The Washington Monument had reopened on May 12th 2014 after being closed for almost three years due to damage from the Virginia earthquake of 2011. It was closed to the public again this past August after recurring elevator problems and is projected to remain closed until 2019. Adding to this they have been having unexplained problems where the lighting on the monument has been going out.
The Washington National Cathedral that was severely damaged in the same earthquake is in the news again also as an interfaith prayer service will be held on Saturday (January 21) with President Donald Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and the president's cabinet in attendance. Sacred texts from various faiths will be read. Oh...it also made news in 2014 as it offered weekly Muslim prayer services. I thought that I would take this opportunity to revisit an older post from August of 2011 on these two iconic structures in our nation's capitol. After this I'll add yet another post where you will understand the title after reading of how dramatically America has changed.
Message In An Earthquake?
I think that I was four years old, that would have been 1954, when my mother took me on the short trip from Baltimore, where we lived for a short time, to our nation's capitol. There was an elevator but for some reason we walked the 897 steps to the top of the Washington Memorial. My only memory of the visit is stairs surrounded by walls, that memory bolstered somewhat by stories over the years of that excursion.
Our government felt that it needed a 'federal city' back at the beginning of the 19th century, apart from the jurisdiction of the surrounding states. Ground was chosen and the commissioners named the city Washington, and Columbia was designated the name of the district.
Construction on the marble and granite obelisk dedicated to our first president began in 1848 and after a long delay of some 23 years was completed in 1884. The partially built obelisk stood at about 150 ft during the Civil War and when construction resumed the marble used was a slightly different shade and the contrast can be seen in many pictures today. That height today is 555 feet and it was once the tallest building in the world.
A rare earthquake measuring 5.8 hit the region on August 23rd of 2011 that caused severe damage and over 150 cracks. Another historic Washington D. C. edifice, the Washington National Cathedral, which Congress had designated the "National House Of Prayer,"was damaged in the earthquake. The neo-gothic Episcopal church also had a delayed completion with construction starting in 1907 and the last ornamental finial put in place in 1990.
I published a post at the time of the earthquake wondering if God was giving America something to think about, a warning of sorts in an earthquake. America is in full rebellion against God. Its cultural elites mock and ridicule those who know Him and trust in Him. Increasing numbers of politicians are running from Him in fear of losing their exalted station in life. Even sports is suffocating under its own weight, an idol increasing yearly in size such that it totters and sways from the winds of political correctness.
The Washington Monument has been closed for 984 days, give or take a day, and reopens with a ceremony today.
Read And Maybe Weep....July, 2015
The following proclamation, taken from abrahamlincolnonline.org, was written by our Senate in 1863, and placed on the desk of President Lincoln to sign. I first posted it last July. Ted Cruz and maybe three or four other Senators might be able to pen such a proclamation today but it would evoke hoots and howls of derision if placed on our president's desk and the media would unmercifully castigate its authors.
Each and every thought in this proclamation may have you ask...who were these people? The answer is that they were Americans....we are no longer America! Maybe you read the news bulletin of a few weeks ago where we were informed that 53 of 76 highly ranked colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, do not even require history majors to study American history....and we often wonder why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can get away with the things that they do!
Read every sentence.....please.....the game doesn't start for another ten minutes....and The Bachelorette has probably been preempted by news on the latest terror attack. Read and maybe weep as I do, for this was America. We are now a nation of prodigals, mesmerized by the image on our Facebook page, our intellects hamstrung by Groupthink, and our individualism purposely eroded by a century of 'Progressive' education. May God have mercy on this nation that historically must rank no higher than the first quartile in its ability to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and discern God's warnings in His Word and the signs of the times, yet considers its church services rather spiffy and its discernment fine and dandy in God's eyes.
Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
Washington, D.C.
By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation. And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion. All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh. By the President: Abraham Lincoln
The Washington National Cathedral that was severely damaged in the same earthquake is in the news again also as an interfaith prayer service will be held on Saturday (January 21) with President Donald Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence and the president's cabinet in attendance. Sacred texts from various faiths will be read. Oh...it also made news in 2014 as it offered weekly Muslim prayer services. I thought that I would take this opportunity to revisit an older post from August of 2011 on these two iconic structures in our nation's capitol. After this I'll add yet another post where you will understand the title after reading of how dramatically America has changed.
Message In An Earthquake?
I think that I was four years old, that would have been 1954, when my mother took me on the short trip from Baltimore, where we lived for a short time, to our nation's capitol. There was an elevator but for some reason we walked the 897 steps to the top of the Washington Memorial. My only memory of the visit is stairs surrounded by walls, that memory bolstered somewhat by stories over the years of that excursion.
Our government felt that it needed a 'federal city' back at the beginning of the 19th century, apart from the jurisdiction of the surrounding states. Ground was chosen and the commissioners named the city Washington, and Columbia was designated the name of the district.
Construction on the marble and granite obelisk dedicated to our first president began in 1848 and after a long delay of some 23 years was completed in 1884. The partially built obelisk stood at about 150 ft during the Civil War and when construction resumed the marble used was a slightly different shade and the contrast can be seen in many pictures today. That height today is 555 feet and it was once the tallest building in the world.
A rare earthquake measuring 5.8 hit the region on August 23rd of 2011 that caused severe damage and over 150 cracks. Another historic Washington D. C. edifice, the Washington National Cathedral, which Congress had designated the "National House Of Prayer,"was damaged in the earthquake. The neo-gothic Episcopal church also had a delayed completion with construction starting in 1907 and the last ornamental finial put in place in 1990.
I published a post at the time of the earthquake wondering if God was giving America something to think about, a warning of sorts in an earthquake. America is in full rebellion against God. Its cultural elites mock and ridicule those who know Him and trust in Him. Increasing numbers of politicians are running from Him in fear of losing their exalted station in life. Even sports is suffocating under its own weight, an idol increasing yearly in size such that it totters and sways from the winds of political correctness.
The Washington Monument has been closed for 984 days, give or take a day, and reopens with a ceremony today.
Read And Maybe Weep....July, 2015
The following proclamation, taken from abrahamlincolnonline.org, was written by our Senate in 1863, and placed on the desk of President Lincoln to sign. I first posted it last July. Ted Cruz and maybe three or four other Senators might be able to pen such a proclamation today but it would evoke hoots and howls of derision if placed on our president's desk and the media would unmercifully castigate its authors.
Each and every thought in this proclamation may have you ask...who were these people? The answer is that they were Americans....we are no longer America! Maybe you read the news bulletin of a few weeks ago where we were informed that 53 of 76 highly ranked colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford, do not even require history majors to study American history....and we often wonder why Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can get away with the things that they do!
Read every sentence.....please.....the game doesn't start for another ten minutes....and The Bachelorette has probably been preempted by news on the latest terror attack. Read and maybe weep as I do, for this was America. We are now a nation of prodigals, mesmerized by the image on our Facebook page, our intellects hamstrung by Groupthink, and our individualism purposely eroded by a century of 'Progressive' education. May God have mercy on this nation that historically must rank no higher than the first quartile in its ability to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and discern God's warnings in His Word and the signs of the times, yet considers its church services rather spiffy and its discernment fine and dandy in God's eyes.
Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day
