It is a bit curious that the United States has tallied the greatest number of coronavirus cases — is the world’s epicenter — and that the epicenter of the epicenter is New York, with a third of U.S. cases. One must ask, beyond the obvious (population density, international travel), why that is. It is time for soul-searching in New York and the U.S. as well as around the world. This is inauspicious. Without profound correction, it portends more.
When there was a disaster in ancient Israel, the correct response, they were taught — the correction — was repentance.
That wasn’t always the reaction. In recent years, many have pointed to Isaiah 9: 10, which says, “The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.” In other words, darn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. They would rebuild something even stronger, better. They weren’t going to take chastisement lying down!
We note how the same response has occurred in the way of “One World Trade Center.”
That was the address of the North Tower, first to be hit on September 11, and has been replaced with a higher, more striking structure, the Freedom Tower (with the same address).
The passage from Isaiah was linked to September 11 in a book, The Harbinger. Unfortunately, when Israelites defied chastisement (as America now seems poised to do), they found themselves sent yet worse disasters (usually Assyrian invasions).
Now we see something worse than 9/11 — not just in New York, as we all know only too well, but globally. Strangeness is a sign of the times.
But New York is the epicenter, and the other day, when a rainbow displayed itself over Manhattan (hopefully a sign that the worst there is over, that God is showing His Divine Mercy, right in time for that feast day this Sunday), one might note how the rainbow seemed in one photo to arc precisely from the Freedom Tower to the Empire State Building.
As we pointed out, the Freedom Tower was illuminated with pink in celebration when Governor Andrew Cuomo (suddenly a hero) signed a truly evil abortion bill allowing termination of the unborn right up to the minute of birth. Now, two weeks ago, it was the Empire State Building’s turn: it was lit in commemoration of medical responders during the new crisis, which has already taken three times as many lives in New York as 9/11. A connection between the two buildings indeed.
This time, the color was blood-red.
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Instead of cedars, we are throwing money at the coronavirus, to the tune thus far of five trillion dollars. This absolutely dwarfs the Freedom Tower. The height of a stack of 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) one dollar bills measures 67,866 miles and therefore five trillion is 340,000 miles. That’s half again farther than the moon (and quite a bit higher than One World Trade Center).
If one asks where this money is coming from, and where the humility and repentance are, one asks good questions indeed.
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Do you want to hear Governor Cuomo strip God of any role in bringing down coronavirus numbers?
Check that out here. What he said was, “Our behavior has stopped the spread of the virus. God did not stop the spread of the virus. And what we do, how we act, will dictate how that virus spreads.” We know what he was trying to say, but it was the way he said it. (Pray for him, born Catholic, educated at Jesuit Fordham).
Further notes:
What is the god ‘Shiva” doing at a W.H.O. meeting?
In one tradition belief, the pagan deity can be auspicious (a sign of good fortune) — the supreme being who creates, protects and transforms — but in the Hindu trinity, he/she is also known as “the Destroyer” (and the representation here does bear a certain if vague resemblance to a now-infamous pathogen. At any rate, the mind these days wonders and wanders).
Then there are bats.
What is it about them?
Unfairly stigmatized, no doubt.
Ravens, black cats, owls, wolves, vultures, frogs, and last but not least, bats, which are now in daily news articles as a likely reservoir of the coronavirus (though better known, hitherto, for harboring rabies).
One notes the historic association of bats with such things as witchcraft and Halloween, haunted castles, or Dracula (because some bats, very few, but two of the 1,200 species, suck blood). Actually, bats are anything but a detriment in nature (as is the case also with the other animals listed), though their bizarre rodent looks and nocturnal habits — affinity for darkness — seems to be the wrong kind of public relations.
“Bats often represent death in the sense of letting go of the old, and bringing in the new (as does the rainbow),” says a website devoted to the flying mammal. “They are symbols of transition, of initiation, and the start of a new beginning.”
This sounds like Shiva!
“Because of their echo-location and ability to maneuver in the dark, bats represent the perception of things that others cannot see. A Scottish superstition holds that, when a bat is observed rising and descending towards the earth, such signifies the ‘hour of the witches.’ Bat’s blood was believed to be an ingredient in the witches’ ‘flying ointment’; supposedly it would give witches the ability to fly at night. Some Indian shamans regarded them as evil omens.
“In Babylonia, bats represented the souls of the dead. To medieval peoples, they were miniature dragons. In medieval alchemy, the meaning of the bat was similar to that of the dragon and the hermaphrodite.” (Did someone say “Babylon”?)
Coincidence: for what it’s worth (and perhaps, as synchronicity, something), we also note that bats are on the back of a specially-minted quarter in American Samoa this year.
Coincidences: as during 9/11, they are piling up.
[resources: The Harbinger]