Tag Archives: Weather

Meditating on the World in a Springtime Wood

On a damp springtime morning here in the Ozarks as the soft grey humidity-laden breeze plows through a greening wood, it’s easy to lose oneself to the allure of this renewal of warmth beneath a verdant canopy. Birds are busy in their never-ending pursuit of twigs, pieces of string, and whatever other oddments they choose with which to build new homes for the hatchlings they are sure to inherit soon. They sing merrily as they pursue their tasks, adding new melodies to the gala of spring.

Birds and other creatures ever play their roles in the eternal drama of nature as warm days set in to grace the Ozark woodlands and hills. Last year’s broods already know how to go about gathering foliage and I’m sure the little hen birds are busy telling their mates exactly how to build the nest. After all, she will be the one setting in it. Of all the wild birds round here, the little wrens are among my favorites. I did a post a couple of years ago about a mama wren that halted my construction of a little cabin I built in the woods until her fledglings could fly.

I live in a pretty old farmhouse here in the Missouri Ozarks. That’s suitable – a pretty old house for a pretty old geezer with a couple of pretty old dogs. Nothing pretty in the aesthetic sense, except for my old girl Dusty; at least I think she’s still a pretty girl. Getting ornery though in her old age. That may be something contagious that can cross species, because I could swear I feel ornery once in a while myself. Maybe it’s just due to grandkids running amok with their eyeballs glued to cell phones or some such. Maybe orneryness is just something that comes with the turf of getting old. But then, there are other things happening in the wide world around us these days that add to the sour mood.

Speaking of getting old, it just stands to reason that over the years, we pick up on lots of stuff, at least if we walk through this journey with our eyes open. That’s a profound concept for a lot of people – sitting in front of a television and allowing some corporate news organization to pump your brain full of some politically motivated propaganda is not walking with open eyes. I just read some statistics on how American rates of literacy compares to other nations, especially China and Russia, and it’s pretty remarkable how our educational system has failed us over the years as everyone else’s have improved their lot. Americans are rapidly becoming among the least educated people in the world. If one indeed has his eyes open, it can easily be seen – political slogans longer than bumper stickers are too confusing for most of us anymore. Lack of education and/or critical thinking skills provides fertile ground for propaganda.

Reason and intellectual curiosity are relics of the past in MAGA America, and the liberal side is just as bad. It seems that no one is willing to consider any side of an argument that conflicts with their own – that might require some degree of empathy for our fellow human beings and we don’t do empathy anymore. At least most folks don’t. Hatred, selfishness, and racism are about as rampant as I’ve ever seen them. Wars are being waged all around the world, and I’m fairly certain the USA is getting ready to see some tough times right here in the land of the free.

Earthquakes, volcanoes, and storms, the likes of which we’ve rarely seen are beating this old rock we call home. There are floods almost everywhere, landslides, sinkholes, and earthquakes in places where they’ve not occurred before – at least in our time. To be able to appreciate the significance of events that are happening I think it is imperative that we avail ourselves of the abundance of information in our society. The internet has opened up volumes of information and to ignore it and all of the other sources of knowledge is walking with your eyes closed. Fox News isn’t going to tell you everything you need to know, nor is CNN, MSNBC, nor any of the other corporate media. Thanks to the internet, though, we have ample other sources, it’s just a task to sift through the garbage out there and find real information. I’ve found that the best way for me to find truth is to bounce “news” stories against what the Bible says. Jesus said He was the Way and the TRUTH, and I believe Him, so if what we hear and see comports with what He taught, it’s certain to be the truth.

For instance, He spoke against murder and persecution of the innocent, so if there’s some propaganda story attempting to justify the murder of Palestinian children, you automatically know the story is false and coming from evil sources. This can be a problem for many who have spent years feeding at the media trough and buying into everything the mass media puts out, but you have to start somewhere. Jesus spoke of forgiveness, so when you see a program that tries to get your dander up against some or other happening in the world, they almost always play on your emotions to try and make you angry or hate, say illegal aliens, but the Bible says not to turn away an alien [Malachi 3:5]; “And I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien—
Because they do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts.

The lands we live on do not belong to us – the Lord has merely given us stewardship of things and places that belong to Him. Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, The world and those who dwell therein.” He fully expects us – His people – to share what we have with the less fortunate. The worldly folks who control the media would have us at each other’s throats fighting over something that doesn’t even belong to us, but those same wealthy people who promote such don’t realize that what they have doesn’t belong to them either. If it did, they could take it with them when they depart this life, but they can’t. One day, much to their chagrin, they will find out what the true believers already know from reading the Bible. If you stop and think about it, eternity is an unimaginably long time, and this episode of events we call life is so temporary as to be like the grass of the fields, and the only reason we are here is to have opportunity to choose where we want to spend forever – in a dark, lonely, and terrifying place, or in paradise with the Father and the Lamb. That’s what it all boils down to.

