As the world turns toward crazy, it is for the wise to keep their heads on straight and their hearts in the right place to pass through this "valley of the shadow of death." In a horrendous couple of years, the world has gone from a relative state of calm to an unimagined upheaval in nearly all of the regions of the world. This is normally not witnessed by people, but it represents the end of an age and the beginning of a new age. But, although anyone paying attention might grasp this fundamental perception, the question is whether humanity is spinning out of control into some sort of death spiral of self-destruction, or there is a deeper occurrence involving a brief period of the pain of birthing a new era of human existence.
Certainly to many, the signs of the times are quite foreboding. Wars and rumors of wars abound in such a time as this. It is extremely unsettling, and it seems as if all the old institutions that the great civilizations have been built upon have been shaken to their very foundations. Humanity is witnessing the crumbling of age old institutions such as the church, the financial systems, and the governmental structures. Even the stability of the family and its centrality to the stability of any society is being threatened. It is a time of tremendous turbulence within all the spheres of civilized societies. It is not hyperbole or an overinflated, fear-riddled, interpretation of current events on planet earth.