Upstate New York is one of the prettiest places on the planet and the Finger Lakes region is right in the heart of it.  While the glacial magnificence of the lakes and ravines, gorges and waterfalls are the main attractions, tucked away in Bath, NY near the South end of Keuka Lake is the Bath National Cemetery.  This is a very special place and everyone visiting the region ought to put this destination on their list of things to do.

My work takes me all over New York State so I am fortunate to stumble upon interesting places in my travels.  The first time I visited this place, I was taken by the sense of going back in time.  The quaint and austere brick buildings that make up the Veterans Administration campus adjacent to the cemetery are actually the original buildings that comprised a veteran’s hospital and small support community dating back to 1877.  Little has changed and the government does a nice job of maintaining the property mostly in its original manner.

On my first visit, as I came into view of the grave sites, it took my breath away in seeing the thousands of white, wind-burnished headstones, arrayed like the good soldiers they were, in orderly rows and columns stretching far across the rolling landscape.  After I had stopped the car to get out and take a look around, I could hear the sound of a lawn tractor and saw a man mowing and making his way in my direction.  As I had finished taking a few photos, the man pulled up along side of me and turned off his tractor and asked me if I had any questions.

For the next 10 minutes or so, this maintenance man took the time to explain to me the significant of this place.  He told me that over 13,000 souls are interred here, including five Medal of Honor recipients, the highest honor the country bestows to a member of the armed services.  This gentleman told me about the history and the tradition of this landscape.  He was as proud of this cemetery as the father of a newborn and was outwardly emotional in explaining the significance of this patch of earth and his patriotic spirit in caring for it so thoughtfully and carefully was pride and enthusiasm he could not hide.

This man was hired to maintain the physical premises of this 28 acre cemetery, to cut the grass, rake the leaves and plow the snow.  He was however, also something so much more.  He was the absolute highlight of my visit because he instilled in me the spirit of that place; the sense of pride, of awe, of honor that he shared was such a jolt of inspiration.  This man knew as much or more than what one would expect from someone trained and hired as a tour guide, but he wasn’t that, he was a maintenance man that took it upon himself to share with me the history, the significance the immortality of this hallowed and sacred ground that is the final resting place of the finest examples of the soldiers and sailors that define and defend the United State of America.

This solitary maintenance man could not have made me feel stronger about being an American and his example bolsters my faith in what I see as our future.  I want to publicly thank him for his service and for his patriotism and for giving me the hope that there are more like him out there that I just haven’t met. yet.

Many pundits and modern-day philosophers, myself included, have opined upon “the break-down of the family” as the primary cause of societal failures.  While no doubt fundamental in addressing the question of “what in the name of God is happening to our society?” I sensed that there was a deeper, more sinister force at work.

As I heightened and intensified my observations of the ever-changing human condition, it became alarmingly obvious to me that mental illnesses have become epidemic.  Complicate that with all of the socially-acceptable substance abuse alternatives, alcoholism and the general malaise and sense of hopelessness felt by many and one can see the toll this is taking on us by simple observation.  The profoundly mentally ill are conspicuously in our midsts; it is not at all uncommon, we all see it every day.  Add to that the not-so-obviously afflicted; tormented and tortured but functional and outwardly able to mask their despair.  After all, we each carry our burdens, mostly private and unseen but burdens nonetheless.

I ruminated upon and carefully considered my new theory, believing that the increase and intensity of the advent of mental illnesses was the more foundational underpinning to our societal woes, but I neglected a consideration so obviously important that it took my breath away in my moment of illumination.

Our relationship with God.

While I try my mightiest to write in a secular tone so to not alienate non-believers, there comes a time when the truth and the Word rule the day.

Jesus casting out demons was a reoccurring theme in the Bible, referenced in some 25-Bible verses.  Our evolution into modern times did not eradicate those demons they are with us still today.

While Jesus may not physically walk amongst us today, his church and his soldiers carry on His message and His hope for us.  The demons are still amongst us and if anything they have multiplied, tormenting many souls, just as they did in biblical times.  Casting out these demons requires from us faith.  No demon can stand up to God’s love but it is up to us to seek Him out and ask for His protection and grace.

The line between the modern science of mental health and the demons of satan and evil are blurred to me but they are clearly both undeniable factors in explaining the degradation of our society.  The interplay between broken families, those infested with demons and the mentally ill are the three-key-components in understanding where we are in today’s shameful world.

