Given what I’ve been writing about recently, I had to chuckle at Carl’s Quote of the Day today:

“The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.” –John Stuart Mill

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (From the prophet Joel 2:28-32, excerpted by Peter in his Pentecost speech as set forth in Acts, chapter two)

According to Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Apostles fasted after Pentecost before heading out on mission. And according to one of our Orthodox readers (WSIF), this Saturday, July 11th marks, on the old Orthodox (Julian) calendar, “the very last day of the Apostles’ Fast... On that same calendar, September 11th falls on the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, which is one of very few “feast” days that are actually solemn fasts.”

Given that timing and context, it’s interesting that the Sun should, just this week, emerge from a sunspot drought unprecedented in the last century (which has likely been responsible for an especially chilly year worldwide, one likely to lead to crop failures, commodity price spikes and famine this winter.

A new Solar Cycle 24 sunspot emerged this past weekend, and seemed to start decaying on Tuesday. However, it now appears that the spot has returned with a vengeance. Sunspot 1024 has been growing today and is now nearly as wide as Jupiter.

Or as SpaceWeather notes as of today (Thurs., July 9th) (no permalinks)

Sunspot 1024 is approaching the sun’s western limb where it will disappear in 24 to 48 hours [i.e., by July 11th]. That will bring an end to the best display of sunspots in nearly two years. Fortunately for astrophotographers, sunspot 1024 is a member of new Solar Cycle 24 and it probably heralds more to come.

1024 is an interesting number for computer scientists: two to the tenth power. Not sure what that means, but have at it. I’m sure someone will have a theory.  

Other sites (e.g., this one, out of Australia, Tuesday 7/7) describe it in more grandiose terms:

ASTRONOMERS are claiming that Earth is witnessing the biggest and most powerful Sunspot ever seen and the sunspot is yet to peak in intensity. The size of a sunspot varies, ranging from the size of the moon to 65 times larger than the size of earth and lasts for about a month then fades away. This newest sunspot is thought to be 60 to 80 times the size of Earth and has occurred on the side of the sun, which is in view of Australia… “Its flares have not yet been measured,” Owen Bennedick said, “but it is like hundreds of thousands of hydrogen bombs.” The flares have been so bright that NASA has had trouble taking accurate pictures of the sunspot. Mr Bennedick said the sunspot is still growing in intensity but predicts it could climax by today. The sunspot will cause the Earth’s atmosphere to heat up, potentially creating problems to powerlines, radio transmitters and delicate equipment such as mobile phones and computers. Mr Bennedick suggests powerline filters be installed on computers and people should put on extra sunscreen… The last sunspot happened two years ago and was the most powerful flare yet measuring x28. Most sunspot flares measure around x12 which is still considered powerful. The Sunspot two years ago was 45 times larger than the earth and lasted for 45 days. Since that sunspot, no more had been seen until Sunday, this latest one considered the most powerful yet.

More background on sunspots and some cool graphic simulations can be found over at Wired.

And speaking of the sun, as I mentioned in an earlier post, a major eclipse is coming up on July 22nd. This site describes it as “The Eclipse of the Century” (not to be repeated until everyone now living is dead, in AD 2132), linking to a VERY cool animation showing how it sweeps across some of the least-Christian portions of the globe. Notably, the timing means that it will bring a dark dawn to Pakistan, Iran and the Eastern tip of the Arabian penisula (e.g., Yemen).

And speaking of Iran, those who missed the ‘anemic’ lunar eclipse that symbolically swept across the heavily Catholic, heavily Obama-supporting U.S. Northeast just before dawn Tuesday 7/7, (at about the same time the Pope’s encyclical was coming out) might find the following fascinating also, from SpaceWeather (no permalinks):

BLUE MOON OVER IRAN: A severe dust storm so large that it is visible from space is blowing across Iran. Government officials have closed schools, cancelled flights, and warned the elderly and children to stay indoors. The only good thing about the storm is that it is turning the Moon a pleasing shade of blue… Amir H. Abolfath took the picture from Tehran on July 7th. “I thought blue moons were a myth,” he says, “but there it was.”

And finally, I’m not sure what to make of this constellation which is featured the night of July 10th (Hebrew 11th), but in the spiritually charged current context, it seemed interesting:

…face east and look high overhead for Corona Borealis, also known as the Northern Crown. This constellation looks like a half-circle, in middle of which is a white jewel of a star called Gemma… you will need a dark sky [power outage?] to see the faint semi-circle of stars composing this constellation.

The meaning of the Latin star name Gemma should be obvious. This star is the gem of the Northern Crown. But the star is also sometimes called Alphecca, from an Arabic phrase meaning the bright one of the dish. Gemma, aka Alphecca, is an eclipsing binary system. It consists of a smaller sun-like star that passes in front of a brighter star every 17.4 days, as seen from our earthly vantage point.

