congo.  I came upon a village where the Christians there were attempting to put a new roof on their church.  The young preacher said, it is a Methodist church.  At one place in Africa, I came across a large "brush arbor" which was a Baptist church.  You know what I was thinking, these destitute Africans doing the best they can with the little they have while I have surrounded my life with people who thought they were doing their best, for our blessed Lord by going to church for 1 hour on a Sunday morning... when they felt like it, living like the unbelieving world the rest of the time. 

I do not sit in judgment of anyone, everyday of my life I pray that God would forgive me for my rotten sins.  The times I have embarrassed him even though I was the bearer of his name even though I proclaimed his grace. 

One day we will understand.  I still remember the day before my own mother died...her body devoured by cancer, in my years as a Army medical officer, doctor,  many hospitals, I still believe the worse part of sickness is the bedpan.  The last thing I ever did for this remarkable woman, my mother,  was when she asked me to put her on the commode... nothing but skin and bones, she must have weighed about 50 pounds, she died the next day, and as far as I know, this Christian woman like her Christian mother before her never did anything but good for her family and everyone else with whom she came in contact. 

The most difficult question you will ever be asked is why God allows good people to suffer.  That is his business... just as he allowed his own precious son to suffer on a cruel cross.

In my long life of world travel meeting and greeting people of every type in almost every type situation, most never "EXPECT" the "UNEXPECTED"... they never think anything bad will happen to them even though 50% of the population have cancer, weather they know it or not, 10% of all deaths are from medical mistakes and 1/4 of all sac atrophic drugs are given to children.  We wonder why so many young people are addicted to drugs, so many commit suicide, so many are not fit morally, spiritually, physically to live around the normal population.  If nothing bad has happened to you, no sickness, no infirmity, no depression, no despair, no disappointment don't get too self satisfied, your day of exposure to the realities of life is on the way.  

Hunger For Laughter

April 17, 2020

Hunger For Laughter

In the early days of live television audiences, often on the street in the Times Square area, I was approached by someone offering me a ticket to a live television show. This was at the time of such television greats as Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Carl Reiner. Back then, several lifetimes ago, I had a small amount of vision in one eye, enough to get around.

At these shows, someone to the side would hold up a sign which said, “Applause”. To make the program, show, host seem entertaining, the audience was supposed to laugh and applaud at any little thing. At the warmup session, before the show came on the air, we were told that the world hungers for entertainment, laughter, applause. We, as the audience, were supposed to help with the entertainment, whether the subject matter was entertaining or not.

If you have one braincell still functional, you must have wondered at times, how could this audience find this so entertaining...people laughing and applauding at the simplest things, are we really so desperate for laughter? Fact is much stranger than fiction, just the absurdities of everyday life which we observe, which we hear about are much more entertaining than anything anyone could write or imagine.

The home of Juliette Gordon Low, Savannah GA, is a national memorial, open to the public. Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of the USA in 1912, there are approximately 2.4 million Girl Scout youth, 900,000 adults. As is the case with the Boy Scout movement, no one knows of the good that scouting has done. As with most organizations not dependent on government largess, Girls Scouts raise their own money, in their case, by selling cookies. Savannah, like most cities, has some regulations which are so stupid, for instance, Girl Scouts cannot sell cookies anywhere around the Juliette Gordon Low house (which is considered “peddling on the street”).

There are two quotes from Henry Ward Beecher which I will never forget. One, “put a handle of truth on any lie and anyone will believe it”, the other, “laughter is God's medicine, everyone ought to bathe in it.” There is nothing more refreshing to anyone, at any age, than the laughter of a child. In South Africa, I talked at length with the ambassador from Angola. This Portuguese colony had just undergone a 27-year civil war. The ambassador said there was not one building left standing, and he never saw a smile on children's faces.

I was in India after a horrendous flood, the faces of the children there were so sad, one had to look away. I think about this after an earthquake/tsunami like the one that just hit Japan. With so many deaths, so much damage, you wonder if people can ever laugh again. It is so necessary to prepare for these unexpecteds, tragedies, disasters, diseases of living. Death is a part of life. One of the most remarkable things about the human eye, the chemical composition of the tears of sadness are different from the tears of gladness; God knew there would be much of both. If, as expected, the next earthquake (and they are coming so fast and furious) will be in the northeast of the pacific fringe. There has already been earthquakes in the southeast (Chile), southwest (New Zealand) and the northwest (Japan). Life's breath consists of happiness and sadness.

