AUGUST 28 2016
HOW NEVER-NEVER-LAND BECOMES EVER-EVER-LAND.
DEFINITION:
Never-never-land is an imaginary place where everything is pleasant or perfect in a way that is impossible to achieve in real life.
Today we live in a world where the phrase NEVER-EVER-BEFORE dominates. For almost all people it is not the ideal world as described in the definition of NEVER-NEVER-LAND, where everything is perfect. This is only the case for the so-called ONE PERCENT, that small segment of the world’s population that moves around in their own yachts and commutes from continent to continent in their private jets, accompanied by a glorious mistress here or a glamorous woman there, all beautifully surgically enhanced. When the Psalms mention these people they never fail to say that THEY HAVE HAD THEIR REWARD. For them a decade or two of extreme luxury is all they’ll ever have. Then they too will suffer from a NEVER-EVER-BEFORE event.
A NEVER-EVER-BEFORE event, what’s that?
NEVER-EVER-BEFORE is the opposite of NEVER-NEVER-LAND. Where the latter signifies perfection, the former signifies extremes in everything, including uncertainty: that’s what we are experiencing today.
Today we find ourselves in an epoch where the term NEVER-EVER-BEFORE fits perfectly. The world never-ever-before experienced a time when the temperature was as high as it is today. During the almost 16 years of this millennium every year but one has registered the highest degree of heat ever recorded, with this year experiencing the unthinkable.
This year the North Pole has never-ever-before seen the ice-cover as low as it is now. For the first time ever a large cruise ship is sailing from Alaska to Greenland and on to New York without the aid of icebreakers, but loaded with rich people who can afford the passage fees that can be as high as $120,000. That is good news for the rich, but bad news for the world.
There is website I look at called ARCTIC NEWS. It analyzes satellite pictures which measure the sea surface temperatures near the North Pole. On August 12 of this year they were as high as 18.9 degrees Celsius, more than 13.5 degrees above average. It comments that “Where seas are shallow, a surface temperature rise can quickly warm up water all the way down to the Arctic ocean seafloor, where it can destabilize methane hydrates contained in sediments. This could make that huge amounts of methane get released from the seafloor. Given that many of the seas in Arctic are very shallow, much of this methane can enter the atmosphere without getting broken down in the water, resulting in huge additional warming, especially over the Arctic.” It concludes that “This could contribute to a global temperature rise of over 10°C or 18°F by the year 2026.”
Since so far all climate predictions have proved far too optimistic, let’s hope that this is far too pessimistic. The Ice Age, a mere 10,000 years ago, was caused by a drop in temperature of 4 degrees. Imagine what will happen when it now rises by ten degrees: even today, not quite 1.5 degrees higher, we experience NEVER-EVER-BEFORE seen floods.
Why floods? Unusual heat causes more evaporation, which falls back as rain, torrents of it in Louisiana or in India or in Ethiopia. Ten degrees higher means total conflagration. Everything and everybody will burn beyond recognition.
Hmmm. Is that not what the Bible predicts? 2 Peter 3: 10 mentions that very matter.
All this could quite well mean that we have entered the era immediately before the NEVER-NEVER-LAND appears. Yes it will come. But before that ideal situation arrives there will be horrendous havoc, because we have entered the AGE OF EXTREME INSTABILITY in all possible areas: weather, of course, but also economic, political, religious, atmospheric, military as well as health- and soil related.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
Yes, that we have entered an era of rising instability and uncertainty is certain. There have always been times of great insecurity but instability and uncertainty are now the norm globally and occur on a world-wide scale and on an almost daily basis.
A good historical example is the 14th Century and the BLACK PLAGUE. Otto Friedrich in his book THE END OF THE WORLD writes that some 40 percent of Europe’s population died from 1347-50. Says he: “If anything had been learned during the Black Death, it was that the church and the priests were helpless in fighting the plague…..but the growth of dissenters and rebels whose impassioned demands were for a new way, ultimately burst forth in the REFORMATION”.
So, yes, there was a silver lining here, even though, citing contemporary commentators: “the survivors were not changed for the better but for the worse by this renewal of the population “
The 16th century’s era of rising prices and religious conflicts prepared the soil later for war, especially the 30 year conflict – 1618-48 – which involved all of Europe and again killed untold millions. The 18th century’s also saw violent revolutions and the resultant wars can again be traced directly to the unrest caused by spiking prices. The very day that prices for bread reached their peak in Paris, an angry mob tore down the Bastille prison, launching the French Revolution of 1789.
The 19th century welcomed a long run of stable prices which remained essentially unchanged in Britain between 1820 and 1900. That century fortunately experienced no major wars: the Crimean conflict and the Boer War were mere expeditions. However the two World Wars in the 20th century caused steadily increasing prices, even hyperinflation in Germany.
Now, in the 21st Century we have a totally different situation, a war never-ever-before waged on such a grand scale: THE WAR AGAINST CREATION, a war humanity is bound to lose, not only lose, but of which the death toll will by far exceed that of the 14th Century Black Plague and 17th Century 30 year war.