We see the unthinkable without flinching, fail to revolt at the untenable, and are slow to recoil at the unspeakable and yet are pilloried if we fail to concur with the latest obscenity. The word of God warns us in Isaiah 5:20 when He says:  “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

Where we cast out the Lord, we invite in the devil.  If you doubt me, look around.

The physical presence of Jesus on earth was to demonstrate to mankind His power and His grace.  His disciples were tasked with creating the church extending to the ends of the earth.  Jesus was crucified, died, rose from the dead, and on eight separate occasions He came back to Earth to reinforce his commandments upon the chosen; empowering them through His spirit and making possible all of the power of His salvation and redemption, even in the absence of his physical presence.  The church today is the physical manifestation of God on Earth, with all of those capabilities for us today that Jesus bestowed on the people of His time.

Good deeds, kindness and doing no evil are not hallmarks of God’s salvation.  The grace of God, combined with our own humility and surrender to His will are the keys to everlasting life.  The simplicity of grace is so flatly understated that its concept is widely and wildly misunderstood and yet ironically, it is the only pathway to heaven.

Say this prayer with me and obtain from God your place in his realm.  Dearest Father in heaven, please hear my prayer.  Father, I’m not worthy, but I come before you as a believer.  You are the messiah and the Son of God.  You are the son of man and died for my sins.  With you anything is possible and without you nothing is.  I seek your forgiveness and with it your redemption, of which I am not worthy, but nevertheless you love me and provide for my salvation.  Thank you Father and please guide my life in a way that pleases you, I pray it in your holy name Father, Amen.

Until we acknowledge our rightful place in this life and humble ourselves to God’s will, we can count on a continuation of the depravity, despair and degradation in which we have created for ourselves all because of our rejection of God.

In County government, the most personally threatening kind of power manifests itself in law enforcement and adjudication.  Power at this level can literally end a human life, imprison a man forever, force someone into a mental hospital or keep a parent from their children.

While we all hope that those whom we elect to govern are honorable and honest people with the best interests of the community in mind, we all know that this is not always the case.  This is why the positions of the county Sheriff and the District Attorney are crucial in defining the overall integrity and reputation of the entirety of the community.  The people we elect to these offices reflect the highest and best individuals we can elevate to those positions of trust, honor and ultimately, power.

There should be a healthy, professional distance and a respectful skepticism separating the relationships between police agencies and the judicial/adjudication side of the administration.  Clear personal relationships, even friendships to the point of mutual campaigning and commingled staff and volunteers does not set the proper tone for the natural inter-agency separation that should exist between entities that many times find themselves at loggerheads.      

The use of power demonstrates ones character.  When a inner-office romance bloomed with a subordinate, as it did in the sheriff’s office when then Captain Akshar was living with a female co-worker, or when then captain Akshar had a sexual encounter with the mother of a murder victim while the matter was actively being adjudicated, or when then Senator Akshar had another affair with a young woman that worked in his office, tripling her salary, prompting the ethics panel in Albany to slap the Senator’s wrists, or when District Attorney candidate Battisti called then Captain Akshar and ultimately had him dispatch his brother, a Broome County sheriff, to arrest Battisti’s estranged wife, in which all charges were ultimately dropped, well, we see power and character in action.

This kind of a quid pro quo power-structure is the worse thing that could happen to the residents of Broome County.  Those who play fast and loose with the rules, use their power inappropriately and are indebted to one another in a Gordian knot of payback and one-hand-washing-the-other shenanigans sets the bar too low and demonstrates a dangerous tenor from which all police agencies will get their cues and when those cues suggest anything other than fair-play, integrity and honorable behavior, you can count on getting none of that in return.

The people we entrust with great power should be those most reluctant to use it.  The lust for power is the surest sign of why the person seeking it should be kept from it.  Power engorges the ego of the tyrant while humbling the wise, the tyrant’s eager first choice, and the humble man’s reluctant last resort.

Einstein warned us when he said, “Force always attracts men of low morality.”  Edmund Burke finished his thought when he said, “The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse.”

We don’t measure darkness, stillness, cold or silence.  These conditions represent the absence of something, namely light, speed, heat and sound.  There are no shades of black; it is the absence of color.  There are many ways to see, but blind is blind.  Scientists define a total lack of heat as “absolute zero.”  It is important to accept that there are “absolutes” in our lives and the presence of evil is one of those realities.  Evil is to goodness what darkness is to light, its absence.

