Thursday, April 25, 2024

At War with the Beast


There is supposedly an old Chinese curse that has apparently been invoked upon us: “May you live in interesting times.” Interesting. Yes, that would cover it.


Image from here

Recently I listened to Tucker Carlson’s interview with Naomi Wolf. She is a longtime leftist, feminist journalist, who has been what they call “red pilled” since the COVID-19 pandemic. I did not follow her before very recently. But a closer look shows that at least some of what she has always done was actual truth seeking. Even on that “other” side philosophically and politically, she was covering things such as women’s health—actual women’s health, the effect of modern medicine on women’s fertility, and such things, which I would find as common ground.

It must have been that earnest truth seeking that put her on common ground with many of us of this other political and philosophical persuasion, which happened because she was ostracized by “her people” when she looked at data and asked questions. Overnight she went from elite in-crowd status to pariah. Which led, fortunately, eventually, to her finding a whole lot of people she had formerly thought of as intellectual enemies with whom she could have deep and rich conversations.

Image from Amazon
In that interview with Tucker Carlson, she mentioned her recent book, Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age. I got around to reading that this week—still reading, not completely through it yet. The book is mainly about the cultural death spiral that has been happening since—and because of—the pandemic response.

There’s a particular chapter I want to cover today. In it she refers to her 2022 book, The Bodies of Others, which covers a fair amount of detailed research into the pandemic response and Big Pharma. And in looking that up, I find that she’s coming out with a new book this summer, The Pfizer Papers. In this one she and Amy Kelly bring forth the evidence found by volunteer researchers, calling themselves The WarRoom, several thousand medical experts, researchers, and statisticians who went through the FOIA-acquired Pfizer documents, identifying what was known—and hidden—by that pharmaceutical company.

She has offered, therefore, more extensive sources. But this particular chapter of Facing the Beast says some things we ought to grapple with. This is Chapter 11, titled “Facing the Beast,” for which the book is named. She begins with a story of a bear that nearly got the best of her—had her in a panic for a while—at her rural New York home. They had seen that bear as a cub and had not been concerned. They had spotted it off and on as it grew and had not seen the need to run it off. Now it was a young nearly adult bear, lean and hungry, and emboldened because it had been coming close enough and not stopped by the human inhabitants heretofore. So that is a metaphor.

The same week of the bear incident was when she finalized reporting about the Pfizer vaccines, showing, she says, “what I knew for months I would eventually find.”

I’m starting a number of longish quotes now from the chapter (and the footnotes are from her book as well):

The heart of the manufacture and distribution of millions of doses of the mRNA vaccines that have caused such a swath of death and destruction throughout North America and Western Europe is enmeshed with the plans, methods, and manufacturing infrastructure of our existential adversary.

The enemy is within our very bodies.

Since I first started reading the reports produced by the 3,250 medical and scientific experts of the WarRoom/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Volunteers team, based on the 450,000 Pfizer documents released under court order, I knew I was seeing not just medicine gone wrong, not just a greedy pharmaceutical company and a regulatory agency that was fully corrupted, but rather, or additionally, I was seeing a massive act of war.”

It's hard to know how much of this to quote in detail, but here is probably more reading than you want; still, it is only part of one chapter. This first segment itemizes some of the health outcomes—of the “vaccines,” separated from health outcomes caused by the virus itself:

When I saw the eighteen months’ worth of sudden deaths, slow deaths, encephalopathy, strokes, heart attacks, pericarditis, myocarditis, Guillain-BarrĂ©, Bell’s palsy, multiple sclerosis, blood clots, lung clots, leg clots, blue-green breast milk, spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, neonatal seizures, neonatal multiorgan system failure, liver damage, kidney damage, suppressed lactation, suppressed sperm count, disrupted menses, all detailed in the Pfizer documents; when I saw the fact that 34,000 plus of the 42,000 plus “adverse events” case reports—meaning “patients”—itemized in the first three months of the rollout of the Pfizer injections were in the US—with the next largest group being in Western Europe—and that the fifty-six countries around the world that also had Pfizer injections rolled out amounted to only a bit over 7,000 case reports total—I knew I was seeing not just medicine gone wrong on a massive scale, but rather that I was seeing an act of war.