Two days later? The dragon. Perhaps not that dragon, or this one (which may, perhaps be backed by a much larger one — China) but one never knows…

Thus says the Lord , who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar– the Lord of hosts is his name: “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord , then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” Thus says the Lord: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord , when the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the Lord . It shall not be uprooted or overthrown anymore forever.” (Jeremiah 31:35-40)

Speaking of fixed order departing… if you’re looking for signs here on earth, try this.

“We are moving into Phase II of the Great Unwinding,” [Ambrose] Evans-Pritchard said. “It may be time to put away our texts of Keynes, Friedman, and Fisher, so useful for Phase 1, and start studying what happened to society when global unemployment went haywire in 1932.”

The latest results of the Associated Press’s monthly economic stress analysis of 3,100 U.S. counties show that the financial crisis continues to cause damage as unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies increase. Under a rough rule of thumb, a county is considered stressed when its score zooms past 11. In May, 36 percent of the counties scored 11 or higher, up from 34 percent in April.

Regular readers might not have noticed, but we entertained about four-thousand extra visitors yesterday as a result of Andrew Sullivan snarky link to this ten-month-old post in which I noted parallels between Sarah Palin and the Biblical Queen Esther, expanding on a meme that a variety of mainstream news outlets (e.g., CNN and the New York Times — hardly friends to her candidacy) had already picked up, just a week after her nomination as McCain’s VP. Even before the Dish’s link (in which he likens those of us with religiously conservative viewpoints to dogs), the Palin/Esther post was already one of my top all-time hit-generators.

I might write it slightly differently today, however the basic idea still stands up:

Iran poses a pressing, murderous, existential threat to the Jewish people… just as its precursors, the Persians, did in Esther’s time. Nearly everyone agrees, left, right and center, that the whole thing is wildly risky and unsolvable by conventional means (negotiation, military strikes, economic sanctions, what-have-you)… just as in Esther’s time. Back last September, an apparently Godly woman seemed called to take on the problem directly where others had only made excuses for, or pushed off confronting the reality of a Hitler-in-our-time, bent on ushering in the 12th Mahdi and perpetrating a pending microwave-quickie Holocaust (six million dead in six minutes instead of six years).

As in Esther’s time, there seemed to be, with Sarah Palin, last September, someone both able and inclined to look at the sweep of ongoing history with a Biblical worldview, ask God’s help in all humility to guide her hand in shaping it to His Will, take a bold moral stand against obvious evil and, in so doing, take on extreme personal risks of humiliation and political ‘death’ as well as the collective risks necessary to avoid yet another mass-annihilation of innocents.

Much has changed about Ms. Palin’s political prospects since then, of course. Little has changed with regards to Iran and Israel except that the new administration seems rigidly determined to view Ahmadinejad through Chamberlainian lenses no matter what is actually going on. The time on the clock is shorter; both sides even more determined. That’s about it.

So here’s the thing. Sullivan and others seem to be spilling an enormous amount of ink (that post was but one of several he made yesterday) trashing Sarah Palin — again. The reaction — once again — is far, far out of proportion to what a soon-to-be retired political figure would warrant if she were in fact as unviable as their misogynistic and thinly veiled anti-Christian vitriol would suggest.

And here’s the other thing. The line Sullivan and others seem to be taking in trashing Palin revolves (again) around her ‘incompetence’ and lack of ‘qualifications’ for the presidency. It’s not hard to see how that stems from a combination of insecurity, simple bigotry, and projection. They can question Palin’s qualifications all they want. Such scrutiny is a good thing. It’s just that… the only thing she’s running for right now is housewife whereas the most basic vetting of their guy remains shockingly lax, six months into his first term:

We still don’t have his birth certificate.
We don’t have his Selective Service registration.
We still don’t have his passport and travel trail.
We still don’t have any of his records from Occidental College.
We still don’t have the rest of his Columbia records.
We still don’t have his Harvard papers – none, zip, zilch, nada.
…
What is this man hiding?

We’re not dogs, Mr. Sullivan. We’re your fellow citizens. Tolerance and standards need to work both ways.

UPDATE: As goes the leader, so go the acolytes.

Obama himself insists that he’s guided by nothing other than a cool-headed pragmatism. Indeed, Obama has a grating habit of describing any position not his own as “ideological,” as if his is the only sober, practical understanding of the problems we face. Just days before he was inaugurated, he gave a speech in Baltimore in which he proclaimed, “What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”

So ideologues — i.e. millions of Americans who disagree with his policies on principle — belong in a list along with bigots and dim bulbs. At home, this attitude has allowed him to dismiss opponents of socialized medicine and the government takeover of various industries as “ideologues,” and critics of trillions in debt-fueled spending as small-minded cranks.