There are about 100 billion pieces of junk mail delivered every year. The face of Colonel Sanders (who died in 1980) is better known, worldwide, than that of Mao, Stalin, Hitler, or even Obama. Business enterprise did not start with business schools at the university, history did not start with history classes in colleges. We, as a civilization, as people of religion and faith were handling psychological problems before the time of the psychologist and even the psychiatrist. Entire civilizations became educated before there were schools of education, the more we learn, the more things stay the same, I feel sure that Jesus Christ and his disciples were home-schooled. We have no record of Jesus laughing, but the shortest verse in scripture tells us that He wept. (John 11:35)

In our dumbed-down, politically correct, systems of news, entertainment, and even sermons, we feel no one is successful, whether pastor, professor or politician, unless they can perform as a stand-up comedian. I had one bacteriology professor who felt he was more accepted and entertaining if he gave some strange, remote epithet for every microbe. A President of the United States, number 43, felt he was more successful if he gave a stupid classless nickname to every friend, such as is common with those in the “fraternity boy “set. Such is the narcissism which runs amok in the minds of those not disabled and disenfranchised.

I found in my world travels that the happiest people were often the poorest people. I truly believe it was because they did not know any better, that there was no better for them, in their mind, physically or spiritually, ignorance is bliss. Life on planet Earth is so short, full of troubles, trials, tribulations, dirt, disease and death. We are told that God laughs (Psalm 2:4), to think that those who have so much to gain, are so intent on losing.

April 8, 2020

A letter to the Governor

103 Ann Street
Wilmington, North Carolina 28401

April 7, 2020

The Honorable Roy Cooper, Governor
State of North Carolina
1 E Edenton Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27601                                                Re:  The Chill of “Sick Care”


Dear Sir:

I feel the necessity for someone with your concern and your ability to get things done to assist our state and someone such as me.  I am now and have been for over 50 years totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected Army Medical Officer, and veteran of the Korean Conflict era.

Since 1996, I have been fighting cancer.  I live alone in a house which I own and over the years have enjoyed success in real estate and other investments.

With the recent terror of the Corona Virus which in order to save the country is destroying the country, I have confined myself to the bedroom.  Because of my sickness I cannot be alone in sickness or death. I never leave the house except to go to the Oncologist.

Yesterday was one of these days.  I have around the clock care assist and take care of me night and day. One of my assistants to me took me to a prearranged appointment at Wilmington Health (1202 Medical Center Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina 28401).  She took me in a wheel chair into the facility. One would think they would isolate a 90 year old man. For one (1) hour was pushed from place to place around people with who knows what disease. I have been very ill since.

In my experience as Staff Officer in Army hospitals, we would not enter a “chill” and carelessness of care such as this. We are so particular in my house to keep me isolated from the biologicals of life and death that we even spray the shoes of everyone who enters the house. Those of us in the “sick care” field and those of us who experience acceptable care just as the hundreds who have encountered the virus know the necessity for complete care IF our nation had started corrective procedures when first it appeared in China…the virus would have never taken over this nation and we would not have the situation we have now.

This writer – this old Army Officer – and what he says should be evaluated by his life.  I was born and raised in poverty on an eastern North Carolina tobacco farm…attending a country school.  There were 13 students in my graduating class. I did get into UNC-CH and the University of Tennessee where working nights and summers I made enough to pay my way and graduate as an Army Medical Officer. Because of my blindness and other disabilities, I have been alone in the world but I still have paid much local, state, and federal taxes.

The Veterans’ Administration had done almost nothing for me.  My records are open for your perusal.  I believe there is a slackness--almost uncontrolled carelessness in places where “sick care” should be of great importance to all caregivers.

Jehovah God, my parent, and a few friends know what I lived through for my education and living these past 60 years. I feel someone somewhere should be concerned about the “sick care” community (caregivers).

There needs to be a resurgence of empathy for the sick-dying people. God has told those of us saved by his marvelous grace that he will never leave us nor forsakes us…Hebrew 13:5.

I know that I will survive such care if God in his infinite wisdom wants me to survive. I am asking you to be concerned about the many that need care and cannot write letters. I am available to discuss my situation with anyone by phone.

Interesting to you I have been to mainland China three (3) times. In Manchuria while there I was invited to a large hospital to tell you what went on when the internal organs form prisoners were transferred to other sick people. My friend told me they had their mouths taped this is what we are up against. You now understand what this old veteran is up against.