When I saw the doubling of neonatal deaths in country after country, the rise of 34 percent above normal in stillbirths and spontaneous abortions for vaccinated versus unvaccinated mothers; when I saw that 3,816 vaccinated women in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database lot their babies—57 percent of all the neonatal deaths in all the time that VAERS records had been kept[i]; when I saw that of 32 pregnancies followed in the Pfizer documents, 28 of the unborn babies died[ii]; when I saw the rise of 40 percent in maternal death rates[iii] and the shocking rise in cases of disability in the West[iv]--I knew I was not seeing just medicine gone wrong on a massive scale, but that I was witnessing an act of war.

When I saw that you could boost the lethality or the damage caused by the injection by simply changing how dilute the solution is, or simply by reassigning which brand you use—with Moderna (100 mcg) far more damaging than Pfizer (30 mcg)—I knew that I was seeing not just medicine gone wrong on massive scale, but an act of war.

When I saw a study out of Hong Kong in 2021—a study that, of course, was answerable to the CCP—that revealed that a second dose (a “booster”) into the bloodstreams of mice resulted in visibly enlarged hearts with white patches that could be seen by the naked eye, as well as cytokine storms and liver damage, I realized that the two-dose regime and then the “boosters” were slow but progressive ways to damage and then destroy the health of Western patients. The study concluded: “Post-vaccination myopericarditis is reported after immunization with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.”[v]

And yet with this CCP-overseen finding, that by injecting mammals with the mRNA vaccine, their hearts were visibly damaged, the worldwide injection program kept going—I knew that I was seeing not just medicine gone wrong on massive scale, but an act of war.

You will have noticed by now the repetition of realizing this is an act of war. Wars tend to be geopolitical. This one included:

We were told that Pfizer/BioNTech is a German collaboration. But it is actually a German-Chinese company. Since I first found that Pfizer/BioNTech had an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Fosun Pharmaceuticals, a major CCP-linked pharmaceutical company based in Shanghai, to make the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccines,[vi] I knew that with a bit more digging I would find China at the heart of these acts of war.

As Wolf found, Fosun is not separate from the CCP; it is the CCP; Fosun acquired almost half of Sinopharm.[vii] Sinopharm is owned by the Chinese state and reports directly to the CCP. All BioNTech/Fosun joint ventures’ activity is in China or thereabouts or in regions closely aligned with China. But they are not limited there; Fosun Pharmaceuticals USA is located in Boston and Princeton, and sends out products throughout the US and around the world. This includes PCR tests.

Wolf comments:

This is crucial. Fosun Pharmaceuticals does not just partner with Pfizer/BioNTech to make the COVID-19 vaccines; they make, as noted, the PCR tests that are the one primary metric that determines the scale of the pandemic in North America and Western Europe and thus the lockdowns of whole countries, whole industrial sectors.

A CCP-run company, and CCP-created product, thus, decides—who can go to work or school, who must close his or her shop, who can or cannot travel—in Europe and the US. A CCP-run company decides the formulation of the PCR and antigen tests that have gone deep into the nasopharyngeal cavities of Westerners who were forced, week after week, to test and test and test with these products.

This CCP-owned hybrid entity is creating the diagnostic instruments that determine the scale of pandemics in the West. The CCP can thus dial it up or down.

It also makes millions of the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA injections, the Merck COVID-19 pill Molnupiravir, the Pfizer COVID-19 pill Paxlovid—for which Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla signed a contract with the US government to provide 10 million doses for $5.29 billion in 2022—all this for the US and for ten other countries including those in the EU.[viii]

These are all formulated and distributed by a company leading directly to the Chinese Communist Party.

Now the tie-in to the treason of our erstwhile president:

When President Biden does a deal with Pfizer/BioNTech in the millions of dollars, with our tax money, he is giving a substantial portion of the funds to China. When he spends tax dollars via omnibus bills for PPE, including millions for PCR and antigen tests, he is writing checks to—China….

BioNTech’s SEC filing reports as, 100 percent achieved, a tech transfer to—China. Not to a “Chinese company” or a “Chinese individual” but to the country of—China.[ix]

She doesn’t condemn Biden enough, in my opinion; although I’d say he and his family crime enterprise are bit players in this worldwide criminal enterprise. But there is enough evidence to hold them accountable for their role—if we had a justice system inclined to do so.

Wolf spends some time detailing drops in birth rates around the world—in the wake of the vaccine (again, separated from damage caused by the virus itself. Birth rates in the West have declined 13 to 20 percent.