It will be increasingly important, in days ahead, to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. As such, I urge all to take a look at what I posted last night and the scripture in it that has bolstered my thinking on this.

In that context, I’ll be doing short-form updates throughout the day on items that seem to fit the pattern.

This day in history, 1313 BC, idolaters made the Golden Calf.

Tammuz 16 [July 8th] was the 40th day following the Giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and the people of Israel wrongly expected Moses’ return from the mountain (he would actually return on the following day). When their leader failed to return, they demanded from Aaron: “Make us a god that shall go before us”. Hur (Moses’ nephew, the son of Miriam and Caleb) tried to stop them and was killed by the mob. Aaron fashioned a calf of molten gold.

MJ’s golden-coffin funeral, idolized by (perhaps) billions. The service began (in LA) just after sundown Israeli time. In other words: Tammuz 16, aka July 8th. Here’s one commentator’s take:

The New York Daily News had reported that the Jackson family couldn’t agree on which religion would guide the service. So they went without one. And yet there were many religious elements in the service… the screen was filled with interfaith symbols… [It is therefore] best described as straight-up civil religion. We usually think of civil religion as a political phenomenon. But it’s a cultural phenomenon as well and this memorial had it in spades. The sanctification of Jackson’s lyrics and the deification of Jackson — in that one pastor’s invocation alone — are good examples of the phenomenon… I was rather mortified by this memorial service. For us, the funeral is a time to talk about what God has done in Christ for the deceased — not how awesome and Messiah-like the deceased was. The problem with such eulogistic services is compounded when the sins of the deceased are so, well, public.

Tomorrow’s this-day-in-history Hebrew milestones? (H/T: El Gallo) I.e., as of sundown in Jerusalem today, 12:47PM, July 8th, EDT: Moses breaks tablets (1313 BC), Temple service disrupted (423 BC), and Jerusalem walls breached (69 AD). Weren’t we just talking about walls? (before I saw any of this); I could draw out the significance of those three events, but by themselves they speak volumes.

SERIOUSLY IRONIC UPDATE: I wonder if the UN is even aware that it’s directive to Israel to ‘tear down that wall’ is coming on such an auspicious anniversary? Related thought: 1940 years have elapsed… which is about the same amount of time that elapsed between Christ’s return (as a child) from the flight to Egypt and the founding of the state of Israel on May 14th, 1948…

Israel must tear down its West Bank separation barrier, a senior U.N. official said Wednesday, marking five years since the International Court of Justice declared the barrier illegal… Israel started building it in 2002 to stop a wave of suicide bombing attacks by Palestinians, who infiltrated across the cease-fire line.

Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, died fifteen years ago today. The atheist son of the atheist father bows his head in a moment of silence. To who/what? For what purpose? As C.S. Lewis notes in ‘Mere Christianity’, the sense of God and His law exists in all of us, even those who deny His existence. The son lashes out at the U.S.: “We will sternly smash the U.S. imperialist forces and South Korea’s puppet regime anti-unification plot.” With less and less to lose (his health continues to fail, perhaps faster now) one of these days he might finally act on that old, tired rhetoric which the West has come to regard as mostly posturing.

In fact, an attack has already been quietly launched. Much can be inferred about motive and perpetrator, I suspect, from looking at who and what was targeted.

A widespread computer attack has hit several US government agencies while some South Korean government websites also appear to be affected. The US Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department were all hit by the attack that started on July 4. In South Korea, the presidential Blue House and Defence Ministry, National Assembly appear to have been hit.

In South Korea, the stuff most directly necessary for defense and governance. (I suspect such things are a good bit ‘harder’ here). In the U.S., an attempt to destabilize infrastructure and the economy and further degrade our ability to support our allies. Exactly the kind of stuff one would target if one were starting a war (or trying to).

UPDATE I on computer attack: Wow… I’ve been in and around the IT industry for twenty years (including working for one of the ‘hit’ institutions) and this is impressive… the kind of thing only a national government could pull off. (Note the addition of new adjectives, e.g., ‘powerful’).

The powerful attack that overwhelmed computers at U.S. and South Korean government agencies for days was even broader than realized, also targeting the White House, the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange. An early analysis of the malicious software used in the attack found its targets also included the National Security Agency, Homeland Security Department, State Department, the Nasdaq stock market and The Washington Post.

UPDATE II on computer attack: It looks like NoKo or China is probably behind it.

The [South Korean] National Intelligence Service suspects North Korea or its sympathizers may have been behind the attack, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. The spy agency briefed some [South Korean] lawmakers on an individual basis or showed written reports that mention North Korea as the suspected attack source. The spy agency will report to the National Assembly intelligence committee today with its analysis, the sources said.

