COME AS A CHILD LESSON 122 HOPPING FROGS DIRTY LICE AND NASTY FLIES

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

It seems that we all have our own Egypt; places in our souls that must be set free of the idols that we have set up for ourselves.  Leaving Egypt is always a long hard process full of hazards and plagues, and it is not possible for anyone to escape without God's help.  It is very hard to let go of our false illusions and man-made ways.  For some weird psychological reason we cling to the very bondage that holds us back from total freedom.  Such was the case with Pharaoh.  

Seven days had passed by since the LORD turned the Nile to blood.  Seven days would have been plenty of time for Pharaoh to repent, after all - God created the whole world in just seven days; but not a word of regret was heard from Pharaoh.  Ah well; mankind seems to have taken seven thousand years to even begin to repent, perhaps Pharaoh isn't so unusual in this matter.  

Many think that God allowed Pharaoh mercy by giving him time from one Sabbath until the next Sabbath to acknowledge that He was God; but Pharaoh kept up his worship of the Nile and all the many false gods that went with it; in spite of the fact that what he considered to be a river of life had been turned into a river of death.  He still could not see that he was not god himself and that there was a TRUE God to be reckoned with in the end.  

God told Moses once again to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the people go to worship Him, and if this did not happen God promised to send a plague of frogs to Egypt.  He promised they would come up into the palace and the bedrooms and the beds of Pharaoh, and He promised they would invade the places of Pharaoh’s officials.  They would be everywhere, even in the kneading bowls and the ovens.  God promised the frogs would even come up all over the people themselves as well as all over Pharaoh. 

Why frogs?  Well it isn't so strange considering that frogs were associated with the Egyptian fertility goddess Heqt (or Heket) who had the body of a woman and the head of a frog.  She was part of the worship that stemmed from the River Nile, and the frogs that lived in the river were considered to be her sacred symbols.   Since the people of Egypt had basically been worshiping frogs for a long time now, perhaps God just decided to let them get real up-close and personal with their sacred frogs.  He was about to let them see what it felt like to have the dumb cold reptiles they worshiped in their homes, inside their beds, and crawling all over their dishes!  I wonder how they could possibly think of them as deity now?  

So Moses told Pharaoh about all of this and as usual; nothing was done to let God's people go.  

Then God told Moses to tell Aaron to stretch out his hand with the staff held over the streams and canals and ponds to make the frogs come up on the land of Egypt.  So Aaron did this and the frogs came up and covered all the land. 

And wouldn’t you know; Pharaoh’s magicians were standing by watching.  They turned around and mimicked the miracle again!  They used their secret arts to command the frogs to come forth.   How brilliant!  That little trick simply added to all of the frogs that were already there!  The magic was suddenly NOT very helpful!   These magicians were not quite as smart as they thought they were.  They didn't seem to be solving any problems with their dark magic; they were only multiplying them!  The frogs hopped into all of their houses and because of their religious belief that the frogs were sacred the Egyptians were powerless to stop them.  They still associated the frogs with their fertility goddess and the process of birth.  So Egypt became a real hopping place, literally.

Finally from his palace full of croaking frogs, Pharaoh called to Moses and asked him to pray for God to take the frogs away.  He promised if this happened that he would let the people go and offer sacrifices to God in the wilderness. 

So Moses told Pharaoh to set the official time for him to pray for release of the curse, and Pharaoh said “tomorrow.”  Isn’t that a bit odd to you?  Why didn’t he ask Moses to begin to pray immediately?  But isn’t that so much like all of us other humans too?  We know we need to be praying without ceasing, asking God’s will for our life as we constantly go along, but we keep putting off our prayer times, living in our messy lives, waiting for tomorrow.  Sometimes we seem as bad as Pharaoh.   Who knows what Pharaoh was thinking in putting off the time to end the curse.  Was he afraid of letting go of the hope of the power of his false gods?  Was he afraid of the people finding out that God was God and he was only Pharaoh?  Do you think in back of his mind that he realized this all along, but just did not want to admit it?   Was he holding on to the illusion of power and refusing the reality of true power?  I doubt we will ever have the chance to ask him.

Moses agreed to pray for the frogs to leave on the next day.  He promised Pharaoh ahead of time that God would remove all of the frogs except for those that lived in the Nile.  

So Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh and Moses cried out to the LORD about the frogs and the LORD did what Moses asked on the next morning; exactly as had been scheduled by Moses and Pharaoh.  All of the frogs in the houses, the courtyards and the fields died.  They were piled up in heaps and the land smelled really bad because of them.   This was sort of an ironic twist; to see the symbols of fertility laying dead all over the land, just the opposite of what the people had been taught about their false gods.    Perhaps their fertility goddess wasn't so powerful after all.  Oh well, at least they were rid of the frogs; but please continue to hold your breath, those dead frogs really stink!

Isn't that the way it goes?  You finally get rid of your BIG troubles, but you still have the SMELL of them.  That horrible smell created by your own sins just seems to linger on, even after all the problems are over.  Whenever you decide to mess around with false gods it usually takes awhile for things to get back to normal.  So it was with Egypt.  So it is with us.

When Pharaoh saw that all the frogs were dead, he hardened his heart once again and did not keep his promise to let the people go.

 

Pharaoh still chose to call himself a god, and to continue to worship the false gods of Egypt instead of acknowledging the One True God of Israel.

So the LORD told Moses to tell Aaron to take his staff and stretch it out, then strike the dust of the ground.  All throughout Egypt the dust of the ground became full of ugly little gnats or some type of insects that were like lice.  Suddenly these horrible little bugs were everywhere.  They were all over the people and all over the animals.  If you have ever encountered lice; you can't  get rid of it easily.   The land was totally infested. The people were miserable.  The little insects clung to their skin and their hair and made them itch all over.  The more they scratched, the worse they itched!  Can you imagine a whole country of people scratching and clawing themselves at once?  It would be impossible to carry on with any type of normal life.  The labor force and all the official people who drove them on would have been helpless and totally unproductive.  

All of these gods were supposedly running around Egypt and all the people could do was scratch and itch!  How pitiful!  Could their gods do nothing?

Another of the  false Egyptian gods was named Geb.  It seemed that he was supposed to be the god of the earth.  Offerings were given to Geb to insure the bounty of the soil.  That was probably why God told Aaron to strike the ground with the staff and produce the lice from the dust.  The soil of this false God only yielded lice!  Do you think God was smiling to himself and remembering how HE, the One True God of the whole universe had made mankind from the dust of the earth?  Who was this false god, to claim to have power over the soil?  Yet, the Egyptians thought Geb was a great god!   You would think that a great god like Geb would have been able to defend his domain, and protect the soil that brought the food supply to Egypt; but once again the false Egyptian god was powerless in the face of the REAL God.  With the lice clinging to their bodies the Egyptian priests who prided themselves on their total cleanliness at all times, would no longer be able to serve in the pagan temples of Geb because they would have been considered to be unclean.    Actually NO one could enter the temple now; all the people were unclean.  

When the magicians of Pharaoh saw this plague they tried to mimick it too, once again relying on their secret arts, but this time they could not even come close.  Even these over-confident, self-reliant magicians became frightened. It seemed that the demons and evil spirits could only do as much as a True God allowed them to do, and they were not helping the magicians any more.  This seemed to be above their pay grade!   The magicians and sorcerers went to Pharaoh and admitted the truth saying:  “This is the finger of God!”  Surely hearing those words from these men would change Pharaoh's mind; but Pharaoh’s heart was still hard and he would not listen to anyone.

So the LORD told Moses to go meet Pharaoh early in the morning as he went to the river and tell him:  “This is what the LORD says, let my people go, so that they may worship me.  If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into their houses.  The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies.  Even the ground will be covered with them.  But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen where my people live.  No swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I the LORD, am in this land.  I will make a distinction between my people and your people.  This sign will occur tomorrow.”

So the very next day all that the LORD had told Moses to say came to pass.  Swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh’s palace and in the houses of his officials.  All of the land of Egypt was ruined by the flies.   The people of Israel living in the land of Goshen, however, were not involved.  They went about their daily business without one fly in their midst.  

Most scholars think the word that our bibles translates as "flies" actually refers to all kinds of different biting and stinging insects.  You might have already guessed this; but insects were worshiped as gods in Egypt too.  Utachit was known as the god of the flies, and the false fly god Khepra was often shown as a scarab beetle.  The Egyptians thought that worshiping the gods who controlled these insects would keep the insects from attacking them.  The only one who could actually do this was the God who was telling Pharaoh to let His people go.  

Perhaps Pharaoh looked around and saw that only the Egyptians were being swarmed by the insects.  This time God had set his people apart and they were not in any danger.  The insects were leaving them alone.  