·        Germany’s live births dropped 9.5% for one month.

·        Sweden’s live births dropped 13% for the month of October 2022.

·        UK’s live births dropped 15.3% (through June 2022, at which point they quit counting).

·        California’s live births dropped 5% over the year of 2022.[x]

She had earlier pointed out the cruelty of forcing healthy young people to get vaccinated, people in the military and in healthcare, and students in college who were very unlikely to be at risk from the virus. Now there is this loss of reproduction. She says,

How better to cripple the world’s other superpower than by destroying our American front lines and our American next generation, with tainted, murderous vaccines, flowed easily enough into the West via (not even that many) shell companies and cutouts? How easy to do the same to Western Europe, to Canada and Australia, as a whole?

Take all of the above and consider that the virus originated in China; and now all of the testing apparatuses, as well as millions of the vaccines, the catastrophically damaging or lethal “solutions” to the virus, also all originate from the same folks—the same leadership cadre that brought the world forced abortions, citizens welded into their homes, Uighur concentration camps, and organ harvesting.

I made the case in my book The Bodies of Others that a transnational group of bad actors—including the WEF, the WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, tech companies, and the CCP—used the pandemic to crush humanity and to destroy the West.

With the provenance of the vaccines and tests, you can see yet another mechanism, yet another core methodology of this warfare.

Mapping these points of evidence, I think you may start to see what I see.

You decide.

Meanwhile, we need to turn and face the ravening beast.

The beast isn’t just China, then. It is also the Biden family, and Fauci, and the World Economic Forum, and the World Health Organization, Bill Gates, tech and pharmaceutical companies. AND ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO WENT ALONG WITH THEM.

There’s a chapter where Wolf talks about a visit to Yale, her alma mater. They sold, for money, bodies that weren’t theirs. Wolf calls them out for human trafficking. There were young, healthy people there, being forced to take something into their body that could do them permanent harm. It occurred to her that, in trafficking cases, you follow the money.

It turns out, Yale took in more money from HHS than from tuition. Billions over several years. In 2022 Yale received $607 million from HHS, versus $475 from tuition. “So Yale is trafficking the bodies of its students to please HHS and to keep that spigot open.[xi]” And Yale also took from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others. Oh, and there was the building of a $35 million facility—from Pfizer, for Pfizer’s benefit, to do drug trials. Hmm.

She ends that chapter with this summary of that formerly honorable institution of learning:

Yale was a raddled old madam, after all.

Addicted to the money.

And buying and selling, with an icy heart, the bodies of her young.

I’m somewhat puzzled still to be among those that saw through the lies almost from the very beginning. Many good, well-meaning people did not. Some still do not.

I have had bad reactions to vaccines in the past, and a number of other chemicals and substances that are harmless to most people. So I knew I would never take a vaccine, and I was highly motivated to look for other ways to avoid the illness. I also wasn’t coerced because of work, which I do from home. So I don’t blame everyone who gave in. But, as Wolf laments in her book, it was traumatizing to be put through the ostracizing and shaming of people who failed to see what we saw. It was also traumatizing for people who woke up later—maybe after damage was done to them or their loved ones. But there are others, calmly returning to life as before, who still don’t know what we know.

We still do not know the long-term effects on everyone who took the injections. While percentages of adverse reactions are high, that doesn’t mean everyone gets them. Most do not, at least so far. I hope their bodies continue to function well despite the injection of this poison. But I really hope they wake up and don’t risk yet another booster.

As an aside, for members of my faith, there was a recent scolding of us who have resisted the coercion for more than two years so far, which made its way around social media (discussions here, here, and here); this came from people (in another state) who were clearly wrong according to facts, and also wrong on the doctrine. That happens with humans, unfortunately. There’s a good discussion that I’m in agreement with from Christian Fire Poppy, here. In short, we're never asked to follow blindly; we are each entitled to confirmation, direction, and inspiration for ourselves from the Holy Spirit. OK, back to our post.


three responses of church members, screenshot from here
 

In a later chapter, Wolf refers to Jonathan Cahn’s Return of the Gods as an explanation of the evil we are facing. Wolf has become more religious (she is Jewish, married to an Irish Catholic) as a result of facing the beast.