So while I sit out in the woods watching and listening to God’s creation – the birds, the squirrels, and enjoy the little slice of Heaven upon which the Lord has blessed me to live, I contemplate things like the sad condition of the world. I think about those lost souls who are currently – and so temporarily in control of – and hoarding for themselves – the great resources and wealth of the earth and wonder what it will take to get people, common people like myself, to see that the things that they are being told about the goings on in the world are falsehoods and the world is slipping, inexorably into an abyss from which it will not – cannot – escape without Divine guidance. And for us servants of Christ, that Divine guidance involves putting away hatred and anger we have all been encouraged to foment in our consciousness – by the very mouths of Satan. We have some time left to practice things like love, charity, and forgiveness which are the traits of the chosen and faithful.

Now it looks like it’s going to rain here in the hills; these are harmless clouds of springtime and not the dark and ominous clouds swirling over an evil world – no, this will be a refreshing, cool spring shower.

May the blessing of the Almighty Father find and keep us.

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MK

Volcanoes, Weather Aberrations and Gardens

In the last few days I’ve been trying to get my garden growing, but this year there is something different going on. It seems as though every morning when I begin stirring, it’s a lot colder out than normal for this time of year. All of my eggplant seedlings have died, and none of the young plants are growing like they should. I think it’s the cool nights – down in the forties every night – that are causing the problem.

While pondering the reason for the cooler than normal weather, I recalled seeing several news sources reporting on an exceptional number of volcanoes currently erupting. This along with scientific evidence that the aerosols injected into the atmosphere interfere with the natural warming of the sun by reflecting heat – well that just might be an explanation. If so – and several geologists are predicting more and possibly larger eruptions currently being brought to boil – we might be seeing the beginnings of climate cooling, at least to some degree.

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There is geologic evidence of some pretty catastrophic weather fluctuations caused by major eruptions in the past, in fact, probably the most devastating volcanic activity took place in Russia in what they call the Siberian Traps, which fortunately for humanity happened millions of years ago. There were volcanoes that covered a massive area that apparently erupted continually for around two million years and sulfur dioxide polluted the world’s atmosphere to the extent that it caused a great extinction they call the Permian-Triassic extinction that almost wiped out life on the whole planet. There are areas over there where entire cliffs of large basaltic columns that formed as the volcanic material cooled and have stood for millions of years in silent testimony to that near life-ending event.

Much later in the earth’s geologic history, in fact, within recorded history, there have been humongous volcano eruptions that affected the climate for varying periods of time, depending on the size and severity of the event. Tambora, Krakatoa, and Pinatubo come to mind. The “year without a summer” in 1816 was precipitated by the major 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. This event caused crop failures and food shortages across the whole Northern Hemisphere. The world suffered the coldest summer in human history in 1816.

Today Mount Etna in Sicily continues to burp out Lava and ash, The big Hawaiian shield volcano of Kilauea continues to pump out rivers of lava, Iceland’s volcano near Grindavik is alive and pouring. There are others, such as Karymsky on Kamchatka, Semeru in Indonesia, and Santiaguito in Guatemala to name a few, which are currently active and erupting. Campi Flegrei, a super volcano, Santorini, and Mount Vesuvius have recently undergone earthquake swarms, which some scientists believe to be precursors of volcanic activity. If Campi Flegri has a major eruption, there will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in imminent and immediate danger, with unforeseeable – but ever problematic – consequences to the world’s climate.

1610 Free CC0 Snow Stock Photos - StockSnap.io

I’ve mentioned in other posts some of the volcanic calderas such as Campi Flegrei, Lake Toba, Mono Lake, and of course everyone knows about Yellowstone, but any of these dormant monsters could wreak havoc on the whole planet if they were to undergo a major eruption. There are a lot of pieces to what looks like a great geologic puzzle, and even though there are a lot of smart folks studying it, not all of the disciplines of geology, astronomy, and physics are able to connect the dots. For instance, do the guys who study the earth’s geology take into account the effects of solar radiation, especially in light of the undisputed weakening of our magnetic field? It seems like there’s just too much going on for any one discipline to understand how everything connects.

Campi Flegrei caldera at Pozzuoli, Italy

One scientist whom I watch with some degree of regularity says he has evidence, that if properly interpreted suggests that as part of the earth’s magnetic polarity reversal (which we are currently undergoing) there might be an “unlocking” of the crust from the mantle. This means that the entire crust will shift around on the semi-liquid inner parts of the world and all the surface features of the planet will relocate to other places. He says it could even result in entire oceans and continents moving somewhat rapidly and that the axis of rotation – what we now know as the north and south poles – would end up like in the Sahara and the western Pacific or some such. Of course, he thinks great tsunamis would accompany such crustal displacements such as would wash over low areas of entire continents. I’m not a geologist by a long stretch, but increases in volcanic activity around the world such as we are seeing these days would seem to be a reasonable indication of something big going on beneath our feet, whatever it might be.

I guess we can but wait and see what God has in store and how He chooses to end it, but the Bible says the world will end in fire, so volcanoes just might bring about the end, and maybe not in the form of a volcanic winter, but in a hellish nightmare of fire and lava. Volcanoes could indeed account for the darkening of the sun in prophecy, and the burned-down modern-day Babylon. But the details and timing of it all remain a mystery.

Meanwhile I’m going to keep trying to grow eggplants…

MK