13. Within the next decade we will have a global war and it will stem from American weakness and a lack of seriousness.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) July 17, 2016
My view of the current state of the world is not much different from that of Erick Erickson of The Resurgent and (formerly) RedState fame. He put up a post on The Resurgent that consisted entirely of a series of tweets he made titled War is Coming. And We Will Cause It. The 13th tweet in the series says out loud (figuratively speaking) what a lot of us fear. The other tweets say a lot about what is happening that gave him cause to make that prediction.
Last week, I found an article on a completely different venue (Life Site News–a great site that I check with regularity). It was more about intranational decay than the international variety discussed by Erickson in his series of tweets, but horrifying just the same. The article was a repost from another site titled How bad will it get? Bracing for religious persecution in the West. It talks about what is very likely headed down the pike toward us along with some things to expect and, probably more importantly, some expectations you might have that could disappoint you if you hold them too tightly. I think she is spot on with everything she says.
The backdrop for all this is continuing terror attacks (Nice, Baton Rouge and Dallas as well as many others) a failed coup in Turkey that could have just been another Islamist leader consolidating control and the on-going comedy of the absurd that is the 2016 presidential election. As a result of looking into all this I found out what the word maranatha means. That, really, is the answer.
Update: Just found this in a new commentary on the Baton Rouge killings (emphasis mine):
Black Lives Matter might care to think about that. If this blows up into racial conflict, the numbers are all against them. They can’t possibly win – they can only take as many as possible with them when they go down. From that sort of conflict, there will be no winners at all. I know this. I learned it the hard way in another country. Unfortunately, few (if any) BLM activists have any experience of just how bad things can (and probably will) get. I fear they’re about to find out.
Street scenes like the one to the left are what I remember from the times I visited La Cienega, Jalisco. I moved to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico for the fall term of 1982 to study Spanish at the University of Guadalajara. I made good friends there with whom I traveled to the small town of La Cienega over three hours from Guadalajara. Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah went with me one of those times to attend a church event. It is a wonderful, very, very quiet little place with very, very fertile soil. There are some friends of friends with whom we have connected on social media who plan to move there. It is a young family with three elementary age kids. What a wonderful experience they will have. They have a blog we plan to follow and, hopefully, if we can somehow make it work, I would like to take Lorena and Grandma Conchita for a visit there. I have added a link to their blog, named 
For posterity–Christian visits Kelly for the Fourth of July weekend after Kelly finishes her PhD comprehensive exams. They participate with friends in “trivia night” at the local coffee shop where Kelly often studies.
Saw this amazing site on my walk to What-A-Burger this morning. Right in the middle of the city beside the freeway. It made my day.
Lorena went to a family reunion in her trip to Mexico to visit her mother. The above picture is a small subset of her aunts, great aunts, and cousins on her mother’s side of the family. They met at what I can only describe as an event facility at the very impressive ranch of her Aunt Berta (in blue, fifth from the right) and recently passed Uncle Ishmael. They had a great time. She is enjoying herself greatly. There is lots of stuff going on, carnes asadas, visits with family, lots of cleaning and organizing (of Grandpa Lauro’s stuff) and the installation of a new bathroom. I leave you with a couple of photos of the fruit growing and grown on the small urban lot where Grandma Conchita lives. The one on the left is her papaya tree. The one on the right is two passion fruits.
When I talk to little kids, I have learned that if I get down on one knee so I can look them in the eye and speak quietly, I do not scare them so badly. I did that after church this morning with a little girl I really had not known very well as she stood holding her mother’s hand. I think she must be about four years old.