The Nikkei, down 2.35% overnight, and a sub-8000 DJIA looking likely today. I can’t seem to find it, but a couple of months ago, about the time I was writing this, I ran across a startling chart that matched up past market crashes against the current one. I’m no technical analyst, but the obvious lesson was that mass psychology drives a common shape. An initial ’ski slope’ drop of 30-40% hits a ‘bucket’ of hope about a year or so in. Things rebound, perhaps 10-15% and linger there for awhile. Then another plunge of 30-40%. Recovery time to previous market highs: 12-15 years. Guess where we are? I just liquidated most of my 401K equity holdings.

No really, trust us, we’ll only kill babies to cure Parkinson’s. Not that that’s justified either:

Researchers at the pioneering Northeast England Stem Cell Institute say they have made the breakthrough using stem cells from an embryo. They claim that with some minor changes the sperm could theoretically fertilise an egg to create a child… scientists say the technique… could even be possible to create sperm from female stem cells, they say, which would ultimately mean a woman having a baby without a man.

No further comment should necessary. One can understand why God might be upset…

Speaking of pop culture music-icon idolatry, it has just never seemed like a good bet to parade around half naked mocking the Lord of the universe and his mother, particularly on her birth/feast day — much less to buy tickets to same. Danger Will Robinson.

I have no idea what’s going to happen today. I’m not a prophet; I hope I haven’t led anyone to think that I am. God is not one to allow himself to be forecast like the weather or the stock market. He gives plenty of clues, but this numbers thing… it’s a tentative business and should never supersede simple patience and trust.

Though there are worldly explanations for the stock market’s decline Tuesday (and the Nikkei’s slide as I write this late Tuesday night) I would not be surprised if there were not some deeper, nameless sense of foreboding at work in the minds of traders and investors… a sense, like I had, that something is ‘up’. I find it at least remarkable that, on the day about which I had a ‘hinky feeling’ several weeks ago, the lead story in the markets section of the WSJ for Wednesday, July 8th begins, “Fear Takes Toll… After more than three months of greed, fear is returning to global financial markets.”

Some fear is good. It’s all about how it’s directed though. That’s the key. That and listening to the right voices; not the ones that will be panicking, but the still, calm, steady voice that says ‘come to me’. Do I hear from God? Yeah, over time there’s been this growing certainty that I do, in various ways, usually but not always subtle — dreams, music, ‘coincidences’, people, situations, license plates, scripture. Lots of ways. Like any good relationship, it’s on multiple channels (think phone, e-mail, cards, letters, gifts, etc.).

I know he hears from me too… lots of things that have happened, over the 7+ years since he shook me up and turned me around. It’s not always ‘yes’, but he hears. I’m absolutely sure of it. It’s not any different from you moderately prayerful folks out there and it’s likely pretty thin stuff from the perspective of those I know to be serious prayer warriors.

So who knows? Only God. And we can trust him. We really can. No matter what. We must remember that.

Whether it’s explosions, looting, war, panic, H5N1 and the antichrist finally revealed or just another summer day, the Bible is still true, God still reigns, Christ is Lord and our faith shouldn’t be any less just because some dude with a blog got to thinking too much and bought some extra groceries.

Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t still expect something to happen in the next two weeks. Even if you’re only reading the news and not your Bible, there’s just too much going on to imagine that July will close as a slow news month. Whatever goes down, most of it won’t be subtle. It’s our reaction that counts. Many will be in shock and remain in disbelief. They’ll just shake their fists at their bad ‘fortune’ rather than looking in the mirror, asking hard questions and then getting down on their knees.

That’s not my opinion. It’s all spelled out in Revelation. Even when it’s clear the game is up, many will want to keep playing on their own terms and not surrender. It’s all part of the process. For some, heaven would be hell and God will not violate their free will after they’ve made their choice clear. And they will make it clear.

If you’re reading this and you’re not inclined to take God seriously, do at least this: read some stories. Here are the ones for my six-month-skewed One Year Bible. And here are the ones from the Catholic readings for today. I think they’re both remarkable, given what I think is coming at us, but regardless, they’re good, hearty stuff that will stick with you like a long-simmered, yummy stew your mom cooked. I’ve pulled out some long excerpts below, but all of it is worth reading. Always is.

If nothing else, you’ll probably learn something. I did. Even when I thought I knew it all. Still do. Learn, that is. Maybe you’ll see some connections. Same deal. I have. Maybe God will speak to you. If you ask his Son Jesus in true humility, he will. I guarantee it. The response may not come right away or in the form you expect, but he will answer you if you ask honestly and truly listen. It’s a better bet than anything else in these troubled times — or even in the good ones (which aren’t coming back so you may not have as much to lose as you imagine you do.)