I have been religious all along. I also find Cahn’s explanation useful. This much evil is hard to explain in mere mortal terms.

I’ve talked about “the beasts” of Revelation before. The sea beast of Revelation 13 is a worldwide cabal, a combination of nations and other entities of power— “a transnational group of bad actors,” as Wolf said earlier. In my faith we have additional terms: the whore of all the earth, secret combinations, Gadianton robbers, the great and abominable church. All these, I believe, are the “sea beast” of Revelation 13. This beast is upheld and given voice by a second beast, the land beast, or false speaker. I call this one the “propaganda beast.” It is the PR assistant of the sea beast. Both together are controlled by a third beast, the dragon, a designation for Satan himself.


La BĂȘte de la Mer, a medieval tapestry depicting John the Revelator
seeing the dragon and the sea beast from Rev. 13

If you need to think of these things as metaphors, symbolically, you do that. They are presented symbolically. But symbols are intended to help us quickly understand complex things with many layers of meaning.

So, the beast we are facing is purely evil. There is no better description for an “entity,” or combination of evil players, who would purposely murder hundreds of millions of people, injure the health of possibly billions more people, and decline and put at risk any upcoming generation. Those who would do that are doing more evil than was done in Nazi Germany, or in the USSR, or Communist China over time. In just a year or two, there are more deaths and more lives injured—and not because they didn’t know better. They knew. They hid the information. They coerced. They prevented use of easily available and inexpensive solutions.

This “entity” hates humanity.

The pandemic and the vaccines and their associated damage are only one aspect of the damage done by the Revelation beasts. The loss of our God-given freedoms, here and around the world, are part of it. The forced taxation to promote and continue wars and killings are part of it. The hatred of all that is good. The lies. The deceptions.

While we’re better off facing this beast—always by standing firm on the truth—than we would be giving in, we are going to need divine intervention to win this war. The good news is: God wins.

 



[i] Art Moore, “CDC Database Shows Death Risk for Babies of Vaccinated Mothers,” Clark County Today, June 11, 2022.

[iii] Maternal mortality rates almost doubled from prior years’ rates, in 2021: Laura Santhanam, “US Maternal Mortality Spiked During the Worst Days of COVID, NewData Shows,” PBS.org, March 16, 2023.

[iv] Rajesh Taylor, “Further Disturbing Rates of Disability and Mortality in Life Insurance Data Since Dovid Vaccine Rollout,Rajesh Taylor Journal, February 5, 2022, updated September 14, 2022.

[v] Can Li et al., “Intravenous Injection of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (V=COVID-19) mRNA Vaccine Can Induce Acute Myopericarditis in Mouse Model,” Clinical Infectious Diseases 74., no. 11 (June 2022): 1933-50.

[vi] BioNTech’s SEC filing shows that the memorandum of understanding with Fosun Pharmaceuticals includes an equity investment by Fosun in BioNTech. In other words, the CCP is an equity investor in BioNTech: “As part of the strategic alliance with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd (“Fosun Pharma”; Stock Symbol: 600196.SH, 02196.HK) whereby the two companies will work together on the development of BNT162 in China, Fosun agreed to make an equity investment which was received in mid-April 2020 The issuance of 1,580,777 ordinary shares with the nominal amount of k€ 1,581 was registered within the commercial register (Handelsregister) as of April 23, 2020.” Not only that but: “Ai-Min Hui, President of Global R&D, and Chief Medical Officer of Fosun Pharma said: “We are closely working with BioNTech and regulatory authorities to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the vaccine candidate, in order to synchronize the development process in China with other countries, and to bring the vaccine to public as soon as possible, if the vaccine succeeds.” BioNTech and Fosun Pharma, “BioNTech and Fosun Pharma Announce Start of Conical Trial of mRNA-based COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in China” (press release), United States Securities and Exchange Commission, August 5, 2020.

[vii] In 2003 Fosun Pharmaceutical acquired 49% stake of Sinopharm Group… In 2008, a year before the initial public offering of Sinopharm Group Fosun Pharmaceutical owned the direct parent company of Sinopharm Group, Sinopharm Industrial Investment instead; the majority owner of the joint venture was state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm).” [2003 Annual Report] (PDS). Fosun Industrial, April 24, 2004; retrieved 5 August 5, 2018, via Shanghai Stock Exchange website August 4, 2014; retrieved August 5, 2018, via Sina; 2009 [2009 Annual Report]. Fosun Pharmaceutical, March 25, 2010; retrieved August 5, 2018, via Shanghai Stok Exchange website. “Connection Transaction” (press release). Shanghai: Fosun International, June 29, 2008.

