Dear Congressman,
I have memory problems as well as suffering from PTSD and Depression.  It is very hard for me too keep up with issues and problems I have encountered with the VA.  I forget paperwork and now I have a real problem with transportation.  I can no longer cut my own grass or do many other things.  I know part of not getting things and health care is my own fault - but I just cannot help forgetting or the circumstances I am in now.  I don't get benefits because I just forget.  That's not all, my health care providers forget even more than I do.  So far, none have bothered to read my medical records before I see them.  I get asked the same questions over and over again.  One question, "Why are you in a wheelchair?" is starting to bother me considerably.  If they read my records they would know that I went to Houston every year to the spinal cord clinic and I'm listed as a Spinal Cord patient.  Even the folks in Physical therapy / Prosthetics said spinal cord patient was NOT in my records and that is why I am not getting certain benefits.  I asked for a copy of my medical records but received an incomplete file - only the digital (and greatly abbreviated) version.  My physical, written medical record, contains everything, all the documentation, needed to support my requests for benefits and care.  I get treated like I am after something, like money or something, at every visit.  I have to play twenty questions and it is more like interrogation than anything.  I'm treated with suspicion and many times have been essentially called a liar.  If they would only read my records!  I'm not after anything, I have been 100% service connected since 2003.  I just want and need some of the benefits I am authorized.  My home has never been modified.  My vehicle has never been modified.  I have been in a wheelchair for over 12 years with spinal and joint conditions that have continually degraded - yet I'm asked why I'm in a wheelchair and treated like I'm trying to rob the VA or cheat someone out of something.  I do not deserve to be treated with suspicion or even cold indifference. The health care system spends more time finding excuses for not providing my benefits that they ever have attempting to provide them.  They go way out of their way to disprove or deny my requests.  I'm a disabled combat veteran that is treated like I am stupid, a liar, gold-digger, or burden to them. 
I understand people are afraid and make decisions based on fear, but in the case of verterans we should at least be given the benefit of a doubt.  I am so tired of my character being attacked and treated like a con man.  My medical records speak for themselves.  I need real health care, help, and some respect as a veteran and as a Christian man.  I do not need to be lectured by a physician, or for someone to shake their finger in my face or tell e that the VA never did this or that for me =when I am in the physical evidence.  yes, I was told that the VA did not give me the wheelchair I was sitting in.  I was just recently, just a few weeks ago, placed in the spinal cord clinic here at Biloxi VA.  I was dropped from the pain management clinic and have yet to even see the spinal cord doctor.  I no longer go to Houston because they stopped paying travel pay.  I cannot afford to provide my own transportation to and from Houston, so I don't get to go to the spinal cord clinic there anymore.  I still want copies of my physical, written record.  I also want someone to do something!!!  I'm so tired of splitting hairs, red tape, and excuses.  I'm tired of being put off and dismissed without any just cause.  I do not want to be criticized, treated like a suspect in a murder case, or have to play 20 questions every time I see someone at the VA. 
Why can I NOT be treated as a patient that need care?  Why does everything have to be a battle?  Is the medical community suppose o treat folks like liars and con men, put off their medical care, and provide endless excuses for not providing help.  Have the laws become so restrictive that folks can no longer do anything without fear?  Is "legal" now more important that "right" or liability more important than responsibility? 
Do I deserve health care or am I just lucky they feel like doing things sometime?  Do I have to stroke their egos or offer a bribe before I get treated with respect and the caring the medical community is suppose to provide.  How much longer must I endue being rebuffed, chastised, and lectured to like I am a child - and so very lucky they will even see me for any type of care.  I need the help of your office and the understanding that I have medical problems, memory problems, and severe bouts with depression.  I have times when I don't care about anything, want anything, or want to do anything.  My treatment at the VA is just making things worse every time I get scorned or treated like a criminal or it is hinted that I am a liar - or even told that I am.  I have never tried to defraud or be dishonest in any way.  I am told that is why I don't get proper care because I am honest.  Many veterans have tried to get me to lie or just not be honest about things. Many have told me to be the squeaky wheel and go in every week, to pester them until they give in.  I don't work that way. I will not lie to them nor will I be dishonest. I have just let things roll off my back for many years, settling (like a dog) for the care and help they feel like giving to me - care that I have to earn at every appointment.  Am I suppose to thank them every visit for their benevolence and sacrifice for taking the time to see me?  Red tape does not stop pain, help with difficult circumstances, or provide any of the things I need as a wheelchair user and spinal cord patient with Degenerative joint disease, arthritis, and several other debilitating medical conditions.  If I am not pleased with the treatment I receive and register my complaints ( being honest) I just get treated worse.  How long must I have my character attacked, my intelligence insulted, and my wife treated like a second class citizen.  Yes, that is another matter...