If we’re back here later today, tomorrow, or next week, then OK. If not, thanks for reading. I hope to catch up with most of you in the next place. I understand we’ll have plenty of time there. God bless.

————————

Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

Abraham Intercedes for Sodom

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.
…
Then the men [angels] said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.” So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”
…
God Destroys Sodom

The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

————————

Do Not Be Anxious

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Judging Others

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
…
Ask, and It Will Be Given

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The Golden Rule

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

————————

LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

————————

For the LORD gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.

————————

When hunger came to be felt throughout the land of Egypt
and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread,
Pharaoh directed all the Egyptians to go to Joseph
and do whatever he told them.
When the famine had spread throughout the land,
Joseph opened all the cities that had grain
and rationed it to the Egyptians,
since the famine had gripped the land of Egypt.
In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain,
for famine had gripped the whole world.

The sons of Israel were among those
who came to procure rations.
…
“Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” [they said]
The brothers did not know, of course,
that Joseph understood what they said,
since he spoke with them through an interpreter.
But turning away from them, he wept.

————————

R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations;
he foils the designs of peoples.
But the plan of the LORD stands forever;
the design of his heart, through all generations.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.
But see, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.
R. Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.

————————

Jesus summoned his Twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out
and to cure every disease and every illness.
…
Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

Indeed, it is! Hallelujah!

In his 1987 must-read classic, ‘A Conflict of Visions’, the great Thomas Sowell observes that certain terms, such as ‘justice’ carry entirely different, conflicting meanings for people of different world views and theories of human nature and society (of which he outlines two overarching ones that have endured for centuries). People who adhere to these differing world views can therefore use the same exact term and (for a time) believe themselves to be in agreement when, in fact, they could not be further from it.

Such is the case, I suspect, with portions of Pope Benedict’s XVI’s latest encyclical ‘Caritas in Veritate’ (Love in Truth), released during this morning’s ‘anemic’ East Coast lunar eclipse, all forty-two pages of which (wasn’t that the answer to everything in the Doug Adams novels?) being sudsed, rinsed and spun-dried by far abler (and far more Catholic) pundits than yours truly. (About two-thirds of my friends think I’m Catholic because of my views on life, the universe and everything (no caps) as well as my having given my brother’s eulogy in a Catholic church.)

One of those able, Catholic spinners is Amy Welborn, who pulls out some of the more exquisite passages that caught my eye also. PBXVI is an incredible Christian thinker and spokesman and any non-Catholic readers who think getting close to Catholic stuff might cause them to break out in hives visible to their non-Catholic pastor  best get over such phobias. A more deeply technical commentator is George Weigel, over at NRO who notes parenthetically, honestly and yet ominously that, “It is one of the enduring mysteries of the Catholic Church why the Roman Curia places such faith in this fantasy of a ‘world public authority’…”

Mysterious indeed, for in any system of social organization or government, someone must be in charge, even if only nominally. The wrasslin’ involved in establishing who that person or group is and what power they should (and more importantly should not) be able to wield has been the root of much pain and mischief throughout human history.

If truth is the main thing at issue here, I should think that it should have been important for the Pope to note that, for the time being, satan holds the lease to the earth and thus any consolidated world government or quasi-government, no matter how well-intentioned, is going to be beholden to satan. (It will be taken away from him when Christ returns in final victory to claim his Millennial throne). If satan did not hold the lease to the earth–for now–then his offer to Christ would not have been any temptation at all.

So, in the context of Thomas Sowell’s theory that some words create different meaning for different readers, I undertook a word frequency analysis of the document. Other than basic words such as ‘it’, ‘and’, ‘the’, etc. the words most frequently used in the encyclical are:

‘development’ – 228
‘human’ – 128
’social’ – 128
‘economic’ – 121
‘truth’ – 99

Now I’ll acknowledge right off that any analysis like this is inherently unfair in that the more-used words could be used as negative examples just as easily as they could have been used as positive ones. One must read the actual document. Nonetheless, it is a tip-off that the document is a bit schizophrenic. The first four words could just as well have characterized a moldy tome put out by UN bureaucrats. The word ‘prayer’ is mentioned precisely once; ‘pray’ once; ‘hell’ once. Interesting in these troubled and ‘pregnant’ times.

Further, I suspect that a word like ‘truth’ will be spun, a la Sowell’s theory, in myriad ways that have nothing to do with Christ. In doing so, the document’s (and the Pope’s) detractors would be gravely off-base. He goes to great lengths, it seemed to me, to make plain that Christ is truth. Get that and all else follows. Miss it and any other interpretation is junk. Which is to say that, whatever the Pope intended, the world will spin and philosophize the truth as it always has — to its own devices — rather than personalizing it, in Christ.