Pharaoh finally summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land.  But Moses said that would not be right.  The Egyptians detested when they sacrificed to their God, and they would stone the Israelites for doing this in Egypt.  Moses declared that they MUST take a three day journey into the wilderness to offer their sacrifices to the LORD, just as He had commanded them to do.

So Pharaoh finally finally agreed to this, only he demanded that they not go any further than a three days journey, and he asked Moses to pray for him before they left.  Moses said that he would pray as soon as he left Pharaoh, and tomorrow the flies would be gone; but he warned Pharaoh that he must not act deceitfully again, and that he must keep his promise to let the people go. 

So Moses went off to pray and the next day all of the flies were completely gone.  

Of course, as soon as things went back to normal again, Pharaoh did not keep his word!  

We are all a bit like Pharaoh.  We are quick to pray when we have an emergency and to recruit everyone else to pray with us and for us.  We promise God all kinds of changes; but as soon as our prayers are answered and the emergency passes; we forget all of our promises to God and go on our way again.  

You would think at this point that Pharaoh would have seen that God was the ONLY REAL GOD of heaven and earth and that he would fall on his face, repent and relent.  Some men can be very stubborn though.  Moses and Aaron were caught right in the middle of God making it very clear to Egypt that pagan gods had no power and that He was the only true God of the universe.  

How many plagues would it take for Egypt to believe and put away their false gods?  

How many plagues do you think it would take for all of mankind today to do the same thing?  

Do we not on this very day have leaders that are telling us that bad is good and good is evil?  

Isaiah 5:20 comes to mind both for Egypt and those who live in the world today: 

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight."

SEASONS - SOON WE WILL BE THRIVING IN THE SUNSHINE OF SUMMERTIME

(Writing and photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Here we are at June already!  June 20th brings us the first day of summer and we are almost there.  I hope you are dancing through your days and eagerly anticipating what God will bring with summertime.  

Here are a few of my own anticipations and thoughts;

Going through life is a lot like dancing, sometimes you stretch and leap high; sometimes you bend and bow low.  There are so many twists and turns along the way, and there is the constant necessity of having to be flexible.  Sometimes the music speeds up and sometimes it slows  down to a gentle lullaby.  Either way, it is still the music of life, in constant rhythm and step with who we are and where we are going.  Right now God is busy teaching us the rhythm and dances of Summer.  

How lovely they are!

How enchanting to be here.

How blessed a season!

  

Sometimes as we step onto the dance floor of summer, we are not quite sure how to begin.
The point is simply to start dancing.

Life throws out its rhythms and you just have to wake up keeping time. 

New notes and old notes and all types of music may form your dance.  Some of the steps may come from a prayer, a song, a memory, a conversation, a taste, a blessing, a hike, a photograph, a poem, but the steps keep coming every day and we all get our chance to step and twirl to the music of life,
Life in all it's splendor and beauty,

Especially in the sweet season of Summer. 
Oh how I love this season!

The colors that parade forth through the days of this season are amazing.  You feel sometimes like you stepped into a rich oil painting of vivid deep shades of green with bright splashes of yellow sunlight and oh those vivid bright blue sky colors, just waiting to be framed and hung in your memory.

Dancing through the seasons of life truly is an art form.  Right now we are so blessed to be  dancing the dance of Summer together, and what a lovely dance it is! 

There are many steps to this lovely dance called Summer.

 You are the loser if you don’t join in – so come step into summertime and all of its loveliness.

Flowers
Birds and Their Nests
The Kentucky Derby

Pentecost
Flag Day

Memorial Day
Father's Day
Independence Day

Family Gatherings
Beach Concerts

Tablescapes

Open Air Markets
Outdoor Concerts

Lush Gardens
Swimming Trips

Cool  Summer Recipes
Grilling Outside
Weddings
Graduations
Boat Rides
Baby Showers

New Books to Read In The Sun
Long Walks on the Beach
Sunrises and Sunsets
Lemonade in the Shade
Visiting local Parks
Summer Vacations
Grass Mowing
Summer Camping Trips

Summertime Poetry
Summer Reunions

Blackberry Picking
Fresh Produce
Picnics
Revivals

By the time I write of these topics, there will be so many more that I remember to put on the list.  Summer is so special!  

So let’s share it all while the season lasts.

Time is so short.
It comes and goes as quickly as a summer rain.