Thank you,




Thomas R. Morris, MD, DS,
Lt. Colonel, Retired US Army
Service# 02279407
SS# 412543714
910.251.6218 (C)
910.762.9467 (H)

dicitated


Cc:  Facebook and Other Social Media
       NCDHHS
       Star News
       Wilmington Health
       Emailed to Others

Silence of Time

April 7, 2020

Silence of Time

Visiting the oldest geographical areas of the world such as the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt, dating 12000 BC. Close by, the Sphinx, dating 700BC. Egyptologists, geologists, historians, tell us that the Sphinx was at one time mostly covered with sand from the Sahara. Even today, archaeologists with their sophisticated instruments predict that there are cavern-sanctuaries underneath the Sphinx, yet to be explored. I went into the tomb of King Tut in the valley of the Kings. Archaeologist Howard Carter, the first to open the tomb, one of the few tombs which had not been robbed centuries before, was amazed at what he found. Most of the gold there now, displayed in the Egyptian museum. Significant, after thousands of years, germs still there which made members of his expedition very sick. Silence and time does not lessen our interest in those who built these great monuments to history, now for our study. Only when you visit Thebes-Luxor, see those great columns, realize the tools and knowledge at their disposal, at that time, do you gain a renewed spiritual dimension in your life.

As I have stated so many times, you must put flesh and blood on the people of history. When you do, our 21^st century “brilliance” dims.

Every word in God's book, there for a purpose.

God's book is the handbook straight from the manufacturer, in spite of those who hate God, hate His Book, there is no other place for them to go for every problem and discipline regarding life. Much to the chagrin of the Apostate deceivers, it is a racial Book, a sex book, almost entirely Jewish with Gentiles only as they affect the Jews. The modernists, communists, would not even, today, accept Darwin's book, because of it's very title including “Preservation of the Races”. Again, the modernists, even atheist theologians deny basic Christianity. Even to the extent that Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, describe abortion as “elective surgery”, further show their “spite” for God's Word by accepting the evils of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, gays and lesbians in pulpits. God always gives warning signals for the disaster of pagan-agnosticism along the way.

Such evil, God destroyed human kind in the great flood of Noah's day, 5000BC. Just from the eight souls God chose to save, a new, vibrant, civilization. God decided to try again, one of Noah-Seth's ancestry, Abraham, between 75 and 100 years of age, God called him, by faith, to leave all and travel 600 miles north to a land without a forwarding address. On the way, to rid Abraham of all thoughts of idol worship, his father, Terah, worshiper of idols, died. When Abraham's family arrived in their “promise land”, there was famine. Always, to the end of his life, he lived in tents. Even a face to face relationship with God, he picked up his tent and moved to Egypt. Sarah, over 65 years of age, was still considered a beautiful women and Abraham decided to lie about her marital status, that she was his sister, not his wife. Pharaoh, large harem, sharp eye for beautiful women, probably took Sarah into his harem. The crux came when a plague hit Egypt and Pharaoh learned that Sarah was married to Abraham. This “first Jew”, later to become the world's richest man, his wife, his possessions, including a hand maiden of Sarah, Hagar, were kicked out of Egypt by Pharaoh. Significant, the place of the world's most advanced civilization in the life of God's chosen. Later, Joseph brought his father Jacob to Pharaoh and Jacob blessed Pharaoh (Genesis 47:10)... the story of another famine, the never ending story of going down into Egypt and coming up out of Egypt.

Abraham returned to the place which God had directed and again pitched his tent between Bethel and the ruins of Canna. Of course, tottering along against God's wishes, Abraham's self-centered nephew, Lot. We know the story of Lot and Abraham's herd possessions, strife between herdsmen, Lot selecting the best land, future destruction of the cities of the plain and Abraham's continued involvement.

Significant to the 21^st century Christian, God's “safety-net” before the law of Moses, and, thank God, after the cross of Christ, lying, disobedience, generalized backsliding, God still loves us, His chosen, in spite of ourselves.

Abraham, like later Moses, face to face relationship with the God of the universe, the one who actually threw the millions of stars into space, must have thought, why did God direct me into a desolate land of famine? Even after God had told him to look in every direction, that he owned it all, even after Abraham walking north-south, east-west, “mine, mine, mine”. He knew the hardship, the testing, which accompanies, always, God's Sovereignty. “Forever, Blessed [is] the man whose strength [is] in thee; in whose heart [are] the ways [of them]. They go from strength to strength, [every one of them] in Zion appeareth before God.” (Psalm 84: 5,7)

I have said all of this to encourage the disabled, the disenfranchised, the depressed of this world, to spend time in the arena of silence, waiting, not working. It is more difficult to wait than to work in a world fraught with noise and activity, silence is your best therapy, in spite of failures, warts, listen for that still quiet voice... better than all the pills. The taking of medication for anxiety has increased 1700% in just five years. The sin of escape is easy for a season. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Recipe for Joy

April 2, 2020

Recipe for Joy

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

-Psalm 27

            In my long life I have had the wealth of knowing and seeing the recipe for joy...men and women who knew the true joy of salvation. 