We can increase light, motion, temperature and sound infinitely while their absences are by definition finite or “absolute.”  The absence of light can’t be made any darker. There is no state of stillness beyond motionless, absolute zero is as cold as it can get and silence can’t be made any quieter.  The bible tells us “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” Proverbs 4:18.

Darkness is conquered by light just as goodness conquers evil.

God’s heaven is a state of total goodness and the lack of all evil.  Here on earth, we cannot create a heavenly state we can only strive towards goodness by rejecting evil.

Nature and Divinity abhor a vacuum and when goodness by way of Godliness decreases and when we reject God from our lives, evil moves in to fill that spiritual vacuum.  Just as the path towards darkness increases gradually as the sun sets, evil falls upon us as our souls give into the worldly and the wicked.  Just as the warmth of summer yields to fall and then winter’s cold, mankind in a spiritual vacuum tests the unworldly frigidity of absolute failing, absolute tragedy and absolute anguish.

While the angst, suffering and heartbreak we see today all around us overwhelms the feint of heart and the spiritually suffering, there is a solution.  The absolute Goodness of God overcomes evil but only when we embrace the former and reject the later through the grace of the Lord.  He tells us, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:43.

The senseless killings we see day after day correspond with the mental and spiritual illness we see increasing in our world.  The objects people use to murder and snuff out life are distracting representations keeping us from examining the harder, less obvious problems of mental illness, the corruption of the human soul and the degradation of the value of life.  When we ignore or at best, fail to cultivate our own commitments to righteousness we see the proliferation of evil that fills the vacuum of our own making.

The Lord God possesses all goodness.  Striving to follow Him is the pathway to pushing evil back into the absolute pit of its own birth and to bury its presence in our lives through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

NOTE: I wrote this article in 2003 just before my dad passed away

The youngest of eight boys and a sister, my father’s biggest fear as a 17-year-old was that the war which had called all of his brother’s would end before he could enlist.

He just made it.

My father was a strong and decisive man, self-made in the tradition of the American hard work ethos, rising from a laundryman in a hospital to a policeman in our little town.  From walking the beat, then patrolman, finally detective, he persevered through bad bosses and good times.

He raised our family and demonstrated a strong faith.  He sang at the top of his voice regardless of whether he was in the church choir or sitting in our family pew dating to 4-generations.  He showed me the power of absolute values and uncompromising principles.

He listened to talk radio before it was popular, late at night the crackling faint and fluctuating AM-radio voices sounding so far away, making it feel so special.  He took me to a small church in the country on some Sunday nights so he could sing real loud and enjoy the company of the minister, his dear friend.

Dad showed me that crying was OK as a man and he leaned on me as a boy when I thought I couldn’t do things,  but I could, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.  He introduced me to death as his mother and then older brothers fell one by one.  I knew it was all a dress rehearsal.

He loved my mother harder than he should have.  He hadn’t considered his own vulnerability, it wouldn’t have been right.  That would undermine the commitment, the uncontested, no restrictions love that he thought transcended all.  He was wrong sometimes.  The divorce nearly killed him.  His only chance was to wade back in quickly.

No good deed shall go unpunished and indeed it did not.  Five children, all pre-teens and a 2^nd wife with shoulders built to carry a chip.  He did the difficult with no thanks and suffered at the hand of her having it both ways because he relished the task of being needed.

We all assailed him as adults with various and wide ranging admonitions, requests, presents, favors, accusations, automobiles and accolades.  He was accused of high crimes and misdemeanors and the saving of lives.  Some disliked him because he stood for something and was unashamed in defining it.

He was born late enough to have science save him from the heart disease that took his father and brothers, only to live long enough to be sentenced to death without parole in the cell of a nursing home, a prisoner lost in his own mind.  The Law of Unintended Consequences.

I speak of him as if he were dead because the disease insures that he is, forced to observe it all from his frail body with a capacity just functional enough to feel the terror of the reality every once in a while.  Where is God in all of this?  Why the loss of dignity to such a good soldier?

The only reason I’m not embittered by my father’s dilemma is the knowledge that if he were healthy and guiding me today, he would tell me not to be.  He would look me straight in the eye and tell me that God had nothing to do with this.  It’s because of his faith and example that I believe him.