TOTAL BLINDNESS
We suffer from a collective amnesia as the consequence of an attitude that is widely shared among decision-makers that history is more or less irrelevant to the urgent problems before them. The proverbial frog in a pan of hot water comes to mind. Were this poor animal dropped in red-hot kettle it immediately would make efforts to get out, but when it is carefully placed in cold water, gradually heated, it blithely boils to death. That’s what is happening in our never-ever before situation: we are sleepwalking into disaster.
Historically, in response to a great rise in prices of essentials, both commoners and governments debased the currency. In their day, this meant shaving the edges of coins, or debasing new coins with non-precious metals. The debasement was an attempt to increase money to counteract the rise in prices, but it failed of course. Every few decades, a new undebased coinage was released, and then the cycle of debasement began anew. We now have the same symptom with the creating out of nothing of untold trillions of dollars and yens and euros. Inflation, here we come.
Just as inflation continued in the mid-13th Century and beyond, and money wages began to lag behind, so too we see income stagnation and a disappearing middleclass on a grand scale.
There are several never-ever-before situations today. Take the spread between the very rich and the very poor: the infamous RICH ONE PERCENT now has more wealth than the remaining 99%, according to a recent Oxfam Study. Need I mention the world population, also at a peak, or the use of energy and water? Oh, yes: deficits. Not only governments, but especially pension funds have never-ever-before seen greater shortfalls.
Back to the 14th century: then too governments fell deep into debt. Oh, and crime and illegitimacy also rose.
And there you have our future, visible in the 14th, 16th and 18th century price-revolution waves. It is hubris in the extreme to think we have somehow morphed into some new kind of humanity far different from those people who tore down the Bastille in a great frustrated rage at prices for energy and bread they could no longer afford. It also is foolish to blame “speculators” for the rise in food and energy, when the human population has tripled in my lifetime and the consumption of energy and food has exploded as a result.
SO WHAT IS IN STORE FOR US?
So where does this leave us? History never repeats itself in exact terms, but we ignore the past at our peril. Our ideal living conditions will stop. Period. Today we see disparity displayed as never-ever-before. Today the Middle East situation is more explosive than ever before. Today almost all of Africa with its teeming millions suffers from drought and untold millions in Asia are losing crops and belongings due to floods. Today Europe is more divided than ever and America angrier than ever: all NEVER-EVER-BEFORE situations world-wide.
As a result we can expect:
1. Ever higher prices for what I call the FEW Essentials: food, energy and water.
2. Ever larger government deficits which end in bankruptcy/repudiation of debts/new issue of currency.
3. Rising property/violent crime and illegitimacy.
4. Rising interest rates (currently considered “impossible”).
5. Rising income inequality in favor of capital over labor.
6. Continued debasement of the currency.
7. Rising volatility of prices.
8. Rising political unrest and turmoil
Combine this with never-ever-before experienced weather phenomena and the stage is set for adjustments beyond the capacity of any political system to absorb.
All these will be world-wide events. With modern surveillance technology, satellites, ubiquitous cameras, informers everywhere, expect severe curtailing of civil liberties, and dictatorial if not despotic government as described in the book Orwell’s “1984”, or in the Bible as the rule of the ANTICHRIST.
Fortunately, not all hope is lost. The definition of NEVER-NEVER-LAND as “an imaginary place where everything is pleasant or perfect in a way that is impossible to achieve in real life” is correct to the extent that people by themselves cannot accomplish this. However the Bible, both in the Hebrew part and the Greek New Testament, repeatedly outlines such a blessed and blissful state.
Take the Old Testament, Isaiah, where he time and again points to the, indeed, ideal, time when: “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD. Isaiah 65:25. Or that farmer Amos, its last chapter: “They will plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their fruit, never again to be uprooted.” Or take the New Testament: “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells”. 2 Peter 3: 13.
Righteousness means that the laws of the Lord, involving complete obedience to God’s rules in creation, now so ruthlessly discarded, will be scrupulously adhered to, for the law of the Lord will be written in the hearts of the people.
And, of course the last Bible book, REVELATION, describes the culmination of what is to come. Indeed, THE NEVER-NEVER-LAND is not a fable, is not something unachievable, is not a pipedream or pure fantasy. It is a biblical given for those who, says what Hebrew 11: 1 attests: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Of what we do not yet see, but hope for and are certain that it will come is, as Revelation 21: 1 testifies: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist”. Then a loud voice, audible to every human ever born will proclaim: “Now the dwelling of God (in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of humanity) will be with his people. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes…. For the old order of things has passed away”. That means that NEVER-NEVER-LAND has come.
Just as the 14th Century Black Plague ultimately spawned a religious Reformation in 1517, so too the reign of ultimate evil will give birth to the ultimate good: THE NEVER-NEVER-LAND.
That never-never land is not an imaginary place: it is a place, right on this earth, where everything is pleasant or perfect in a way that is impossible to achieve in real life. And it will last FOREVER.
THAT’S HOW NEVER-NEVER-LAND WILL BECOME EVER-EVER-LAND.