            Most had lived very plain lives, with none of the attractiveness of the "rich & famous" .  Most had no distinctive gifts and had not been remembered for Christian activity (did not serve as an officer in the church, unable to be a big giver, never led the congregation in prayer, sang a solo or were in a church choir or taught a Sunday School class) BUT, rain or shine, they were always there; an encouragement to the Pastor.  They were there at a time of need in the community, knowing the value of food to the family of the sick and bereaved.  These are the "saints", married and unmarried, who not only brought up their own children in the knowledge of the Lord, but were an inspiration to others' children.  It never can be known until the Judgment Day, when the books shall be opened, what blessings these humble lives have left at their closing in the world. Its silent, unconscious influence poured out through all the long years into other lives, making them nobler, happier, holier, sweeter.

            I think first of Miss Swanee Gay, this writer's  first Sunday School teacher; not a very attractive woman, never married, probably never had a boyfriend; always lived with her married sister's family, helping to raise her many nephews and nieces.  She had very little income, getting paid by the hour to work for people in the community...farm work, house work, etc.  But she had enough money to keep a supply of blue and pink silk cloth.  Every baby born in the community received a beautiful embroidered baby cap from Miss Swanee.  It made no difference the skin color of the baby; the education, wealth or other qualifications of the parents.  Boys were blue and girls were pink and they all wore her cap to church.  In her 85  years of life, parents could always point to her and tell their children and grandchildren that she had made their first baby cap, taught them in Sunday School.

            No matter how far you have traveled from the community in which you were reared; no matter your education, attainments of any type, just as you never forget loving, giving parents, memories of the "home place", your first church house, your first school house, will always bring sweet memories.  Speaking before congregations, at the end of my presentation, I would always take from my pocket a small service bell.  Many in the audience knew the times of the Great Depression, when in many churches, Sunday school classes were separated from one another by curtains.  There was always a sense of closeness with those of your own age - your own teacher.  Toward the end of the Sunday school session, someone would ring the small bell, showing that it was time for Sunday school to be over.  The sound of that bell when rung, brought memories and tears to many in the audience.  This writer traveled every continent, but always remembered  more than any other place on earth, his home community.

            My own son: doctorates, academic works, much traveled; still tells me that his most beautiful memories  come from farm life with my parents, his grandparents...the farm home where I was reared with my working-sweating father...my comforting mother, cooking over a wood stove.  Pity the individual who puts so much pride in sophistication, but has never enjoyed the humbleness of simplicity...a recipe for joy.  When you have the joy of being transformed through grace by faith in salvation afforded God through His son, Jesus Christ, you are careful not to use God or Jesus' name in vain.  You are not ashamed of the gospel. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." - Romans1:16

            In the insanity (the rat race) of this present world,  your life is complicated by the world, flesh, devil.   This recipe for joy is knowing that you are redeemed.

            In 1967, the British government came out with a 30 page pamphlet entitled 'Protect & Survive'.  This pamphlet instructed on how to survive a nuclear attack.  Nuclear survival, hurricanes, tornadoes, vehicle crashes or the myriad of other acts that could take your life.  Knowing that you have the assurance of salvation in your heart is the worlds only recipe for joy

March 27, 2020

At This Time in Our Lives 

At this time in our lives we are experiencing something that our ancestors before us never knew. I heard my mother and grandmother talk about the great flu epidemic of 1918 when our small community was hit so hard by the flu, my grandmother said that every able body man was building boxes and burying them and the ones sick knew that one of the boxes was for them. 

I think I have seen suffering when I went to India by train after a terrible flood, people were lined up, each time the train stopped trying to get drinking water. 

In my bedroom in which I don’t leave except for treatment, we know what life is all about restricted in your home. I am filled with sorrow that the children are living through this, many of us, is living as well as best with the worthy hand of God. We barely can take it in. What A Friend We Have in Jesus and we know that he is aware of it all. What do the unsaved do in a time like this, I cannot believe that those who do not believe have the strength and courage to live through time like these and not realize that God is Boss. I pray for each of you and ask for you continue concerns for what goes on in this house. 

