“What’s going on there? I spy with my little eye…”

The year’s last non-winter Bank Holiday weekend was yet another washout – but today’s fine and sunny, with cool breeze, now most have returned to regular work! Well why not? We fill our weekends without thought of our Maker and Saviour by shopping, sports and leisure activities, so whyever should our holidays be blessed with warm weather?  A fortnight ago we had just three or four consecutive warm days (around 80F) at long (June), long (July), long (August) last here in southern England. This year the number of real Summer days, where we could dine outdoors on the patio, must have been about half a dozen only!  BUT, thank the Lord that drought conditions arising from two dry winters have completely disappeared.

I was musing over the different extremes manifesting on opposite sides of ‘the pond’, as though the UK is being blessed and the United States isn’t, and came across a rather  apposite psalm. (Drought conditions in the States had deteriorated since July’s posting on the matter: wells running dry, even the mighty Mississippi hitting ‘uncharted territory, also more wildfires in Idaho and Oregon – thanks to John McTernan’s Daily Digest 18th August, and there’s many more elsewhere!)  I wondered about scriptural links between a possible revival here and our record-breaking rains and my concordance took me to Psalm 68:

⁷ O God, when You went out before Your people, When You marched through the wilderness, Selah ⁸ The earth shook; The heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God; Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. ⁹ You, O God, sent a plentiful rain, Whereby You confirmed Your inheritance, When it was weary…

Earthquakes

During the heightened earthquake activity along the Pacific rim and in central USA in 2010 I read that ‘seismic swarms’ are a relatively new occurrence. Occurring off the coast of British Columbia since 2008, they’re regarded as quite different to the usual  large quake with its follow-ons. According to the United States Geological Survey, swarms are defined as an episode of high earthquake activity in which the largest does not occur at the beginning of an episode and is not substantially larger than anyother quake within the episode. Some have surmised that they would suggest there may be a much larger area of tectonic sensitivity than that of a normal fault-line.

Further to yesterday’s news the latest USGS graphical report for California may be seen here. Notice how very active this region is compared to the global data map.