Posted on 04/15/2019 4:38:34 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
The lights in Petare had gone dark. Again.
The people of Venezuela’s largest slum were used to the blackouts that halt the flow of water, exhaust their supplies of expensive candles and fray their already thin patience.
But this would not be like any other lightless night in the hillside barrio. Amid the darkened alleyways, a strange, joyful sound emerged between the zinc-roofed homes. Tambourines jingled, maracas rattled, drums throbbed. Voices called all who could hear to salvation.
“Cristo sana y salva . . .” 10 members of the Restoring Hearts church sang against the darkness. “Christ heals and saves. . . .”
Buffeted by political and humanitarian crises, one of Latin America’s least religious countries is turning to faith. As the political stalemate between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó grinds into another month, and shortages of electricity, food and water reduce life to a daily struggle to survive, leaders across religious traditions are reporting a flood of worshipers, lapsed and new, searching for comfort and answers.
“All my Masses are full, which has never happened before,” said the Rev. Jesús Godoy, a Catholic priest at the Good Shepherd parish in the Chacao district of Caracas. He says he’s seeing more than 2,000 people each weekend.
In this deeply polarized country, analysts are watching for signs that this growing faithful could emerge as a political force.
Already there are indications: Clergy members hold forth on the country’s woes in homilies and sermons...Priests and nuns attend rallies for Guaidó in their clerical dress.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Colour me skeptical.
Judah found religion under Zedekiah, and found it again under Jeremiah after the fall.
They were willing to do absolutely anything except for what God actually asked.
Or maybe colour me cynical.
A few eventually got their act together.
All things do work together for good, but put not your trust in men.
L8r
Elements are there for revival. Many have come to the end of themselves. Heavenly Father bring Revival to Venezuela.
“Even think I’ll turn to prayin’ every time I hear ‘em sayin’ that there’s no way to delay that trouble coming every day” — Frank Zappa.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings return...
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return! “
People will look to crude gods rather than to NO gods.
Kippling was a wise man. One of my Grandfather’s favourites. I hadn’t read that before.
Thanks.
And in the end, will it be worth our while to life the liberal chestnut from the fire?
Tommy ain’t no bloomin fool.
Tommy probably could see the wisdom of the Monroe Doctrine.
Color God eternally surprising.
What would have led us to believe that a “city redneck” like Donald Trump would be served up to us under the GOP brand and that he’d win too.
God is shouting to a very deaf world. Sometimes in pain, sometimes in kindness that looks like pain because the world is so stubborn and does not know what is good for it.
God always forgives, mankind sometimes forgives, nature never forgives.
In the long run, I tremble.
Nature is fallen along with humanity, remember that.
That doesn’t make it more forgiving, and until the second coming, it serves to remind us of our own falleness.
I don’t know why we should bow before it.
French Guiana is just down the beach from Venezuela.
I’d pay good money to see The Foreign Legion go after the Cubans.
There is a difference between bowing before it and recognizing the truth of “play stupid games, when stupid prizes.”
Nature’s bite is one of God’s ways of reminding us that we may be off track, and ultimately, that is something to be thankful for.
A chief way of being off track is to fail to recognize the supernatural dominion of the Lord over nature, and thus to forego the gift of sharing in it.
If a wolf bites me, my first thought shouldn’t be that I failed to be wolfish enough.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part II ("Either-Or"), Chapter V ("Account Overdrawn"), page 499
Rand was a skeptic about religion, and her description of a society unraveling differs from what is happening in Venezuela. People there are turning to religion because there appears to be nothing left to hope for in socialism.
Recognizing the supernatural dominion of the Lord over nature isn’t even on the radar of most people in the first world.
Right now, all that can be said for our culture is that it doesn’t know the right hand (in cultural context, the hand used to put food into one orifice when it is used for its natural function) from the left hand (the hand used to clean another orifice when it performs its natural function).
Zappa was a genius.
Maybe if more folks prayed before the trouble started the trouble wouldn’t start at all.
I’m just saying.
L
Prayers are great but guns are better
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