IN TIMES OF TROUBLE

   In 2005, National Geographic warned of a coming mini ice age for Europe.  Is that what we are seeing today all across Europe? 
   Just this week, The Guilfordian reported:  "In Hungary, they're burning bricks of shredded money to stay warm.  Homes in Poland are frozen solid."
   Since the end of January, more than five hundred people have died in Europe as a result of this snow storm and from temperatures dropping to as low as forty degrees below zero.  Homes there have become iceboxes.  Homes and villages have been buried in snow.  How many more people will die because of freezing temperatures as well as by starvation?  Europe's weather has become a straitjacket to the continent, destroying commerce, preventing the rescue of people, and stopping the flow of food.  What are Europeans to do in this time of trouble?
   On Valentine's Day of this week, tropical cyclone Giovanni destroyed the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, killing people, leaving at least 11,000 people homeless, knocked out electricity and fresh water, and erased 70% of the homes in the city of Brickaville.  What are the people there to do in this time of trouble?
   In Russia, Vladimir Putin has stopped the adoption of Russian children to families of the United States because of the abuse those children have experienced at the hands of their adoptive parents. 
   Around the world, children are suffering from sicknesses, diseases, starvation, heat and cold, and from the traffik of children for prostitution.  What do these little ones do in their times of trouble?  Who hears their cries?  It is as if the plight of children is invisible in the world in which we live.
   And in the United States, "Oh, my God!" has become nothing more than a catch phrase to another funny joke or a vulgar picture posted on the internet.
   On the day when Christ was crucified for the sins of the world, Pilate said to Jesus:  What is truth?
   The world is in a big mess, a time of desperate trouble.  We are being swallowed by evil and we do not see the writing on the wall:  MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN (posted on 2-15-12).
   When people pray to God, wonderful things happen.  But when people ignore God, the Lord sits in silence because our silence is the evidence that we do not want God in our lives.