I have always enjoy exploring cemeteries-graveyards it was always interested in looking at the hyphen in the date of birth and the date of death and thought what those lived through, we have the wonderful assurance that God has told us that “He will never leave us or forsake us” Hebrews 13. 

I pray, Gods Blessings on each of you these days, these times and always 

Tom Morris 

Dictated baf 

March 25, 2020

Praying in Time of Tragedy

God told us to come Boldly to his throne of Grace in time of need and this is time of need is certainly at UMO and we pray for the students boldly and all those in charge at UMO. When there is such a small student population boldly is such a large catastrophe. I pray for all those whom are in mourning. It's Our Duty To Pray On This Wednesday. May God keep us close to his heart of hearts and under his hands of protective care.
Thomas Morris
dictated

#1826 On the Stage of History

March 24, 2020

#1826 On the Stage of History

On The Stage Of History

            Your writer is a world traveler, (8 round the world trips, every continent, passport stamped in 157 countries, this includes both poles). Whether the Intuits of the far north, Asians or Africans, so many primitive tribes worship the sun...something large that they can see, an entity that they can fit into their world.

            In the books of Charles Dickens, he wrote of that days social problems. In Oliver Twist, we have a boy who escaped his environment. Back then, everything was good or evil, black or white. Americas today's world, everything in shades of grey. In every culture, there is a need for health and beauty... some hope in life. It is a human factor to have faithless day: days of despondency, despair, discouragement. Even Jesus was exasperated...a fig tree that did not bare fruit...buying and selling in the temple. 

            God expects only one thing of mortal man, trust. I have found that one who can not trust is not trustworthy himself. To be trustworthy, you must have the grace to trust: those who can not be trusted do not trust. Adam and Eve could not be trusted. All the beauty that one could possibly desire, all the bounty that one could possibly desire. God set just one parameter, "don't touch that tree".

            It is not the righteousness of God rather, righteousness of God...all consuming , as this writer has specified many times, you do not say, I am an American "I am American"... all consuming you, you are stating everything that America stands for. I would be the first to admit that we have many different type of Americans...greedy-envious-hypocritical. There are many who have a certain type self righteousness... pretending, performing BUT, when you have righteousness, through Gods spectacles, he sees the righteousness of Jesus in you.

            This writer, like you, had no existence before conception. Jesus had existence before he was conceived through the Holy Spirit in the body of a 13 year old virgin named Mary. In that manger, after delivery, (God had put on a tent of human flesh). The one who spoke and worlds were formed. Nothingness into somethingness. Jesus inherited it all and we, as believers on him accepting his redemption, become joint heirs with him. Jesus, with the glory of his father, before the world was formed, voluntarily yielded himself, the entire weight of the sin of the world. That is the nature of the spirits he puts in us. Oh how it depresses me that the modern church goers have so cheapened this great gift. Most do not know what it is all about. They actually think that God needs them. They actually think we are to worship "bellhop deity" just to be called on when we need him.  They want to camp out just as near Sodom as possible (even within the smoke and stench of a burning hell).

            Faith is supernatural. We must trust in the integrity of God's word. He did not say one thing accidentally. Jesus is our kinsman redeemer... willing to pay the price of our bondage- ransom. It takes the flesh and blood of a kinsman to redeem... able to pay the price, and what a price he did pay. A cross on Calvary (Hebrews 11). Now you understand why we can worship one whose Father spoke everything into existence. One man, Adam, caused us to lose our inheritance but, by grace through faith plus nothing Jesus, our kinsman redeemer- joint heir has regained our citizenship in heaven for us.

            I never understood redemption, completely, until, one day, on certain business, I was in a magistrate office, 2 parents were there to bond out their son who had been arrested for some malfeasance. He must of been a child of old age because both parents had grey hair. I could tell they had both been crying but they were there before the magistrate on business. the shirtless, shoeless young man, around 17 years of age was brought in, you could tell he was happy to see his loving parents and they had all the grace-faith-trust-love of parents in their son. They presented to the magistrate the deed to their house and its appraisal to bond- bail out their son. They had come to buy his freedom, to take him home. Is this not the history of Christianity? Our kinsman redeemer is the only hope of the world.

            The greatest fallacy, in my thinking as an American and a Christian , is that others have the same belief system- values- absolutes that you have. Others do not have the advantages of your lifestyle. I won life's lottery when I was chosen, by God, to be born: when I was blessed with my parents: when I was given my mind: when I was redeemed by God through the precious blood of his son. Surely others, not knowing the inner wirings of my mind, think I am strange. Remember, it does not matter what others think. The historical stage of the world has been occupied by those who did not choose the most trodden- beaten path.