SEASONS - MEMORIAL DAY THOUGHTS - REMEMBERING WORLD WAR ONE

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Soon it will be time to celebrate Memorial Day in America.

On this day we honor every Veteran who fought for our country in every war throughout the pages of time. God bless you everyone!  Your service and dedication to the lives, happiness and well being of all good people is appreciated and your valor is to be commended.

Today I want to explore some facts of a war that is probably the least known by today's generations. I want to look at what history records of World War I.

What must it have been like for those soldiers during this time that was often called “The Great War?”

World War I started on July 28, 1914,and ended on November 11, 1918.  During these, approximately four years, there were literally hundreds of actions and engagements.

Have you ever thought about how unnerving it must have been for the whole world to have been at war?  Perhaps it is to the advantage of the whole world that technology had not reached the state that it is in today.  The story might have been completely different.  

The first question I have to ask myself is how on earth did it all start?

What was the spark that fanned the flame into a huge fire?  I found the answer to this question was very complicated.  Basically, one country questioned the credibility of another country, then that argument quickly spun into a huge world event, with one country at a time getting involved, each for their separate reasons.

As I tried to reason all of this out – two questions arose: 

Why did the first crisis lead to a war between Austria and Serbia? 

Why did that conflict soon involve the rest of the Great Powers?

The most obvious beginning was the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz and his wife.  Archduke Franz was heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.  This murder was believed to have been plotted by a Serbian National Secret Society group called “The Black Hand.”  Soon after this assassination, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that the assassins of the Archduke be brought to justice.  Unsatisfied with Serbia's response to her ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia July 28, 1914.  That is a very simple explaination of what happened.  Actually so much political upheavel was going on between these two countries at the time.  You would need to study that all by itself in order to come up with the more-complicated version of the story.  There were MANY more factors and I highly recommend that you go back and reread the whole story some time.  My point for now is that Austria-Hungary and Serbia were VERY unhappy with each other and each felt threatened by the other.  

So, it seems the war started with just two countries involved.

Serbia had Slavic ties with Russia, which complicated the matter quite a bit.  Austria-Hungary was not really expecting that Russia would be drawn into the dispute, but just in case the unthinkable happened, the Austria-Hungarian government asked their ally, Germany, for aid should Russia declare war on Austria-Hungary.  Germany agreed to this and even encouraged Austria-Hungary's warlike stance. It took Russia about six weeks to utilize mobilization of its large army in Serbia’s defense.  When Germany saw this Russian mobilization, they took it as an act of war against Austria-Hungary and without warning they declared war on Russia on August 1^st.

So we now have four countries involved, Austria-Hungary and Germany vs. Serbia and Russia.  This count didn’t last long either.

France, bound by treaty to Russia, found itself at war against Germany.  Germany was swift in invading the neutral state of Belgium, so they could reach Paris by the shortest possible route. Britain had a 75 year old treaty with Belgium that obligated them to defend them.  Britain, as an ally to France, declared war against Germany on August 4.  When Germany invaded Belgium, Britain came to Belgium’s defense.  Britain had colonies and dominions abroad who offered their military assistance, this included Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa. 

So now on one side we have Serbia, Russia, France, Britain, including the British forces in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa.  On the other side we have Austria-Hungary and Germany.

In 1914, Japan declared war on Germany to honor a military agreement with Britain.  Right after this Austria-Hungary responded by declaring war on Japan.

So now on one side we have Serbia, Russia, France, Britain with the British forces in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa, and Japan; on the other side we have Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States at the time of these wars.  He declared the United States neutral.  This actually stayed the case until 1917, when Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare seriously threatened America’s commercial shipping.  This forced the United States to enter the war on April 6, 1917.

At this point we have Serbia. Russia, France, Britain along with British forces in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa, Japan and The United States; on the other side we have Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Italy was able to avoid the war for a while, because they were committed to defend their allies of Germany and Austria-Hungary only in the event of a “defensive war.”Italy was able to take this stand until May of 1915, when she took a hard stand and sided with those against her two former allies.

So in an odd turn of events, we now have Serbia, Russia, France, Britain (including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and The Union of South Africa), Japan, The United States and Italy against Austria-Hungary and Germany.  Who would have ever predicted this?  It just goes to show that you should be very careful upon entering wars, because you never know who the final players will be.  A very simple beginning can escalate and turn into a very complicated ending.  

