signs of the times

73,000 dead in pakistan from earthquake

new orleans, a major U.S. city, virtually wiped off the map. 

the tsunami, hundreds of thousands dead?

florida:  hurricanes huricanes hurricanes

war in iraq?  no end in sight.

iraq, israel, iran.  israel and the palestinians.  do you know palestine comes from the hebrew word for philistine, aka the philistines who were israel's great enemy historically? ie- goliath was a philistine from the philistine city of Gath....        philistia, palestine, philistines, palestinians?  who knows?  god knows.  what god?  who knows?  if i am god then god smells like shit when he doesnt shower and has a dirty mouth. 

jerusalem, if it's truly God's holy city and God is truly behind the Jews, is under moslem reign.  the dome temple in jerusalem stands directly on top of solomon's old temple.  interestingly enough, if one were so inclined to read the jewish prophet Isaiah - it basically spells it out the fact that jerusalem was going to be given over to Israel's enemies.

somewhere above or beneath all this world's concepts of who or what god is is the real God itself.  somewhere above or beneath the relativisim of our moralities (ie - good is different in my mind from yours, sin is different in my mind from yours, etc) there is perhaps divine moral law.  but the world is dust and from dust we came and to the dust we'll go and there's more to that than just the same, the same old blahblahblah we've heard since forever ago....  look at egypt.  egypt was great, now it's sifting through dust and sand to figure out what they were all about.  from obscurity to greatness back to obscurity and now we pick through the dust.  dust to dust.  Rome rose and fell.  Greece rose and fell.  The Ottoman Empire, the Alexandrian Empire, the Turks, the Moors, Brittania, Germany, the USSR, and on and on and on.  Assyria.  Babylon.  The Medes.  The Persians.  from nothing to something and back to nothing.  Robert Frost wrote famously "nothing gold can stay," but i think just plain old nothing can stay.  nothing at all.  flesh is flesh and the physical is the physical.  but what about the spirit?  ahh yes,  almost the question of all questions.  what about the spirit?