Freaky Fridays-- the prophetic pulse and the core of contemplation

Well, it's 06:48 here and we are waiting on a hurricane, the first of the season, called Irene, to get here by the end of the day.
In the seven or so years I've lived here we have had a hurricane or an almost-hurricane a year, and only once has the weather been bad enough to make me think: oh em gee, the world is falling apart. For me, the tornadoes this past year were FAR more terrifying than any hurricane experience we've ever had. However, since in the last six or so  months we've had before-our-eyes devastation due to tornadoes, a nuclear fallout problem due to a tsunami and subsequent breakdown of a nuclear power plant, the hottest summer I can remember, an EARTHQUAKE (thought I left those behind in California??) and now this, so I'm a little bit.... edgy. Maybe as a child I was less aware of the gravity of all the weather scenarios I endured. We thought earthquakes, even big ones, were like roller coasters, and the great El Niño had us paddling down the streets on our surfboards for fun. Now that I'm a grown- up (?) though, it's a little bit different.
There are a million and three zany prophecies out there warning of end times storm scenarios, beginnings of apocolypses, storms unleashing economic problems unleashing world instability, etc. Is there truth to them? Quite honestly, I neither know nor care anymore. I think it's absurd to sit on these prophecies or look at world events with a "the world is ending" mentality. After all, the world started ending for me the day I was born, and it could end today as I step outside and into the street, or truly at any given moment. St Joseph, keep me ready!
On the other hand, I think it's foolish to DIScredit the fact that things are changing around here. Something is up in the air, and I can see it/feel it everywhere. For me, it's a tingling, spaced out, airy feeling of simultaneous dread and displacement I get in the pit of my stomach and somewhere along the lines of my heart. Since I started really paying attention, I can think of a handful of times I have experienced that same "woah, this is serious" feeling. Once at a rave, in Los Angeles. Once while sitting in my driveway here in Fayetteville, NC looking up at the clouds in the sky. Once at a pro-life rally in Raleigh, NC when the spiritual opression was thick in the atmosphere as a "feminist pro-lifer" ranted about rape and destruction. Once on my front porch the day the tornadoes came. Once when I was sitting in church listening to some god-awful protestant song that had no place in mass whatsoever, and watching the people in the pews either clapping along or sleeping. Once in an airport, watching the planes take off. Once while I was praying for someone who needed deliverance from demonic oppression. Once when I was in a walmart during Valentines' day while the hurried, materialistic world swirled around me. It's a general feeling of unease and certainty that what I see in front of me is passing away... is dust.  A feeling that I'm standing in the middle of a wildly swirling mess and that I see it but I don't know how to escape it. Probably similar to the feeling a deer gets when caught in the headlights of a passing car: "Here it comes. This is it. Oh, Sh*t!"  Some people call that feeling "anxiety." Maybe even a "panic attack." I call it.... a spiritual wakeup call.
It's just obvious to me that while the wold has been ending since Jesus rose again, we are now at a "turning point" of sorts. It's in the air. I imagine the "air" felt charged like this around the time just before the crucifixion in Jerusalem... we get a picture of it when we watch Mel Gibson's movie The Passion-- a tangible feeling of "something" in the guts of the people. Just like it was in the air for my parents when they lived through the sixties. The times, they are a' changin.
Recently, I upset a Catholic friend by posting a prophetic word given by a protestant charismatic regarding the intensity of the coming storm and its relationship to the end times. To me, the core of all these prophetic messages is the same, and it is good: repent, turn to God, amend your lives. The Kingdom is nearer today than it was yesterday. Whether or not the prophecy is "accurate" doesn't really make a difference. We may feel personally implicated and then respond with personal decisions: like selling a stock, or not buying a house. We may feel disconnected and totally reject it. But at the end of the day, what all these "prophets" have to say, Catholic or not, has no relevance whatsoever because there are no secrets that need be revealed. We know the gospel message. We know what we must do. We must do it, and there are no shortcuts.
As people called to be Contemplatives (and I do believe we are ALL called to contemplation) in the world, we must realize the great wisdom of what Mary did: She took all these things and kept them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)
So take all these things, and keep them in your hearts. We don't need to pass judgment on every prophecy, every news story, every new ideology that emerges. We don't need to pass judgement on trends, what other people are doing, thinking, saying....we don't need to pass judgement on every new weather system and natural disaster and economic failure and war. We need to pray and work, taking all these things, and keeping them in our hearts.
People look to prophecies because they want to hear a magic word that gives them all they are searching for. They don't realize that Jesus does that from the altars of every Catholic Church in the world without saying a word. He is there: a silent witness that HE remains the same -- FAITHFUL-- though the world moves like mad. If you read prophetic words long enough, you begin to get a picture, and that picture becomes clearer and clearer as time goes by, like a camera lens focusing... and what you see is JESUS. Only Jesus.
In the midst of all the hurricane preparedness my friends up and down the coast are doing, my prayer is that we would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, and -- as my friend Sandy so aptly put it last night as she was trying to determine whether to evacuate or not-- "drown out all other voices." Drown out the news, the world, the stores, the radio. Drown out your TV and the internet, your facebook and twitter feed. Drown out your parents, your friends, your boss.... and turn to Jesus, who commands the winds, and walked on water, who created the heavens and the earth. He is here, and He alone is sovereign over all the earth.

Say it with me: Jesus, I trust in You.