Another set of thoughts:

This document, at least the truth-heavy beginning of it, would serve as a very nice reference piece for those left behind after the rapture (if/when it happens; I remain agnostic on that point). It also serves remarkably well as a kind of divine missile defense against an incoming visitor (BHO) who appears to be in the sway of the father of lies if he is not actually the Biblical antichrist of the end times (I think he is.)

I can also think of no better contrasting set-piece than Caritas Veritate to the other place the world has its attention focused today [and with a vengeance!], namely MJ’s funeral. I truly hope the man’s tortured soul is at peace, but it is simply a fact that what he stood for, in the culture, was not exactly sanctifying… not the kind of thing you’d wish for your young child. Truth… or public crotch-grab? The choices are getting starker.

A gold casket being idolized by countless millions? Seriously? Why not just use a calf?

Finally, I drove by my old church today. Until December, I was an active member there, responsible, among other things, for the lawn sign. I left when the pastor began referencing Obama and his campaign rhetoric glowingly not only in sermons but in funerals. It was just too much. The phrase on the sign now?

“IS YOURS A ‘YES WE CAN’ FAITH?”

Answer: no. Not that way. I prefer truth.

UPDATE: Speaking of truth, I guess I must be a Nazi for pursuing it.

My half-year-offset OYB reading today includes the familiar Matthew 6:24 (Jesus speaking):

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Think of it as a variation on Pascal’s wager, wherein a bet with one’s current and eternal life that God doesn’t exist, that he doesn’t mean what he says in his word (or that we cannot trust it), that he’s not omnipotent after all, that he’s just plain wrong and that 21st century man has a better, more enlightened moral code, or maybe that God just hasn’t been paying attention to you and so any faith/mind/behavior modification on your part can be infinitely postponed… is an exceptionally ill-advised bet, even in the most hard-nosed, statistical-scientific terms.

Or to steal a line from Clint Eastwood, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya… punk?”. And since we’re on the theme of movies with guns (for those who haven’t gotten around to seeing Dirty Harry in the 38 years since it came out, a spoiler: the outlaw makes the ‘bet’ and loses big, getting his head blown off by Eastwood’s character), the odds are far, far worse even than those which eventually caught up with Christopher Walken’s PTSD-addled character ‘Nick’ in a tragic scene in Deer Hunter, the 1978 film that still gives me nightmares when I think about it.

In a related vein, in Isaiah today, I discover chapter 36, v4-10, in which the Rabshakeh (a high-ranking military officer serving the arrogant Assyrian King Sennacherib) is poised”with a great army” just outside Jerusalem after taking all the other fortified cities in Judah by force. He comes into the city to publicly taunt its leaders revealing, in the process, his ignorance of the difference between God and the various pagan ‘gods’ and pagan worship practices which King Hezekiah of Judah had eliminated.

And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this trust of yours? Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? In whom do you now trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? [Rabshakeh thinks all religions are the same and that all are false; like many today who think the same thing, he is wrong on both counts.] Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

In the Hebrew text, the word ‘trust’ (בטח, pronounced bä·takh’; H982) appears seven times (one more than in most English translations). First use–important to establishing subsequent meanings–comes, not surprisingly, in Deuteronomy 28:52 which foretells (over a thousand years before it happens) the actual siege described in Isaiah 36 (which took place around 701BC).

They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you.

The rest of details are stomach-churning, even to those who made it through Deer Hunter without losing their lunch. Like much in scripture, it may presage other developments as yet to come. Only time will tell.

What are our high and fortified walls these days? Few are literal, though I think of gated communities and plans for border fences that, regardless of their merits or lack thereof, represent man’s attempts at control. God often has other plans; fences are of no impediment to Him. (Please, no comments about immigration policy or urban crime; we’re probably in agreement already.)

In my corporate strategic planning work, I also hear phrases like ‘war chests’ and ‘defensibility’ and ‘barriers to entry’ that all refer, in one way or another, to money — our ‘high walls’; our master; the thing in which, as a society, as a system, gradually over time we have placed our trust. It’s not that money is bad. It’s that, in many quarters, it has come to occupy far more of our mental and emotional life — our time, attention, thought, fear and reverence — than God Himself. That’s true even among regular church-goers.  I’ll admit that it’s often true for me as well.

It has not always been thus, and that boiled-frog fact has surely not escaped God’s ultra-long-term perspective.

Among other things, in the Isaiah passage and elsewhere, Egypt is a symbol of bondage (including economic). I wrote about a potential confluence of Assyria and Egypt in the modern era here a few weeks ago. I find it interesting that that character is now, in effect, lording it over Jerusalem, telling them where they must set their walls, telling us we can and should trust in money again. It’s a very very bad bet. Do you feel lucky?

