Oh Where Have All the Peeps Gone, Oh Where?

Do you remember those Chicago Bulls and their incredible Championship run in the 1990's? I lived in the Windy City during those dream years. Even a hockey/football fan like myself had to appreciate Round Ball at its finest. Air Jordan really could fly. Once, we had free tickets to a Bulls games for seats in the row behind the Bull's bench, and we didn't go. What were we thinking?

Dennis Rodman was a part of that basketball lore then, even though he could not make a basket. Maybe he couldn't stop thinking about Madonna. Still, orange hair and all, Rodman almost always got the rebound.

Fast-forward. Jordan stayed close to the game all these years. Sure, there was a baseball stint in there for him. Too bad Jordan went with the Sox instead of the Cubs. Things might have been different. Throw in some tee times out on the golf course and life has been good. On the other hand, Dennis Rodman has been chasing after friendship in all the wrong places. He claims now to be a number one palomino with Kim Jong Un. Lil' Kim is the brutal dictator of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Prison.

Kim comes from an impressive stock of Kim's. Grandpa Kim il-sung led the attack against South Korea and thus gave us the Korean War, err, a, ...conflict,...I mean...police action. Papa Kim Jong-il also carved out a name for himself in the litany of repressive regimes. So there is the progeny.

You know the line - those who do not read history are destined to repeat it. Rodman would do well to look back at the psychedelic 60's Asian tour that Jane Fonda went on in Vietnam. She has spent the rest of her life apologizing for it, and no doubt has had a few sleepless nights over it.

Now, if Kim is such a great free-throw pal, perhaps Rodman would like to move to that paradise of free-speech and opportunity in North Korea. The timing might be just right. NBCNEWS.com is reporting that there are about 22,000 souls that are unaccounted for at Camp 22 at Heangyong in the northeastern part of North Korea.

 How about a large parcel of property, with several unoccupied out-buildings for a brand new crib? There would be plenty of room for basketball camps. Maybe camps isn't the best word to use here.

What happened to all those people? With the blood-letting track record of the Kim Dynasty, the answer cannot be good. We know bits and pieces of the horrible conditions that people live and die under in North Korea, but we don't have the whole picture.

So we look to history and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's, The Gulag Archipelago for gulag goulash. The G. A. is probably one of the most powerful books you will ever read, other than the Holy Bible - if you dare. Don't worry, if you say it, you can read it.  Honestly, you haven't really lived, unless you have read how other people lived and died, in 20th century Russian gulags.

Here is one example of existence in the Lubyanka gulag as told by Solzhenitsyn, p. 208, "The prison doctor was the interrogator's and executioner's right-hand man. The beaten prisoner would come to on the floor only to hear the doctor's voice: "You can continue, the pulse is normal." After a prisoner's five days and nights in a punishment cell the doctor inspects the frozen, naked body and says: "You can continue." If a prisoner is beaten to death, he signs the death certificate: "Cirrhosis of the liver" or "Coronary occlusion." He gets an urgent call to a dying prisoner in a cell and he takes his time. And whoever behaves differently is not kept on in the prison."

That is just a very small sampling of the horrors from behind a dictator's walls of hopelessness.

The Game Plan for Dennis Rodman: I suggest Proverbs 23:1-3 (NASB) When you sit down to dine with a ruler, Consider carefully what is before you, 2And put a knife to your throat If you are a man of great appetite. 3Do not desire his delicacies, For it is deceptive food.

The Game Plan for the global community: Turn away from Syria, where all sides want to kill us, and consider the people that are left in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Prison. They are a defenseless people in need of liberation.

We have seen many instances of God seeking to move His people to assist those in dire need. As in Zechariah 7:8-11 Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah 9"Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother, 10 and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. 11"But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing."

So Israel had a stubborn shoulder. President Obama, like Michael Jordan, can be distracted by golf. No need for a red-line at this point. It has already been drawn. It is a red-line drawn in human blood. And then the United Nations is, well,...the United Nations. Thus, this call to human decency may fall on deaf ears. But who knows, maybe it's still not too late for Dennis Rodman to learn to shoot a basket.

Syria-ous, and A Great Fall

The image is stark. Secretary of State John Kerry, the Hawk, pleading for muscle in Syria. Contrast a much younger John Kerry the Dove, seated with Jane Fonda, speaking against force in Vietnam. It is not uncommon for the political views of people to do a 180 from their season of youth to their more 'mature' years. Perhaps Ralph Kramden understood it all best when he said that it's really too bad youth has to be wasted on young people.

Or how about Senator Barbara Boxer in the forum this afternoon? Waxing eloquently. She said it's a good thing we have seen the terrible videos of dead women and children who were gassed to death. As horrific as those images are she noted, they certainly will cause us to act to stop the slaughter. However, we will not watch an abortion video and count the 4,000 dead, here in America, yesterday, today, and scheduled for tomorrow. After all, we will allow innocent women and children to be displaced, starved, to be gunned down, and or, be hacked to death - but chemicalocide is not permissible. Unless of course they are used internally, to stop a beating heart inside the womb.

Senator Rand Paul seemed to ruffle some feathers. Ah, the search for truth. Pilate was interested in truth. In John 18:38 (KJV) in a sensational moment of good and evil in private conversation, Pilate asked Jesus directly, "What is truth?" Pilate never figured it out.

Rome burned, Nero fiddled, and Senator John McCain played video games during the antebellum, Senate Hearing speeches. And once again, our nation, that is our leadership, seems to be caught up in the aura of war. I remember a few years back when Colin Powell warned president Bush that if he broke Iraq, he would own it. How many Dinars does an acre cost in Iraq these days?

That was then. What of now? Could a 'we're not going to put boots on the ground missile attack' on Syria break things in the Middle East? While you ponder that query, you might also think about why it is called the Middle East. It is quite possible the damage which could result from our liberal, egocentric-tinkering type intervention, could resurrect the story of Humpty Dumpty. Remember fence-riding HD? He had a great fall.

One particular section of the Old Testament calls our attention at such a time as this. It is Isaiah 17:1-3 The Burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. 2The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for the flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 3The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.

There are some who will say this one doesn't count. They will point to 732 B.C. when Damascus was ravaged by the Assyrians (See 2 Kings 15:19-29; 16:7-9). The Assyrians went on to see their fortunes fade in 612 B.C. Yet, they are believed to be the first country to have become a Christian nation.

Those who hold the position that Damascus has her bad hair day many centuries ago do so at their own peril. They fail to recognize that the biblical story has many instances of partial fulfillment, with the same episode to be repeated in the future. Clearly, Damascus survived to fight another day. In addition, the rabid spirit of anti-Israelism in the world will cause many to miss the Hand of God at work.

Now I am not claiming this is necessarily, the Damascus moment of fulfillment. Only the Lord knows when that is slated for historical fact. However, events in that region of the world could spiral out of control very quickly. Especially when the president leads from behind, and the Merry Men follow along. Jesus had some harsh words for flawed leaders who rejected wisdom and the truth. He said in Matthew 15:14 Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. I must confess, it is difficult to leave them alone. One thing I do know, if we done broke it, there won't be anybody who can put poor Humpty Dumpty back together again.