No one went into the beginning of this crisis with the intention of world war; but the risk of world war did enter the equation in 1914, seen or unseen, because of the ethnic issues behind the Sarajevo crisis.

The beginning causes of the war are now much clearer, but my deeper mission for studying all of this in such detail was to see who from this war, among other wars, are we honoring on Memorial Day?  I did not want to know just names, but why DO we honor these men?  What was their roles as war heroes?   We say as a matter of fact that we are honoring them, but what do we really know of who they were and what they stood for?

Have we forgotten?

I took a trip back into time to examine the unfolding of these life-changing events, especially where Americans were involved.  I quickly learned that if one truly wants to try to understand the suffering experienced by those who were consumed by this war, one must visit the battlefields of 1914-1918. That is where you can get a mental picture of the Great War.  If you ever have the opportunity, walk through those battlefields to see firsthand for yourself what actually happened.  Spend some time imagining how these battles played out.  Many people did this very thing right after the war ended just so they could know for themselves how the last moments of their loved ones lives were lived out.  Some took tours of the battlefields even before the weapons were cleared from the area.  Many went into France and Belgium and crossed the English Channel and spent hours driving on the opposite side of the road than they were used to, in order to gather all the facts they could of the experiences of the men who fought and all the events that played out during this time in our history.

If you and I were to do the same, and go there to study all that happened, even if we went just to Ypres, Iper and Albert (Somme), we would soon come to understand many things, like the certain battle terms that were used.  For example; 'a flying pig' was the term used for a mortar bomb, and the “battle police” were military policemen deployed behind an attack to intercept stragglers.  We would also learn that a 'Tour' was a period of front-line service.

We would probably be horrified with all the statistics we would discover.  Some of them are quite shocking; such as the fact that Russia mobilized 12 million men during the war; France mobilized 8.4 million; Britain mobilized 8.9 million; Germany mobilized 11 million; Austria-Hungary 7.8 million; Italy 5.6 million; and the USA 4.3 million.  This tells me the World War I portion of the American Memorial Day Holiday honors 4.3 million men specific to World War I alone.

If we DID venture to those old battlegrounds; we would hear of the different battles fought. They took place on The Western Front, The Eastern Front, The Gallipoli Front, The Italian Front, The Palestine Front, The Mesopotamian Front.  There were also The African Wars, The War at Sea, The Far East, and so many different battles fought in various spots of the world.

The world history is very fascinating, and we could spend hours and hours discussing all of the interesting facts; but my original quest was to find out about the American Soldiers that we will be honoring on Memorial Day

Who were some of these gallant men who were not afraid to risk their lives to defend our country?  

My favorite of many known American heroes was a man called Alvin Cullum York, born in 1887.  Having grown up in poverty the young York honed his skills as a crack marksman.  He used this talent for hunting food for himself and his family.  This skill also proved useful during the war.  He was known for his bravery and his win-at-all-costs attitude. The very ironic thing about him being in the war and being known for his bravery is the fact that he proclaimed himself to be a pacifist.  In 1911 he served as a lay deacon of a local pacifist sect.  This was noted on his draft papers, yet he was drafted into the 328^th Regiment, 82^nd Infantry.  During his training however, he was convinced by his battalion commander who was also a bible scholar, that the Bible sanctioned active service.

 

York was sent to fight in France.  This is where he earned lifetime fame for his part in an attack in the Argonne Forest against German machine gun positions on October 8, 1918.  York, as a Corporal, led 17 men in action against a German stronghold in order to secure their position and return with German prisoners.  At first they were successful without even coming under fire, and the small group of men took a number of prisoners before the Germans launched a heavy counterattack.  With 11 of York's men guarding the captured prisoners (and with the other six killed) York resolved to proceed alone and tackled the German gunners.  York shot 17 gunners via sniping,before he was charged by seven German soldiers who realized that he was operating alone.  He killed them all with his pistol.  With the aid of a German Major he had captured earlier, York brought in a total of 132 German prisoners, a remarkable feat!

He was well rewarded.  He received lavish press coverage at home and the Congressional Medal of Honor, in addition to the French Croix de Guerre(and a fulsome citation from Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch.)

Returning home to a New York City parade, York was awarded a gift of a farm by his home state, Tennessee.  A film of his life was made in 1940, called "Sergeant York," starring Gary Cooper.

York used the fee he was paid for the film to fund a Bible college. He died in 1964.