License plate viewed while driving yesterday: 78RX (as in, 7-8 = medicine). Mildly interesting. Another just kept coming back at us, no matter how many times I passed them or they passed us: ADAR 523. (From Ontario — a foreign nation. Note that the digits add up to ten.) Adar is a highly significant month in the Jewish calendar:

A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me’uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral “1″ in Hebrew). The extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit). Note that Adar II is the “real” Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the “extra” Adar.

In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar I is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997).

In other words, last year (October, 2007 to October, 2008 in Gregorian terms) was a ‘pregnant’ year in the Jewish calendar. Both Adars and Purim — celebrating the Jews being saved from a pending Persian (aka, Iranian) holocaust by Queen Esther — occurred during the period in which the improbable Obama campaign was picking up steam, eventually passing Hillary for the Dem nomination. (Interesting that Sarah Palin, the focus of my super-popular Esther post from last fall, should resign last week.) Much more on Adar here, including the fact that Moses was born and died in Adar, the same month in which the ninth plague (thick darkness) occurred.

Also a reminder from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous that shortly before 1:00PM this Wednesday marks a unique event in the last century, and arguably in the last millenium (depending on whether you subscribe to a two-digit, pre-Y2K annotation or 4-digit, post-Y2K: 12:34:56PM on 7-8-09 (at least as we Americans write it) = 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. My late grandfather was just learning to walk for the last one. The next number, of course, is TEN… which also happens to be the number of plagues God put on Egypt… after four hundred years.

UPDATE Ia: Almost forgot… At 6:00PM on the East Coast of the U.S., it will be 1:00PM in Hawaii… the place which Obama claims is his place of birth (though it’s not, which makes him a usurper), the last state to be added (50 years ago this August 21st), and the state North Korea has threatened (its seven mid-range missile firings being, perhaps, a distraction from the main event).

UPDATE Ib: Interestingly, it seems that if a long-range missile were to be fired by North Korea towards Hawaii (begging the question of whether it might fall slightly short and/or be intercepted and shot down), the time from launch to impact would be… about 25 minutes, plus or minus. The second picture: seven Korean missiles, including a NoKo mock-Scud-B; the first: seven spines on a familiar crown which just opened to tourism last Saturday.

UPDATE II: Just returned from a quick run to the grocery store where, I’ll admit, I purchased more than the usual supply of bottled water, canned goods and dried staples. Hopped in my car, flipped on the radio to the local Christian station and boom, just like that, the preacher says, “God will see you through famine. He will see you through drought.” Call me convicted for taking my own precautions and not trusting utterly.

Then, unloading the car, I see my neighbor up the street out for a walk. She’s only in her early 50’s (if that) but wears the telltale head-scarf of someone on chemo or undergoing radiation therapy. She has to use a walker to keep her balance. Brain cancer. Three years. Delightful woman — and with the sunniest Christian outlook you can imagine. And I think to myself… What a jerk I am… If it came down to it, I couldn’t just sit here in my house with this hoard if we end up at war and/or under martial law with no utilities this time next week. I can’t. And then, I think… why shouldn’t that same outlook apply in good times as well?

UPDATE III: Don’t like the NoKo scenario? Recall that on October 19, 2008, Joe Biden warned,

“Mark my words. It will not be six months [from his January 20th inauguration?] before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking… Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Note that Biden didn’t say who might generate or at least enable the crisis to come about.

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

This represents a remarkable about-face in administration policy, to say the least. Not that it’s unwarranted. It’s just that, for years it’s been widely known that, a) there were simply no good options on Iran (military or otherwise), b) something needed to be done, and soon, and c) chaos would likely result, the consequences of which would include (at least) increased Iranian-sponsored terrorism, probably on U.S. soil. In other words, checkmate.

I won’t even bother faulting this administration (or the previous one). All the good options were exhausted long ago. Some scenarios have a kind of momentum that’s hard to check at any reasonable cost. We learned that in Vietnam. Or should have. Combined with the surprising but predictably-denied stand-down policy by Saudi for Israeli overflights en route to Iran, the floodgates may well have just opened for Israel to do what it must for its self-preservation. I doubt they’ll wait long.

May God have mercy on all of us for what comes next. Worried? Try this.

In the context of what I take to be a ‘pregnant’ time (whatever the exact timing turns out to be, and whatever the series of precipitating events), the following (Proverbs 1:24-33), from my six-month-skewed One Year Bible readings (yesterday plus today) virtually jumped off the page:

Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel
and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm
and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the LORD,
would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way,
and have their fill of their own devices.
For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
but whoever listens to me will dwell secure
and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.

Some may have noted my observation that 9-11-01 at 9:00AM (when the planes hit the towers) plus 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks, 7 days and 777 hours (seven sevens, just like the seven letters to seven churches in Revelation, corresponding both thematically and numerically to the seven kingdom parables in Matthew) brings us to July 8, 2009 at 6:00PM (the 70th Hebrew-year anniversary of the start of the Battle of Britain). [Possibly also the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson sailing, for the first time (south) past what was to become the site of NYC .]

