Beneath the Poppies

Why did they plant poppies in Flanders Fields? My WIF and I have this ongoing discussion with Puff at the focal point. The Magic Dragin. Henri said it himself, (Pappion) I never killed anyone but it was easy to frame me being who I was and where I was. If PP&M had not been the vanguard singing through all that blue haze Puff might never have been suspect. We also have a go around wonderland every once in a while with Alice. Would LC ever have been able to write such a story if he had not been dedicated to opium himself? 1819 John Keats, 1821 Thomas De Quincey, 1830 22,000 Lbs imported into Britian, 1837 E B Browning, 1874 first Heroin. Even Sherlock Holms himself when he did not have a case to work on drifted off into never never on opium’s magic carpet and the good doctor used to get after him about it.

“Scientists found that the human brain's neurons had specific receptor sites for opiate drugs: opium, heroin, codeine and morphine. But then there was the obvious question. Why would nature put in our brains a receptor for a plant? After all, human beings didn't evolve over millions of years eating opium or shooting heroin. The scientists reasoned there must be some other function for these receptors sites. They soon figured out that the active ingredient in all these opiates - morphine - had a chemical structure similar to endorphins, a class of chemicals present in the brain. Endorphins are feel-good chemicals naturally-manufactured in the brain when the body experiences pain or stress. They are called the natural opiates of the body.”

All this because Karl said “religion is the opiate of the people”. I often wonder how many people are under the poppies. I think Karl was right for the most part. Certainly he never experienced a personal relationship with God and it seems that religion was just a pain killer for him. However it is too bad that he had to go on to something stronger. For how many Christians is God just there to dull the pain or for euphoria?

1753 Linnaeus, the father of botany, first classifies the poppy, Papaver somniferum-- 'sleep-inducing', in his book Genera Plantarum. We can “not sleep though poppies grow” because God is real, it is not opium it is the real thing, God is there ! ! ! Sure Jesus died but He rose again and that is where we are.