[ix] BioNTech, “Performance Targets 2021 Financial Year,” BioNTech United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form 6-K, April 2022.

[x] Igor Chudov, “Dramatic Decline in Births in Germany,” Igor’s Newsletter, June 25, 2022.

[xi] Harvey Oxenhorn, “Body and Soul at Yale,” Malwords Weekly, December 11, 2022.



Friday, April 5, 2024

Preparing and Being Ready

There’s an eclipse coming up on Monday, which you may be aware. We’re planning to celebrate with kids, who live not far away but in the path of totality. There are predictions of cloud cover, but that’s life. We will experience the daytime total darkness regardless.


image is screenshot from this KTVB7 News story

Warning Sign

Does it have meaning? Is it a warning? Maybe. In fact, I think it likely does have meaning, although its exact predictive meaning evades me—and most of the various YouTubers offering their speculations.

I have a few favorites:  

·        Christian Homestead (see his Signs in the Heavens playlist) 

·        Christian Fire Poppy (hers are full of connections she’s made, often looking at constellations, using the online tool Stellarium; I recommend her first one, together with Christian Homestead, and there are three with "Revelation 12 sign" in the title from September-October 2023, plus more as we approach the eclipse)

·        Allie Duzett (she has an entire playlist for the 2024 eclipse; hers is astrology, but looking at the energetic types of influence from the stars and planets, rather than predicting future events; much is puzzling to me, but I love her positive and practical attitude and approach)  

Even if this eclipse is just a stunning natural event in the sky, it still might be a good time to prepare. We're already in times of chaos, so it seems prudent to prepare for any eventuality we can think of.

Every location has its risks. Here in Houston we have hurricanes and tornadoes, and floods (Hurricane Harvey combined these), and power outages, which we get with frequent brief technology failures, and with hurricanes, but we’ve also experienced them with a rare severe freeze. There are certain things we know to do now. Although, my husband says if we have another hurricane with power outage, he’s going to send me away to stay with kids, because that’s easier on him than worrying about me.


Disaster Preparedness

On Wednesday night, Glenn Beck’s program was “Prepping 101: The Step-by-Step Guide to Surviving Global Chaos” (also on YouTube), complete with multiple chalkboards. He was talking mostly physical preparedness—storing food and water, having tools and ammunition, keeping some money on hand (or gold, or something tradeable).

First up in his show, he talked about the electric grid. There are three in the US: east, west, and Texas. Yes, Texas has its own. We prefer that. In that failure we had during winter storm Uri, in 2021, that happened for reasons that would only be magnified by US-level control: windmills froze and wouldn’t turn, so no power from them; solar doesn’t provide power during a storm that blocks the sun (or when it’s night). Some things were offline for repair or inspection at a critical time. There were other reasons that all lined up, as things tend to do. But there have been some improvements and protections since that disaster.

It’s true, though, that an attack on the power grid would put a majority of people in the US at risk of death, if not immediately, then within weeks or months. (I wrote about this here and here.) It’s a bit scary to be that vulnerable.


screenshot from Glenn Beck's "Prepping 101" program

There are so many ways we’re vulnerable, it’s hard to list them. Nor do we want to tempt fate. But there are some principes of survival. First up, that Glenn showed, were what is called the Rule of 3s, because so many things relate to that number:

You can survive:

·        3 minutes without air.

·        3 hours without shelter in bad conditions.

·        3 days without water.

·        3 weeks without food.

·        And you have 3 days to get out of a perilous situation and get to safety.


screenshot of one of Glenn Beck's chalkboard lists


Home Preparedness

Next up, Glenn put up a chalkboard with 6 basic steps to prepping. (He’s something of a prepper himself, and often foresees disasters coming—sometimes he’s right.)

So here are the steps:

1.      Build a solid personal finance and health foundation (money in various levels of availability, plus medicines, first aid, etc.)

2.      Get your home ready for two weeks of self-reliance. (Food, water, fuel, and any essentials to shelter in place for a couple of weeks.)