I’d been doing a near-constant, prayerful head-scratch over that when this morning I tripped over several other things that may or may not be significant.

In Genesis 4:16-24, we read that after committing the first murder (fratricide, of his brother Abel, out of jealousy for the Lord finding favor with Abel)…

Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.“

Several things are significant here. East of Eden takes one towards what is modern-day Iran. The sixth generation from Cain is Lamech — whose life and behavior bear a remarkable resemblance to the culture, precepts and practices of islam. Lamech is the first man to take two wives. His behaviour towards them is remarkably misogynistic and objectifying even by Old Testament standards.

Lamech also, of his own initiative, turns on its head the grace and protection which God extended to his great-great-great grandfather Cain by introducing the concept of murderous revenge and expanding it on a grand scale. Lamech’s version goes well beyond ‘an eye-for-an-eye and forms a kind of mirror image of Jesus’ urging (in Matt 18:22) that we forgive our brothers not just seven times, but “seventy times seven”. Gesenius’s Lexicon adds that Lamech was “well known for having misused the arms which his son invented“.

One of Lamech’s wives (Adah) bears Jabal (easy anagram to J-Baal), “the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock”. In other words nomads, presumably the precursors to muslims — also wanderers in the wilderness after Abraham’s son Ishmael via his servant Hagar, not to mention the wild-wandering Esau.

Lamech [the first one's sixth cousin, twice removed -- see response/correction in comments below], we are told, lives 777 years. When he was 182 years old, he fathers Noah who because he listened to God, was saved from the first (water) flood. The next ‘flood’ we are told, will be fire.

The 182nd day of Obama’s presidency falls on July 21st — the date of a new moon (ever looked at his campaign logo and wondered why the rising ’sun’ is not yellow or orange but white?) July 20th at 10:56PM EDT marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon walk (which presumably concluded in the wee hours of July 21st, 1969). July 22nd local time (but still July 21st EDT) marks the date of a total solar eclipse which will stretch across one of the most thinly Christianized sections of the planet.

Of possibly related significance is the fact that Mr. Moonwalk himself, Michael Jackson was to have begun his concert series on a full moon, July 8th at the O2 arena in London (02=oxygen=life).

But wait. It gets better…

Precisely 7 years, 7 months, 7 weeks and 7 days after the terrorist attacks on New York City (a warning, I’ve come to believe), i.e.,  9-11-01 at 9:00AM, to the very hour, is when BHO spoke at Normandy (June 6, 2009 at 3:00PM local (European) time in a 90-minute ceremony)… which in turn is precisely 777 hours before 7-8-09 at 6:00PM Eastern time. At which point it will be midnight where BHO will be — in Italy, at the site of a major earthquake, presiding over the G8 summit of world leaders, two days away from an unusual twilight meeting with the Pope (at a special time BHO requested) .

Referencing Daniel 12:12 (“Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days.”), here’s a short summary of news items from November 11, 2005 — Veteran’s Day — exactly 1,335 days prior to July 8, 2009. I find all of them enormously evocative in one way or another. I’ll leave it up to the reader to think about how:

British prisoners are freed in Iran… The trio were seized at by Iranian Navy patrol boats on 28 October. Albania [Mother Theresa's birthplace] suffers its worst ever electric power shortage. Due to low water levels, hydroelectric power is reduced to the minimum and there are blackouts in all the country. Water supplies won’t last for more than two weeks, so electricity is currently available just six hours a day. The deadly H5N1 bird flu is found in Kuwait. It’s the first case of the virus in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia [the source for the 9-11 hijackers] becomes a member of the World Trade Organization after twelve years of talks.

The day before (Nov. 10, 2005) marked another milestone in man’s domination of the world and the re-erection of another kind of sky-splitting tower of Babel linking diverse societies as, “a Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner jet aircraft breaks the record for the longest non-stop passenger airline flight. The 20,000-kilometer (12,500-mile) flight from Hong Kong to London lasted 23 hours.”

1,335 years ago, in 674 AD, marked the start of the Islamic siege of Constantinople. Ultimately, Arab troops were turned back by a severe winter… which just happens to have come 1,260 years after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC under the first Babylonian assault. Draw your own conclusions.

UPDATE (July 4th): So, with all this aplocalyptic, America-coming-under-judgment-any-minute-now stuff on my mind, I am awakened out of a deep sleep last night to the sound of a car alarm. Such things are fairly rare in my leafy suburban neighborhood. I glance up: 12:00 Midnight, exactly… the first day of the 234th year since the Declaration of Independence was signed. My first thought: it’s an alarm for much, much more than just one car.