HomeARC ML 0368
"WHERE POPPIES GROW"--MO December 22, 1975 GP--No.368
Copyrighted Jan. 1976 by The Children of God
We woke in the early morning and were having a little fellowship and MO was singing to me: "Roses are blooming in Picardy", a love song of northern France during the First World War. But then he began weeping. When I asked him what was wrong, he said,)
1. "THOSE POOR BOYS! SO MANY BURIED IN FLANDERS FIELDS! (Near Picardy.) They like for me to cry for them, to love them, to know somebody loves them. My tears help to pay for it, to bring remission for their sins. I pray for them to help save them, Honey Baby.
2. (MARIA: HOW CAN YOU SAVE THEM?) 'Cause I cry for them and Jesus sees my tears and helps them. Nobody ever cries for them any more but me. I cry for them and give my tears for them and Jesus sees and helps them and forgives them 'cause I pray for them. I shed my tears for them like Jesus shed His blood.
3. "IN FLANDERS FIELDS THE POPPIES GROW, BETWEEN THE CROSSES ROW ON ROW." (Weeps and cries in tongues raising his hands to the sky and down again, touching his fingers to his lips and flinging them out again in a gesture of throwing kisses.) I'm praying for all those boys that are buried there in Flanders where the poppies grow. (There is a vast soldiers' graveyard there of little white crosses and flowers stretching as far as the eye can see, thousands upon thousands!)
4. I PRAY FOR THEM 'cause nobody else prays for them, 'cause they've forgot them. But I pray for them. I pray a prayer for them so Jesus will remember them. I pray the love of a father for his sons, all those boys who have died there, that Jesus will love and take to His bosom and forgive for their sins and have mercy on them and give them a new life, another chance, 'cause they didn't know.
5. THEY DIDN'T KNOW, they didn't understand. They were so bad to make all that terrible noise, to kill all those poor people, so sad. For those poor German boys, too, I prayed, and those poor French boys. They all need Jesus. O Jesus, Jesus! Have mercy and help them in Jesus' Name.
6. IF MARY PRAYS FOR THEM I CAN PRAY FOR THEM TOO, you know? I can give them grace and the mercy of God that Jesus gives me to love them with, to help to save them. I can ask Jesus to forgive them and give them grace, even give them my grace from me, like Mary gives them grace--you know what I mean? 'Cause I pray for them and I love them. Thank You Jesus! Thank You Jesus! O Jesus!
7. DO YOU HEAR THAT?--Didn't you hear that echo? I've got tears in my ears. My tears reach God's ears in the big hall. (Maria: Where?) In Heaven!--Didn't you hear the echo? It's so loud! It almost hurts my ears it's so loud.--And I'm so wet! Jesus sees my tears and puts them up in His bottle. It echoes 'cause it's so big!
8. I'LL CRY FOR YOU TOO, that Jesus will forgive you for all your sins. Jesus hears me, too. He knows I love you and I love them. They just need someone to pray for their souls to help usher them in. They've been waiting for someone to pray for them. Will you be a good girl and pray for them?
9. (MARIA: WILL MY PRAYERS HELP?) Of course!--All prayers help. Everybody's prayers help. Will you pray for them? (Maria: Yes.) That's good. You'll pray for them. I love you. I love you so much! (Sleeps, then awakens:) I was praying for somebody. I can feel it. I can always tell. "Virtue hath gone out of me"(Lk.8:46).
10. THERE'S SO MANY OF THEM THOUSANDS OF THEM! All those little crosses and all those little poppies! Did we finish praying for them? Was it enough? They want me to pray for them. (Maria: How can you tell they want you to pray for them?) The way they look at me. The way they think to me. They tell me to pray for them.--All their poor spirits!
11. JESUS PRAYED FOR THEM and Jesus went down and saw them and so did I! (Maria: When?) You know!--When I saw them just a little while ago. When I saw all the poppies and all the crosses and all the poor spirits. In Jesus' Name. In Flanders Fields row on row, and row on row. In Jesus' Name... (David sleeps. Later:)
12. WILL YOU PRAY FOR ALL THE SOULS? They need our prayers. Everybody forgot them. You didn't forget them, Jesus. You made me remember them.--Just like little flowers they grow to see the light of day!
"In Flanders Fields the poppies grow,
Between the crosses, row on row!"
