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IS SOMETHING BEING SAID IN THE HEAT AND STORMS AND EVEN A QUAKE THAT AFFLICTED WASHINGTON?

The other day we had an article about how many "coincidences" played into the attack on the World Trade Center, and how, in the estimation of one stunning book, it was an unheeded prophetic warning that as a result led to further problems like the Wall Street crisis. Note that both Wall Street and the World Trade Center connote New York. It seems like many matters connected with the very foundation of our nation were represented in that city, which actually was the original capital of the U.S. (as it turns out, after his inauguration right there at what became Wall Street, George Washington, along with members of Congress, prayed for the future protection of our nation in a church across the street from what became Ground Zero!).

What about the current nation's capital -- Washington?

It's interesting to contemplate the recent wave of scorching heat in D.C. (as well as so many other places) and the storm -- the 700-mile "derecho" --  that blasted across the country's heartland (ten states) and through Washington at the end of June, shutting down electrical power in the area for several days in the greatest outage it has seen in decades (at one point, more than four million without power). Consecutive 100° highs in D.C.: four (the statistical probability of such an occurrence there during the June 28-July 8 period, we're informed, is 0.00000734 percent). In many places it has been the greatest heat wave ever, and the first half of this year is the warmest ever recorded.

Harbingers indeed.

What if anything are we to make of the fact that it occurred immediately after that historic Supreme Court decision on health care?

If it is connected, why were lightning displays particularly prevalent (at least in the media) at the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument (as opposed to the Supreme Court, or White House)? You figure. It seems all aspects of Washington are in upheaval; getting heat; under a cloud. The foundation. (Between the Lincoln Monument and Jefferson Memorial, just behind, is the Bureau of Public Debt.)

Meanwhile, also in the news: it was announced this week that workmen will need special scaffolding for repairs to the Washington Monument and that it may not reopen until 2014 due to damage (cracks in its foundation) from that quake that sent a jolt to the seaboard on August 23, 2011 (from Richmond to Ottawa). The quake occurred less than a week before that same region was lashed by Hurricane Irene. The foundation.

So our largest city and our capital seem under assault economically and by nature (if only we would heed warnings). Locusts? How about five million this week in a small town called Herald near Sacramento. Signs, or at least metaphors.

Natural disasters, as well as economic ones, follow and conjoin spiritual turbulence. So do societal issues. There is a Great Uneasiness that is translating into the Great Confrontation. Everyone is at each other's throats. Everyone is taking umbrage. Sometimes, it's all too literal. Now we have the phenomenon of "zombies." In a disconcerting pattern, a bizarre attack on a homeless man in Miami was followed by similar assaults (excuse the graphic explanation: in which flesh was literally bitten off victims) in Toronto, Upstate New York, Lafayette, Louisiana, again in Florida, and again, in Waco, Texas (this time the victim was a dog), and even China. Noted a news outlet: "The summer's 'cannibal craze' has reportedly spread to China. A drunken bus driver in eastern China tried to chew off a woman's face during an attack on Tuesday afternoon, according to Chinese media. A man identified as 'Dong' ran into a road near a bus station at around 2 p.m. and jumped in front of a woman's car, the Shanghai Daily's website reported police saying. The man then hopped on the hood and starting pounding on the woman's windshield, the report said).

Again, please excuse the graphic nature of that. It is unnerving. Is it "copycatting"? Is it just that these things occur as freakish crimes and the media is suddenly homing in on them -- hyping them? Or is it that a dark spirit is moving?

Certainly, spirits do move in our time and in the turbulence. So does the influence of movies and television (vampires everywhere; zombie apocalypse). In Miami, the attacker growled at police (his girlfriend said he must have been possessed, or under a "curse").

Prayer need.

Our nation is in upheaval. It is very wayward, on all political fronts; it has been, for a long while. There is confusion across the board. In some way, we are all attacking each other. (Blessed are those who refrain.) Instead of facing warnings from God, we cover them over.

But they will return. So will evil. Purge it, in society, and in your own life, or it will bite again and harder.