My dearest family in Christ,

this day is a time of reflection for many people. For me it is a time to remember my father, a WWII veteran, his outlook on life, and the man he was to me. I never fully appreciated his sacrifice and service until serving in the military myself. I used to listen as he regaled me with his personal witness and accounts of the tragedies and triumphs he experienced and those historical moments he recalled. The events that unfolded in each narrative often chilled and puncture my very being. It was those bittersweet moments with his fellow soldiers and the circumstances that surrounded them that always gained the focus of each story - especially the very personal interactions and unifying beliefs they shared. They were truly reflective of an event and the people involved that shook the world and forever changed the course of history on an immense scale.  It is to him, his memory, and the many just like him who gave their all, that I dedicate this particular day.  From our very foundation as a nation, it has always been the people who made change possible and it is the veteran who, to me, embodies the true benchmark of American ideology and purpose. I stand in awe of their achievements and the legacy of freedom they carved out for our posterity.  God bless them, their heritage, and the country conceived and dedicated through them.  Thier selfless dedication and honor gave the world a nation unlike any before, and one that is still a shining light for the downtrodden and huddled masses.  God bless our nation and the providential accomplishments that were, and still are, guided by God.

My dear family in Christ,
for some time now i have been sharing what i consider a simple message: Know Thy Neighbor. However, as tragedies and unspeakable events continue to unfold, I feel an even greater need than ever before to share this simple message again. I am challenged by Christ’s own words to love my neighbor as myself. How can I truly say i love my neighbors if i don’t know them? How will I stand before Christ and claim to have loved my neighbor if I truly never even speak to them, know them even the least tiny bit, or make a true effort. It has become painfully obvious that this simple message could be one of the biggest problems facing the church today. And what affects the church effects our neighbors, or communities, and ultimately our nation. I don’t wish to sound like an alarmist. Indeed, my purpose is anything but. I want to truly encourage the full body of Christ to help me in sharing this simple – but I believe – very important and timeless message of love, sharing, understanding, and (also important) the knowledge of our neighbors. When I was younger, much younger, visiting folks was the norm – even folks we never visited before. We got to know our neighbors, stayed in touch, and became neighbors in deed – not just in word. There are many excuses for not following this small and simple premise of Christ’s love, but there are no true reasons that I can think of. If you agree, please help me to spread the simple message of knowing thy neighbor – not as a cliche’, or catchy saying, but in spirit and in truth as members of the body of Christ, ministers of the gospel, and the kind of neighbor Christ envisioned.

Please take a few minutes to read and consider the following quotation.  I believe it speaks volumes and some may indeed wish to read the entire speech from which it was excerpted...

“...I ought to say why I think it necessary, in these days, to go back to a discipline which we had discarded. The truth is that for the last 300 years or so we have been living upon our educational capital. The post-Renaissance world, bewildered and excited by the profusion of new "subjects" offered to it, broke away from the old discipline (which had, indeed, become sadly dull and stereotyped in its practical application) and imagined that henceforward it could, as it were, disport itself happily in its new and extended Quadrivium without passing through the Trivium. But the scholastic tradition, though broken and maimed, still lingered in the public schools and universities: Milton, however much he protested against it, was formed by it-the debate of the Fallen Angels, and the disputation of Abdiel with Satan have the tool-marks of the Schools upon them, and might, incidentally, profitably figure as a set passage for our Dialectical studies. Right down to the nineteenth century, our public affairs were mostly managed, and our books and journals were for the most part written, by people brought up in homes, and trained in places, where that tradition was still alive in the memory and almost in the blood. Just so, many people to-day who are atheist or agnostic in religion, are governed in their conduct by a code of Christian ethics which is so rooted in their unconscious assumptions that it never occurs to them to question it.

But one cannot live on capital forever. A tradition, however firmly rooted, if it is never watered, though it dies hard, yet in the end it dies. And to-day a great number-perhaps the majority-of the men and women who handle our affairs, write our books and our newspapers, carry out research, present our plays and our films, speak from our platforms and pulpits-yes, and who educate our young people, have never, even in a lingering traditional memory, undergone the scholastic discipline. Less and less do the children who come to be educated bring any of that tradition with them. We have lost the tools of learning-the axe and the wedge, the hammer and the saw, the chisel and the plane-that were so adaptable to all tasks. Instead of them, we have merely a set of complicated jigs, each of which will do but one task and no more, and in using which eye and hand receive no training, so that no man ever sees the work as a whole or "looks to the end of the work." What use is it to pile task on task and prolong the days of labour, if at the close the chief object is left unattained? It is not the fault of the teachers-they work only too hard already. The combined folly of a civilisation that has forgotten its own roots is forcing them to shore up the tottering weight of an educational structure that is built upon sand. They are doing for their pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do. For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.”