Another soldier, a man from Fort Wayne, Indiana named Paul Frank Baer, served both the US and the French Air Services during the war.  He achieved nine air successes between March 1918 and the armistice.  Nine air victories qualified you to be labeled an “ace.”  After he achieved all of this, he was shot down, survived the crash, but was taken prisoner by the enemy until the end of the war.

Returning home to Fort Wayne on February 28, 1919 to a rapturous local welcome, Baer took up a post as test pilot for an aeronautical lab based in Detroit.  This was followed by a spell as an inspector for the Department of Commerce.  His next post took him to South America where he helped to establish an air mail service.  The recipient of both the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) and Cruix de Guerre with Palms (the former for single-handedly attacking seven German aircraft, destroying one, on March 11, 1918, and for downing two enemy two-seaters five days later.)

Baer was killed on December 9, 1930 in Hong Kong when his aircraft crashed while flying mail and passengers for Chinese Airway Federal, Inc. He was only 35 years old.

Then there was a man named George Michael Cohan.  He was, by his own account, born in Providence, Rhode Island on the 4^th of July, and went on after his brave service in the war to become a central figure in American musical and theatrical circles during the first half of the twentieth century.

His accomplishments are numerous and very famous.  I wanted to share specifically what made him famous during World War I.  He was the one who penned what quickly established itself as the leading American marching song of the war called "Over There."   Cohan was formally recognized for the role this song played in boosting wartime morale with the award of the Congressional Medal of Honor - albeit belatedly in 1940.  The song remains popular to this present day. Other renowned songs by Cohan are "Yankee Doodle Boy," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Give My Regards to Broadway"and "Harrigan."

The ever-versatile Cohan transferred to the movie world during the 1930s, and is featured in The Phantom President (1932).  Cohan died on November 5, 1942 aged 64. He died from cancer.

Another noted hero was Sir Hiram Maxim.  Maxim was an inventor who designed the machine gun that bears his name He was from Maine and his father was a mechanic.  At age 26 Maxim applied for and obtained the first of many patents for a hair-curling iron.  This was rapidly followed by a machine for producing illuminating gas and a locomotive headlamp.  The United States Electric Lighting Company recognized his talents and employed him as their chief engineer.  He designed for them a method of producing carbon filaments.

In 1884 Maxim was living in London when he began to toy with the problems associated with the design and manufacture of automatic weapons.  From this resulted his most famous innovation; the Maxim Machine Gun. He later invented (in 1891) a smokeless cartridge, cordite, which further improved the effectiveness of his machine gun.  Maxim successfully sold his new weapon to the British army, although there were other armies expressing interest in buying his machine gun, including Germany.

In the 1890’s Maxim produced an airplane powered by a light steam engine.  Having invented literally hundreds of items varying from a mousetrap to a gas motor, Maxim received a knighthood from Queen Victoria in 1901.  His company, the Maxim Gun Company, was later absorbed into Vickers Ltd., of which he became the director. The Vickers machine gun subsequently became the standard issue weapon of its type in the British army during the First World War.  Sir Hiram Maxim died in London on November 24, 1916, while the Great War was still raging. He was 76 years old.

There are so many other stories of the men who fought and the lives they led before and after World War I.  Many of them lived to tell their stories, but the casualties were great in this war.  Let us not forget their honor as we think of our freedom that was made possible by ALL war heroes, especially those who will forever remain quiet and unknown to us.  Countless men gave their lives and no one told their stories.  Let this not be the case on Memorial Day this year.   Have you passed on the stories of the war heroes in your family to your children and grandchildren?   If you have one hero or many; please pass on their stories!  We must never forget and we must always honor their sacrifices.  

SEASONS - HOW DECORATION DAY BECAME MEMORIAL DAY

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Did you know that Memorial Day wasn’t called Memorial Day in the beginning?  It was called Decoration Day.  They called it that because after the Civil War, people decorated the graves of the soldiers who were killed in battle on that day.  It was a southern tradition, to decorate graves to remember loved ones lost, but this tradition was now shared all over the country, for soldiers from the north and the south.  Maybe it was a way to bring the people of the north and the south together after the war.  It took the South a long time after the Civil War before they joined in the celebration in a national way. As a matter of fact, it took another war, World War I.  There were many organizations of southern women’s groups that went about in local areas decorating the graves of the Confederate soldiers on random but different dates in May each year, and they finally came to see that this day was not about division, but about reconciliation and coming together.  It was to be a time for honoring the soldiers who gave their all for all of us.  The North and The South finally came together and began placing flowers on the graves of their heroes who were buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.   

