While I Was Walking

  This is one of those blogs I don't know if I will ever post simply because it is being written at a very onerous time in my life. It has nothing to do with my environment, for I love my home, this city and many of its people. I will state that I am not at all pleased with the employees of either of the VA hospitals in this city because nearly all of them are very defensive upon initial approach and are not very competent in their duties. I have pondered on giving the work force another try, but with each visit to the VA I am convinced that my condition will become agitated, as it did in Kentucky, and I would find myself hospitalized again. When I worked I was a friendly and caring employee. I found it to be no problem to go to the fullest extent to aid both patient and co-worker.  My internal motto was "There is no such thing as "Can't". I do not see such a mindset very often today. Many years ago the Veterans hospitals were seen as the lowest system of health care in the country. Our Veterans were treated more like inmates than the heroic persons that they were. The "physicians" who worked there were not of the highest caliber and because the government believed they owned the soldier, (hence the term G.I. meaning "Government Issue"), oftentimes soldiers who were in these VA hospitals were experimented on via mind control, chemicals,(such as LSD), and germ warfare; to name a few. Recently reports of such experiments on soldiers at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland from 1950 - 1975 have been filed in court.  
  Sometimes you can get into a certain place in life where you feel as if you have reached your pinnacle; that you have arrived to the exact place that God has ordained for you to be. I remember I once read a book concerning pastors and their church and how it stated that a pastor may feel that the church he presides over is God's will for him, when in fact the truth of the matter is that the church is dead and has been dead for many years; perhaps even before the man of God began officiating over it. What am I saying? Merely this: Sometimes a situation can be kept alive by unnatural procedures.  Imagine how a hospital will provide oxygen to a comatose patient. The patient is considered "alive" but yet he has no true quality of life.  We sometimes believe that since we have attained a certain status, i.e. a fine home(s), nice cars, money, belonging to "the right" clubs, and certain grade levels on our jobs, that we have crossed the finish line. Outwardly we appear as the epitome of true success, but inwardly, (where it counts), we are selfish, manipulating, evil, calculating and dishonest. We stand on the necks of others in order to appear bigger than we ever will be. We love standing close to anything spiritual in hopes that some of this purity will affix to our dilapidated and unforgiving souls, not remembering that light and darkness can never occupy the same space. We appear to move about with a purpose but in reality we are hooked to an oxygen tube.
  I often find myself longing for more simple times when I knew nothing of prejudice, never felt the stinging darts of jealously, when I would freely give my heart to the ones I loved with no fear of ever being hurt or betrayed, and a time when we all shared what we had because as the old Sunday School song says "My whole body belongs to God.  Now, more than ever before, I understand what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus when he said "You must be born again". (John 3:7).  
  On my morning walks I talk freely to God and I question His will for me; I ask him to lay His hands upon me that I may be who I truly am to be while here on this earth.  I have learned that if I am to ever experience a true peacefulness in my soul I must be unafraid to make certain changes in my life.  I have discovered that there are some things that I must cut away. I have learned that there are some things I must keep. 
 I hope to speak to you again soon.
 Dennis