Will you please look that up for me and see what it's all about? It's something about a rendezvous with death. (It is from John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields". It goes on:
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow--In Flanders Fields!")
Do you smell that?--You can smell the fragrance of the incense we burn to Him and to them!
13. (NEXT MORNING:) In some of these I must revert to when I was a little boy, 'cause I remember I used to watch the parades and my Mama would tell me about all the boys who didn't come back, and I'd cry and cry and cry.
14. (WEEPS AGAIN:) O JESUS, HAVE MERCY! They've already been through their Hell! They've been through enough Hell even on the battlefield. In my visit last night I can remember the boys looking at me over each other's shoulders--a big crowd of them! It was like I now was the parade and they were standing alongside on both sides and crowding to see me!
15. IT WAS LIKE I WAS WALKING ALONG LIKE AN INSPECTING OFFICER, inspecting the troops.--Only they weren't standing at attention, but they were crowding on both sides and watching me walking. There were others with me--like somebody was showing me through like I was some kind of visiting dignitary. There were a whole bunch of officers and important people.
16. WHEN THE HEAD OF SOME COUNTRY comes to visit another country you know how they do: A big crowd of dignitaries meeting dignitaries. But here a group of us dignitaries were walking through these long long lines of boys. Isn't it strange! It was just like we were walking through those rows of crosses and poppies, but they weren't crosses and poppies my more!--You could actually see the boys!
17. THE POPPIES HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE BOYS--like they're peeping through the poppies to see if anybody cares or loves them anymore. There are just miles and miles of them there in Flanders--huge, huge graveyards! It's pitiful to think of how many boys were killed--thousands upon thousands died on that front!
18. YOU KNOW, IT'S LIKE ALL THE CHEERS ARE GONE, the cheers of the throngs to the passing parade, to the soldiers as they go to war. All the glory and the glamour as they march off to war as the people throng and cheer them--all of a sudden it's hushed!--And then there they lie, silently, the biggest parade of all, and nobody cheers any more, nobody cares, nobody even remembers!
19. MY MOTHER WROTE A LITTLE SONG ABOUT THEM. She must have been moved by that, too. They say when you first see those fields it's such an awesome sight! It was just like I was there! But I don't think I've never been there in the flesh. I must have gone there in the spirit. Maybe that's why I'm so tired some mornings.
20. I CAN HARDLY THINK ABOUT SINGING IT.--It used to make me cry when I was little boy. My mother must have believed in prayer for them, or else what could it mean? (He sings:)
Oh, where are the boys from over there,
I wonder where they are?
We saw them when they marched away,
Off to the great World War.
(Male chorus answers:)
We're the boys who fought in Flanders--
To you we're still as true!
So let our comrades hear you say,
"We still remember you!"
21. YOU KNOW, THEY USED TO HAVE A MEMORIAL DAY.--Remember that? I wonder if they have it any more?--When you're supposed to remember the veterans, those who died in the wars. What terrible, terrible things wars are! How terrible! How awful! Cruel steel against soft flesh!--How horrible! How can flesh never win over steel? How can anybody win? It's just awful, awful, awful!
22. THEY'RE ALL LOSERS in a war: They lose their boys, they lose their lives, they lose their governments, countries and colonies and economies. They all lose everything. They all lose. Nobody won anything, you know?
23. THEY SAY THEY WON THEIR FREEDOM at least, but what freedom?--Freedom to fight another war?--That's what happened! Freedom to fight another war, to lose more lives, kill more boys, lose more countries and lose more colonies and bankrupt their economies, so there's less freedom today than there was then. They didn't gain anything at all.
24. NOBODY EVER WINS A WAR.--Everybody loses:--All the dead and broken bodies, suffering and sadness and sorrow and pain and hunger and grief and the mourning! Nobody ever wins. Everybody always loses.
25. WAR IS HELL!--And the poor boys!--They go through hell!--A hell of a war that they didn't even want and had nothing to do with making, yet their dictators make them fight it like slaves, and they have to be the sufferers and losers.
26. GOD DAMN THE POLITICIANS and bureaucrats and munitions makers and the war mongers and the people who want the wars but never have to fight them, people who want the wars to save themselves and their businesses and their jobs and their political parties, but never have to fight them themselves!