These are the excerpted last two paragraphs from a speech published in 1948 and delivered by DOROTHY L. SAYERS

First published in 1948
The bulk of this speech appeared as an article in the
Hibbert Journal: A Quarterly Review of Religion,
Theology, and Philosophy Volume XLVI
October 1947-July 1948

                                                  Shrines of Molech                                  02 Jul 2012

(Abortion)

By

Dr Ley

One of the things brought to our attention in the Old Testament is the worship of idols and false gods.  Most call this type of activity as paganism.  It is this “religion” that permeated the known and unknown world of both the Old and New Testament. It is most significant that in the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Kings, Chronicles, Jeremiah, and even Psalms that the worship, by the Ammonites and others including Judah, of Molech/Baal is given us as a prime example of the horrors and depravity of pagan (Godless) worship. Paganism being the practices of those who do not know, believe, or follow God especially nations and peoples of the Old Testament record.  Here are a few *citations from those scriptures:

2 Kings 16:2. Twenty years old was Ahaz when he began to reign, and reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem, and did not that which was right in the sight of the LORD his God, like David his father.

2 Kings 16:3    But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.

Lev 20:2    Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.

Deut 18:10   There shall not be found among you any one [that] maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

2Kgs 16:3    But he [Ahaz]walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.

2Kgs 17:17   And [Israel]they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

2Kgs 23:10   And he[Hezekiah] defiled Topheth[1], which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech[2].

2Chr 33:6   And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

Ps 106:37    Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,

Jer 7:31    And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.

Jer 19:4    Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;

Jer 19:5   They have built also the high places of Baal[3], to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:

Jer 19:6   Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that this place shall no more be called Tophet, nor The valley of the son of Hinnom, but The valley of slaughter.

To the pagan worshipper the life of their own children was considered no more valuable than that of animals which they sacrificed to their god. Human life was cheap and meaningless. You have to ask how those parents could destroy their posterity, their generations to come, and their namesakes.  This was so repugnant to God that the point was made many times ad was explicit in all terms, conditions, and standpoints.  It was (and still is) an “abomination” and an act of such depravity that it is recognized as true acts of “barbarism and cruel waste of precious lives”.  That’s the whole idea, the whole point of the scripture narrative.  Human life is sacred and precious – especially children. But to those pagans their own personal lusts and desires came first. They only cared about appeasing a god so they could continue in greater and greater visions of humanistic reverence for pleasure ad wickedness. The life of God’s crowing creation is indeed precious and valued above all things carnal or humanistic.  God called the place where children were burned to a pagan god “the valley of slaughter”.  Indeed it was genocide or patricide, a practice that still exists today. 

There are many accounts of mass exterminations or murder of men, women, and children.  In the twentieth century alone we had numerous examples, i.e. the Holocaust, Jonestown[4], Iraq[5], Me Li[6], Wounded Knee[7], the Kurds[8], and many other instances that were well publicized and condemned by the world courts.  Indeed those responsible for these mass murders were hunted, in many cases, and brought to “justice” for their “crimes”.  National leaders proclaimed their disdain and condemnation of the perpetrators of these horrific events and it was presumed that the world population, as a whole, shared these sentiments.  But does it?

In the New Testament we are given an example of a terrible atrocity.  This specifically was the order to kill all children 2 years of age and younger[9].  And the motive?  A Humanistic[10] desire to keep power and personal wants satisfied even unchallenged.  It was the same kind of heartless and inhuman acts carried out by kings and rulers.  These depraved people killed their parents, siblings, and children!  It happened many times. It happened in Israel. It happened in Rome. It is still happening today in the United States, Britain, and Australia – nations believed to possess high moral standards, respect for the sanctity of life and human liberties.

There are shrines to the gods of Baal, Molech, and other gods of humanistic worship practices.  These shrines are the reflection of a people that value the pleasures of society such as adultery and fornication, of wealth and power, of personal achievement and status, above standards of moral conduct; or standards supposedly commonly agreed upon and accepted by civilized cultures and nations.  Indeed, to kill is considered morally wrong or just wrong in general.  There are very few exceptions to this axiom of society and civilized behavior.  This is the concept that runs through the heart of this writing, that killing is wrong, illegal, and punished under societal justice systems based on mutually accepted standards or laws. Killing, in all its forms and guises whether genocide or an individual instance is illegal, wrong, and punishable – right?  Not in every case. I don’t mean people who escape punishment by treachery.  I speak of instances excepted by societal justice systems regarding the taking of human life.[11]  However, there is one glaring exception to this “killing is wrong” axiom of society. 

In 1973 a landmark case known as Roe vs. Wade opened the door for a special kind of sanctioned murder known as abortion.  As a society we permit, authorize, and condone or at the very least turn a blind eye to the murder of children.  More children have been sacrificed at the altar of the abortion clinic than died in WWII…It has become a crime of passion and convenience, and has developed as a set decayed social mores that underlie a new foundation of  societal norm fraught with contempt for Christianity, God, and the true sanctity of life.[12]  If “children are our future”, then what are we saying about that future by sacrificing children on the altars of the abortion clinics?

*Note: All scripture references are from the King James Version (1762 edition) of the Holy Bible