The Civil War was such a misunderstood war.  Most people haven’t heard the whole story.  It wasn’t really all about slavery, as many think.  It was mostly about state’s rights and taxation without representation.  As wrong as slavery was, many believed that the whole situation would have worked itself out eventually with the invention of the cotton gin and new farming machinery.  At any rate, the subject was often used for a political soap-box in order to get at some of the underlying issues that were really more important to those involved.  It is a sad fact that though  many people DID care about the situation of slavery; the truth was that neither side would be willing to send their sons to fight over the issue of slavery.  They were, however, willing to die for their freedom to own and keep their own property, and their right to make a living and receive the financial benefit from it without government interference. 

To understand what really happened, you must first see and note the contrast in the cultures.  The North and The South were two totally different cultures, with two totally different ways of life.  Out of the 5.5 million people living in the south, there were really only 12 rich and powerful southern plantation owners, who owned over 500 slaves each.  These men had a lot of political power, and they were involved with legislation.  In 1860 everything in the South evolved around agriculture, mostly cotton.  Everything in the North evolved around manufacturing goods.  There were 140,000 manufacturing facilities in the North in 1860.  The North thrived on exporting goods.  The South thrived on exporting cotton.  Most of the southern cotton was bought by England.  The English people manufactured their own products, and were not likely to import the North’s exports, but they were glad to export their own to the southern traders.  As a matter of fact the English had a good trade deal established with the South, where they would buy their cotton and in turn the Southern plantation owners would receive good prices on English products.  The South wound up buying goods from England instead of buying the goods being manufactured in the North.  In order to counteract this, the North, who controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate at that time, decided to tax both imports and exports.  That put the South paying high taxes on both the cotton they exported, and the goods they imported from England.  By 1860 the South was actually paying approximately 85% of the taxes collected by the U.S.   They felt they were overtaxed and under represented by our government.  That was the main issue, and slavery was the song it traveled on.  The politicians of the day knew that slavery was the political subject that would pull at people’s heartstrings and evoke emotion, and they used it to their own advantage to stir up people’s hearts.  

Many good people, most from the north, but also some good godly people from the south, were already hard at work trying to change the situation of slavery.   Slaves were considered to be property, and therefore, they were a good source of tax revenue for the government.   

In this respect, the north was just as guilty as the south in not stopping slavery.  They thrived from the revenue received because of slavery from the large plantations.  There were also excessive property taxes taken from the huge lands that made up the southern plantations where the slaves lived and worked.  Remember “Gone With The Wind”?  A huge part of the story came to light because of the lack of tax money to pay Tara’s taxes.  This was a catch 22 type situation though – when it came time for the numbers to be counted of people in an area, the southern plantation areas could count their slaves and claim a larger stake of the pie.  There was legislation over this, and some real odd ways came about by trying to justify whether a slave counted in a region as a whole person or not.  The North got the slaves reduced to a fractional number until after the war when the whole issue was corrected.   Because of the heavy taxation, and the reduction of the number of people the southern legislators represented, the southerners became financially and politically strapped.   They could not exist any longer under the current tax situation, and they could not gain any power in the House and Senate to make a change.  Desperate, they exercised their state’s rights to pull out.  When they did, everyone suffered. The northern industrial states had depended on southern plantations for their food sources. 

It was a mess, and it was a stupid and greedy mess.  It took both sides a long time to recover from their wounds.
 

I find it very ironic that a war within our own country was the event that evolved into a time of remembering and honoring the soldiers that died protecting our country from other countries.  It actually started out because we needed to protect ourselves from each other.
    

Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Civil War was about coming together as a people of one voice, and putting aside our differences and creating workable solutions for all.  The abolishing of slavery certainly falls under this huge umbrella.  The Union soldiers never mentioned in their historical diaries that they were fighting to abolish slavery.  What you read in their writings was the fact that they were fighting to protect and establish the Union.  They wanted The United States of America to stay The United States of America, which was established as “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”  They gave their lives for the idea that we, as a nation, should always stay together and work out our problems, under all circumstances. 
  

Hence, Decoration Day was established, which later became known as Memorial Day after World War II.  It was officially moved to the last Monday of May in the 1970’s.  This was done so that all of America could enjoy a long weekend while they remembered those who died for their freedom.