27. JUST THINK!--PARENTS WILLING TO SEND THEIR OWN SONS TO BE CANNON FODDER for them, to save their own necks!--How horrible! Only the mothers seems to really grieve for them and know what flesh they are! Even the fathers urge them on to go out and fight for gory glory! What horrible bloody victory! It's no victory at all when they all die like that!
28. THOSE GUYS I SAW STILL FIGHTING WARS IN HELL, they must be the ones who wanted the wars here on Earth.--Next time they'll get to fight them and suffer and die--perpetually! God damn the war makers! (See "Green Door", No.262.)
29. GOD BLESS THE PEACE MAKERS!--"FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF GOD!" (Mt.5:9) We're peace makers who try to bring peace to men's hearts and minds and souls and bodies and countries, but we'll never have total peace till we get rid of the God-damned war makers, the evil hearts that make war!--O my Lord!--War is in their hearts!--They thirst for blood, they lust for destruction!---"Them that destroy the Earth."
30. THANK YOU JESUS, PRAISE YOU LORD! HELP US LORD! HELP US TO BRING PEACE. At least we can bring peace to their hearts while waiting for God to destroy the war makers--and He always does. They always die, and what a Hell they'll have! But one of these days He's going to get rid of them altogether, thank God, and then the whole world will have peace.--Tomorrow when the world is really free!
31. LIKE THAT OTHER OLD FAVORITE SONG of World War II you've heard me sing before:
"There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow when the world is free!
There'll be love and laughter and peace ever after--
Tomorrow when the world is free!"
Thank You Jesus! Hallelujah! Amen, Lord.
32. WE'LL BE FREE FROM WAR with real peace brought by the Lord and His Kingdom forever, the Kingdom of love where we all make love, not war! Thank You Jesus!--And those boys will live again! Hallelujah! Thank You Jesus! In the land of flowers and sunshine and love and peace forever! Thank You Jesus!
33. THERE'LL BE NO MORE CROSSES, NO MORE WARS. There'll be love and laughter and peace ever after, tomorrow--in God's tomorrow--when the world is free of wars. Thank You Jesus! There's no more death, pain nor suffering, crying nor sorrow, but all is light and life and love and peace forever! Thank You Jesus!
34. WAR IS THE DEVIL'S OWN WEAPON to slaughter and destroy man and maim and kill and cause agony and suffering. But God's love is just the opposite:
35. LOVE AND SALVATION ARE GOD'S WEAPONS to create life and save life and help people to live to love and have peace and no more war. Thank You Jesus! Praise You Lord! No more dead and dying and suffering, noise and confusion!
36. HE SAYS THAT "NOTHING SHALL HURT NOR DESTROY IN ALL MY HOLY MOUNTAIN!" (Is.11:9) Nothing shall hurt nor destroy in all God's Holy Kingdom. We'll only create and live and love and laugh and have peace ever after. Thank You Jesus! Tomorrow!--When the world is free of war forever--through Jesus, God's love. Thank You Jesus! Praise You Lord!
37. THOSE FLOWERS, THE POPPIES AMONGST THE CROSSES, SYMBOLISE THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME--THE RESURRECTION! Like the old hymn:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.
O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flick'ring torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine's glow its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow thru' the rain
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to hide from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be!
(--George Matheson.)
38. WE HAVE TO GIVE OUR LIVES TO JESUS TO SAVE THEM. We have to give our lives for Jesus to save them.
--"And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be"!
From the blood of the martyrs and the blood of the witnesses there springs new life and new lives to live for God.
39. THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS IS THE SEED OF THE CHURCH--God's martyrs slain by the Enemy, slaughtered by the wars, staining the soil red with blood, the soil that received them when others rejected them, which will grow again and spring up to life a new like the flowers that grow on the graves of the departed. Thank You Jesus! Praise You Lord! Amen.
40. THERE'LL BE NO MORE CROSSES THEN, JUST FLOWERS--no more graves, just the growing--no more dead, only the living--no more dying, only the loving.--Tomorrow!--When the world is free of war, and the poppies grow and live forever!
41. (DAVID WEEPS AND THE LORD SAYS:) "WEEP NO LONGER FOR THE DEAD, but weep for the living. Weep for yourselves, you upon whom the ends of the Earth are come!" I can't cry anymore!--Haven't I cried long enough? Do you weep for them?
IN FLANDERS FIELDS
In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
--by John McCrae
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
