<BR>Being divorced and alone, I woke up yesterday at home in Calgary, Alberta Canada to spend another day by myself, watching the horror unfolding in America to the south. In the early afternoon, needing to connect with other hurting humans, I went to the Calgary International airport. The city streets and freeways were almost empty as most people stayed home with family, glued to the TV news coverage, grieving. I drove to and parked in an area close to the terminal. In a long line and stopped on taxi strips and unused runways were jumbo jets from all over the world, a sort of rainbow of colors and a who's who of the worlds airlines.<P>A small number of people were standing on the back of pickups and traffic barriers, staring at the evidence before their eyes of the truth of the shifting sands of the foundation of their world. There was a strange silence, no one making eye contact with another, each buried in private thoughts. The private pain of my marriage breakup seemed so insignificant in light of the slaughter of so many in New York and Washington.<P>Airport Security, City of Calgary Police and RCMP patrolled the perimeters with a seriousness and consternation that forbid attracting their attention. It seemed like a different world from the orderly happy-go-lucky stampede city that seemed so permanent just a few hours before.<P>I watched as a few giant stragglers lined up to land, a United Airlines 747, an Air Canada 767, an Italian MD 11 and a Canada 3000 767. Each followed the one in front of them, stopping behind all the others, waiting for permission to approach the suddenly overloaded terminal and cautious Canadian authorities. For the thousands of passengers sitting and waiting endlessly on their grounded aircraft, I sensed that a radical unwelcomed change has imposed itself in their lives. A chapter in history has been closed. A new one begins.<P>Its a curious weakness how shocked we, as modern humans, can be when the probable happens. Even though we know that life is temporary and on a slippery slope, we are always surprised by the proof of it. Society and civilization, as we know it, is no more secure than our own steady heartbeat, and the next lungfull of air.<P>I am deeply reminded that the world is going to change one day before our eyes, if not now, then soon. The world will be doing business as usual, stocks being bought and sold, people getting married and divorced, everyone eating, sleeping and stumbling from one day, one month, and one year to the next.<P>But suddenly, without warning, out of the sky, will sound a trumpet. Immediately, forcefully, and permanently everything will change, for better or for worse, forever.<P>Watching the airport nightmare unfolding, I realized how easily it will be for all the events foretold in the Scriptures to rush into reality. <P>No matter how events are now believed to be understood, the prophecies as God foretold them, will be upon us in a rush to judgement, in a flash, and the pages of history will stop, and the permanent record books will be opened. Not a single thing we foolishly consider important will matter anymore, discarded like the millions of pages and records lying unread in the dirty streets of Manhattan, once so important to so many, now blowing in the wind. All that will matter will be whether or not we have peace with God, a previous arrangement, redemption. Everything else will be just so much dust, clutter, blown away.<P>Those of us that know Him, and His ways, let us get real with our faith, put aside the temporary, embrace the permanent, and build the rest of our lives on rock. There will be an explosion in our world that will force everyone, alive and dead into the as yet veiled reality, bringing both sheer terror and incredible joy. How many will be saved? How many will be lost? What are we doing about it?<P>