3.      Know when to “bug out.” Have “go bags.” (Essential food, clothing, meds, water to get you through about 72 hours away from home. It may be a good idea to have one packed for each member of the family, and update frequently.)

4.      Prepare for emergencies away from home. (If you can’t get home, do you have essential meds, first-aid kit.)

5.      Learn core skills—and practice! (Here’s where he suggests camping, and maybe hunting, as good practice for cooking and cleaning away from home.)

6.      Share what you’ve learned, and build a base of like-minded friends. (Around here, we have people assigned at church to learn and share preparedness skills with us. So we know who the experts are, and we get info and learn from them pretty regularly—and maybe especially as hurricane season approaches.)


screenshot of another Glenn Beck chalkboard


The next chalkboard was for getting your home ready for a two-week shelter in place. Glenn Beck offers a pretty extensive list—but many of these things are what you have already. You just need to take inventory and add what you’re missing. The categories are:

·        Water—15 gal./person (1 gal./person/day)

·        Food—23,000 calories per person (1500 calories/person/day)

·        Fire—lighters matches, fire starters

·        Light—flashlights, candles, lanterns

·        Heating/Cooling—indoor heater, extra blankets, USB-powered fan

·        Shelter—beyond home, tarps for improvised shelter, or tents

·        Medical—create list of medical supplies

·        Hygiene—wet wipes, sanitizer, camp soap

·        Communications—ham and/or NOAA radio

·        Power—batteries, rechargers, solar charger (I would add generator to this list)

·        Tools—axe, shovel, work gloves, wrenches, zip ties, duck tape

·        Self-defense—guns and ammo

·        Cash—as much as you can afford to store

o   Bartering items (alcohol, cigarettes)

o   Precious metals

·        EMP proof home (I think this means grounding, as we do to protect against lightning strikes, but maybe this is more—like a Faraday cage, but I don’t know how you do that with your whole house.


screenshot of another Glenn Beck chalkboard


Glenn Beck has a quiz to assess your readiness for whatever, and I came out “better than most.”

We have a fair amount of food—most of which I cannot eat now, because of food sensitivities/allergies. So it would be challenging to eat just from the pantry and not the refrigerator or freezer.

We have a generator (since Hurricane Ike in 2008). It’s noisy. It takes fuel. And it’s not enough to handle the air conditioner or heater. But it’s good for lights, fans, recharging phones and batteries. In fact, we were able to help neighbors on both sides keep their freezers alive as well (with long extension cords).

We used to camp, when we lived in the northwest, and Mr. Spherical Model used to camp a lot even here in Texas, as a scoutmaster. Camping is good practice, to learn skills and think of better ways of doing things and learning to be resourceful. But I haven’t been willing to camp in the Texas heat with Texas mosquitos. I’m not much of a pioneer. Still, we do have a camp stove and some basic equipment.

There’s always more to do. And it’s better done a little at a time, as you can handle things with clear thought, without panic or urgency. The idea is to prepare so you don’t have to fear.

 

Spiritual Preparedness

Near the end of his program—too late to spend time on it, Glenn Beck suggested we also need to do some spiritual preparedness.

This, I would suggest, includes the basics: knowing how to pray, and how to hear answers and receive direction from God. It includes putting your life in order, daily repentance and improvement, refining—so that the Lord (and life in general) doesn’t force you into that refinement. And it includes learning to trust God.

A friend once gave me a lapel pin of a frog, with a note that it was a reminder to “Fully Rely On God.” I like that.

We have been practicing this for a while now—maybe through some of that forced refining. We’re not really ready—as the story of Joseph in Egypt goes—for a coming disaster such as seven lean years that have followed seven prosperous years. Because we’ve been depleting our stores the past seven years. We think we’re nearing the end, and rains that make the ground fruitful are about to come down on us—despite what an eclipse may portend. But this has really stretched our reliance on God, Who has been good to us throughout.

If you’re feeling less than fully prepared, or maybe just need a reminder of what the Holy Spirit feels like, I suggest tuning in to the worldwide conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this weekend. Boosting your spiritual preparedness is what that’s all about. You can find it on BYUTV, on YouTube, or at ChurchofJesusChrist.org. There will be three two-hour sessions on Saturday, April 6, and two more on Sunday, April 7, just ahead of the eclipse. You can watch live, or come back later to watch; transcripts will be available a few days later. And, since it's a worldwide conference, it's available in many languages.