This morning is a morning of fear. For me. I already have a small thing to say about life as it is and before I could begin I was led to read a couple of posts about the apparently temporary delay of doom prophecy towards the USA and our culture at large. Perhaps it is to be so. Perhaps it is fitting. For yesterday was my country's 141st birthday. Canadians are proud and grateful for the resource and blessings we have, especially here in Alberta. If there is to be a life to live as we know it at any level, we have vast oil reserves and the government is capitolizing on it...has become very over weight in finances as compared to most other provinces. We are a melting pot of the world in Canada. I doubt that there is a country not represented here by way of immigaration and lifestyle of sundry cultures.

Now I live a sheltered life to the degree that at my age and at my level of spiritual living and because of my work situation, I have not mixed into the pot all that much. So to end work last night in time to freshen up and go to the Canada Day fireworks in my city was something I have not had a chance to do in "8" years....(new beginnings...hourglass...squeeze play) Prophetically I see the figure 8 as an hour glass. The squeeze through to a new beginning. but it portends the end of something old in order to begin afresh.

I was very taken aback by the things I saw and heard. I first was lost in a sea of humanity. It was a hot night. The smell of pot wafted my nostrils. Younger folks were not all that well dressed in their revealing garments. Licence and exchange of vulgarities was in surround sound. There were scattered polite exchanges and jocularity of course. But there were great vulgarities constantly homing in. I thought to myself that there will be all manner of beasts in this place. Describe the spirit and you describe the beast. Atheist, satanist, strange fire, foreign gods, idolotries all around. Perhaps a genteel Christian or two as well. As I thought that thought the first thing I see is a young guy in his early twenties with spiked hair wearing a T shirt that said "Jesus is a C**T on it. I had my confirmation of a spiritual insight. It was a while before the firecrackers came. It was programmed of 11 PM and it is just barely dark enough by then to allow for it at this latitude. One hour before midnight. When the fireworks began they were very beautiful and loud. Now I have seen this type of display many times over the years. But last night the explosive "pops" and "whistles" and "bangs" reminded me of implosion rather than explosion. (Squeeze play) But the particular display of certain explosions was striking to me. They were the ones that go high up and explode very loudly and send shards of luminescence outward at what seems to be frightening speed and there is a sense that in a few seconds the viewer will be engulfed in it. It reminded me of a satanic advance that was meant to threat and to declare, "I have you in my control and I will overhelm you with irreversible odds." He can present as an angel of light so it seemed to speak that way. All in the midst of pagentry, and excitement and noise and a beautifull light show.

I have it in me that there is to be a turnover this year. The squeeze play. The reversal of staus quo. The LRT train was packed to the gunnels as we went home. Cued up in a sea of strange voices from far away lands consuming all. Desire for riotous living being shouted forth. Drugs. Booze. Cooze. Immoralities. Humans in humanities. Strangers leaning over my seat with dirty T shirts ablaze with slogans of estrangement from the Judeo Christian ethic flaunting in one's face.

I saw the overwhelming odds. (respecting any hope to evangelize) And this in just my city in what is purported to be a country of peace and of circumstance and freedoms beyond the normal. But no life of Christ. At least what life there is swallowed up in all of this. How could this weak and miserable little flock of stardust ever hope to perform the will of God here? I am sure Paul had it easier in Ephesus. I just can see that there is a need for a shake down just to get their attention. No one in the younger set ever allows for their own peace of soul. They have to be continually entertained with an IPOD screaming, a cell phone clamouring, a car stereo blaring. Their minds must be awash and afire with extremes of activity. I know that for God to speak to me I have to be in quiet and peace. God cannot touch these people in a still small way. He will have to do it with thunderings and shakings. If here...then everywhere. No one knows God. I am not even sure I know God for all of that. I am overwhelmed this day. Maybe I am just an old fuddy duddy. But I am in despair. For them. And us. And me.

