In Memory of Jon Karner

A True Hero Has Died

Obrutha

I already pay more than $5k per year in taxes for schools my daughter will never attend, and "contribute" to Social Security retirement insurance I'll never get back. Yet Barack Obama claims that, "the only thing that will change for you under [his universal health care] plan is that the amount of money you will spend on premiums will be less."

This is about like a cannibal inviting you to climb into the hot pot, while assuring you that the meat tenderizer he's rubbing onto your back is to make your muscles relax. More…

Obama claims that the typical consumer will save $2,500 a year. Yet I have friends in Canada and England who carry private insurance in addition to their high taxation for "free" medical coverage, because it's the only way to get care. One pastor friend in England told me that a lady in his congregation needed a hysterectomy—needed one—but was on a three-year waiting list.

Add to that the fact that (a) she'll be in even worse condition (or dead) in three years, and (b) the medical personnel who treat her will do so with the care and professionalism we've come to expect from government bureaucracies.

Obama knows this, of course. So he now graduates downward in my esteem from sincerely mistaken socialist into John Kerry/Al Gore territory. What bilge.

If Sherri Ever Dreams of You

Those of you who are used to checking this blog for social commentary are in for a surprise with this post.

My family history is chock full of exceptional and eccentric people (and I use the two adjectives synonymously in this case). Yet our experiences are just that—experiences, things that have happened to us without inclination on our part. So, call me crazy, but don't label me “occult.” I have never tried to have a prophetic dream, yet on several occasions I've had ones that did indeed provide uncanny insight concerning events that came to pass later on.

Some of these episodes seem silly, odd coincidences, while others have spooked us a little or a lot. For example…my twin sisters, Terry and Sherri, recently celebrated their 50th birthday in their traditional way, by attending the Scottish Festival in Fair Hill, Maryland. And as is so often the case with twins, both broke a tooth (for the first time) on the same day, precisely on their 50th birthday. The odds against this are astronomical, of course, unless you're from my family.

Yet on a more serious note, Sherri, the younger of the two by 29 minutes, has often dreamed of events shortly before they happened. For example, when she was a teenager—and not walking particularly close to the Lord—Sherri would invariably tell my pastor/father ahead of time about the impending death of one of his older parishioners, because she had dreamed about it.

My cousin, Ron, now a professor at Lee University, is also given to prescient dreams, just like his dad, my late uncle Edward. It was Ron, in fact, who exhorted me just a few months before my father passed away, to make sure and spend some quality time with him. Why? Because he had dreamed that Dad and Uncle Edward were together in heaven. If that was a coincidence, it sure proved valuable.

One example from my own life: In 1983 I learned that the Soviet Union was going to collapse, and began openly predicting so on church platforms all over America. At the time I ascribed the vivid picture in my mind to an overly active imagination, since it came during a public prayer for me the night before I left for a trip to Russia. But a week later, at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic, the Holy Spirit spoke to me that the image had been a vision, and that I should start publicly prophesying the end of the USSR. (Having several hundred witnesses some 20 years later makes me a little bolder in telling you now.)

Then there was the time that Sherri, and Cousin Johnny and I all three had precisely the same dream on the same night—but that's too long a story. The real corker concerns Johnny's mom, my dad's younger sister Betty.

It was early summer, 1982, when Betty called her three adult children and asked them all to drop whatever they were doing, take the day off, and come to her home in rural Pennsylvania for a backyard picnic. She was 55 years old, as I recall, and a great mom, so all three kids jumped at the chance and brought the grandkids over with them.

Everyone had a grand time, and at around 5 pm Betty gathered the whole lot in the living room. She had something to tell them. (The following is a fairly accurate paraphrase.)

“It's been a wonderful day, children,” she said. “But I had an important reason for gathering you all today.” Then, as was her style, she got straight to the point.

“The Lord told me recently that He's taking me home, and I think tonight's the night.”

Jaws dropped in total silence.

“I just wanted to have one last day with you all to say goodbye. It's been so much fun today.”

Then she explained that since it was Tuesday, she preferred to have her funeral on the coming Friday, instead of waiting until Saturday. She had put together the order of her service, and read to them the list of songs she wanted sung, and told them the kind of celebration she preferred.

A few days earlier she had called her best friend, her sister Patsy, in Baltimore, and told her the news as well. (They were the youngest of eight kids, and the only two girls.)

“Oh great, you're my best friend and you're leaving me,” Pat had joked uneasily.

“Don't worry, sweetie,” Betty had retorted. “You'll be joining me shortly.”

That Tuesday night, Aunt Betty kissed her husband, Eddie, goodnight, and told him what a wonderful husband he had been for all those years. She told him she loved him and kissed him “goodbye.”

She died in her sleep during the night, of “natural causes.” The service on Friday proceeded exactly as she had planned.

Less than one month later, in August, 1982, I co-officiated at Aunt Patsy's funeral in Baltimore. (Heart attack in the living room at around 8 am.)

None of us ever asked for these experiences. We never shuffled Tarot cards or played with Ouija boards, and didn't go into “ecstatic trances” at church, the way unwashed reporters from Time and Newsweek invariably denigrate a segment of Americans whose electoral power they fear.

Neither did we attend seminars on prophetic ministry. Hundreds of charismatic churches have such conferences these days, but we didn't know squat about such subjects back in West Virginia.

Nope. We just loved God, and like everybody else, needed 8 hours of shut-eye every night. And we also were—and still are—naïve enough to believe that the third Person of the Holy Trinity, Whom we worship so enthusiastically, is the Holy Spirit, not Harpo Marx. He talks.

Happy Birthday Terri and Sherri!

Cali, Colombia

To my amazingly persistent regular readers,

This has been my longest layoff from blogging since @ Large was started two years ago. So sorry for that, but my book, "The Power of Hope," has been my one and only writing priority for several weeks now.

I'm off to Cali, Colombia today, returning home a week from tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience. I'll post something worthwhile again soon!