I had to come back and edit spelling and as I was doing so the Spirit reminded me to understand that I went there. And as I went (my wife and our young neice and nephew in tow) we were afforded a good seat on the train both ways. We had excellent parking at the station. We were able to flow in the crowd. We found a decent place to view the display. We were swept back out in that sea but we once again got easy seating while many of the world stood and perched around us lurching on the parallel steel rails of movement as we went. We were exposed but we were not inundated. I think that was God. I think it is prophetically God. The "End of the line" in my case here is a station called "Claireview." French for "Clear View" I do believe. The drop off point for the event downtown is called "Govenment Centre" Hmmmnnn.

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I believe a Christian accepts scripture in and of itself as the self evident reality of God and His Christ. I believe we are witnessing end times in real time.

There is an expectation of the "big one" coming and realize that the world in essence lives on a hackled phrase..."Eat. drink, and make merry for tomorrow we die."

It seems odd that folks "out there" (on the edge literally and figuratively) are expecting something. It seems to be in the air like an evil foreboding. They say animals have a sense of disaster. That tsunami in asia a couple years ago the animals were scurrying for shelter and high ground and the people stood and watched. The weird thing is a sense of "ce la vie" and "fate is the hunter" seems to have mesmerized folks and it is like a paralysis. Like a snake charming a mouse. The fatalism is the thing that I wonder about. I have no inate sense of it in any defined way. It is in me more the skull dudgery of years of being told that my life here is hanging by a thread. An imperceptible balance bar of likelihood and possibility. If God does not pull the pin on the hand grenade, man will. One has to deal with the hesitancy in his soul daily. Yet I live in an area that I have in me a thought that this area is an enclave of protection. I can't explain that to any degree. But I have felt it for years. I used to have this foreboding dream back in the 70's or 80's..it was recurring and it would cause me to awake in fear. I can still see the thing in my mind's eye even yet although there has never been an instance of fulfillment. I would see swarms of enemy aircraft attacking a city that was off on the horizon and the clouds and smoke and noise of war were to be heard even at that distance. It emoted a fear and a sense of Sodom repeated. There was a sense that "we are next" involved. An undefeatable foe coming in swarms by land sea and air and anhilation would be the result.

But now I am in a "new old new old new" place spiritually and in that place I have grown through a time of earnest expectation of some grand thing being my lot in life over to a shallowness and a hollowness and a (pardon me) Harvey Dumbshitz kind of way of seeing things. For nothing is as I had thought it would be in my life and times. I am still here even though my grandmother assured me decades ago the world would be a pile of dust and ashes by now. I have always felt I have been allowed to escape much in life. I have been in the military and I have seen active service in potentially hazardous environs but I have never been really threatened by more than a bristling end of a weapon or two. I am grown into a spiritual man of sorts and have had a realization of greatness that seemingly has escaped my grasp. I look around in amazement and feel the Lord is dissappointed in me. Have I been tested and failed? Have I marginalized myself, or worse...Him....?? I just know my sun is setting and I have done little more than waste oxygen. The world continues on a downward spiral and all the while there is a latent realization even by they of the world that it cannot go on much longer as it is. Yet I also see that the thing I have hoped in has somehow let me down. For I saw a great revived people coming to highlight and champion the cause of God. That scripture...Psa 35:27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. Psa 35:28 And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness [and] of thy praise all the day long.

The world is ill and spinning and reeling like a drunken sailor with a prophylactic in his hip pocket. What hope is there in religion? No one will believe in spiritual dynamics anymore. Not even the so called church. Literally every initiative is met with claims of falsehood and aroused suspision. Truth is held at bay as some oxymoron of hypocritical indignation. How can the so called church be a witness when it does not believe in a dynamic God who actually shows up and intervenes? I believe that if we were the ones at the front end of the work of the cross we would be the unbelievers. "Who do you say that I am?" would be responded to with. "You have a devil." And we are supposed to interface in this way with a mass of lost souls....and that is not going to happen. That is why I believe that God is going to turn the world upside down. The Christians that are in the world will be shaken to the core and the world will be trodden under of the gentilles. The times of the gentiles are still in full force. And that is not gentle....it is staggering and the weight of sin has me undone. I just have to wonder what God was doing when he instituted the church. It has become little more than further proof that man cannot save himself. That is what the law of Moses was supposed to do. We were supposed to be a little further upstream than that.

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I believe a Christian accepts scripture in and of itself as the self evident reality of God and His Christ. I believe we are witnessing end times in real time.