At times, we lose perspective. Let us regain some of it by realizing that however bad Katrina seemed (and it did garner special attention because it seemed to target a specific famous city), it was not the worst natural disaster during the past 12 months, nor even during the summer. In fact, it wasn't even the deadliest hurricane: in Central America a mudslide caused by Hurricane Stan cost 1,400 lives in Guatemala just last week.

We are in a steep curve of chastisement.

And then there is the Pakistani-Indian quake: nearly 31,000 dead from the weekend tremors, compared to the somewhat more than 1,000 in Hurricane Katrina. These are signs of the times and we do well to heed them.

The year started with the aftermath of the great Asian tsunami, which cost nearly a quarter of a million lives.

It is important at this juncture of purification to recall that a major component of what was known as the Great Medieval Chastisement involved earthquakes in Asia, just as we now see quakes and other disturbances in that part of the world. There were  many parallels to our own time, with even scandal back then in the Church.

It was the time of the great bubonic plague, and just before both Asia and Europe were hit with it, there were strange, historic rumblings in Asia.

Noted an historian named Philip Ziegler, "An earthquake in the mountains of Ki-Ming-Chan formed a lake more than 100,000 leagues in circumference. In Tyche the dead were believed to number more than five million. Earthquakes and floods continued from 1337 to 1345; locusts had never been so destructive; there was 'subterranean thunder' in Canton."

The world was in a cycle of climate shifts, intense storms, quakes in places that didn't usually get quakes, melting of glaciers, meteorite activity, unusual lights in the sky, and strange clouds.

This was in the 14th century, during which many peculiar effects in nature were noted.

Most curiously, fish seemed to be dying in the seas (we will get to that later in the week), and as it says in The Last Secret, "there was a sense of miasma and malady, of a corrupted atmosphere."

Much of it centered on India.

It was claimed that there was a strange "stinking smoke" on the subcontinent, along with other "omens." This was just before the Black Death.

In the 14th century, it was mainly earthquakes and floods that seemed like harbingers. The earth shook in places where it usually did not shake (for example, Germany), and in fact one tremor in Venice set the bells of St. Mark's Basilica ringing just before arrival of plague there. In our own time, we find floods that have caused the evacuation of 500,000 in China, again just last week.

Coincidence? There are many coincidences -- and parallels. Scientists believe that during the Middle Ages, mega-hurricanes were hitting the Gulf Coast of the United States with a frequency that we have not witnessed up to now.

Then there is the miasma. As in medieval times, news accounts include reports of a stench. It would not be unusual but that it made the news simultaneously in several cities. In Southern California, residents from the Valley to the coast have complained of a rotting garbage-like odor ("like a stew of sulfur, sewage, and bad omen," remarked one observer), and as officials have sought to explain it they have speculated on everything from the effect of heavy rains on garbage to high bacteria levels in coastal waters. The odors are detected in some areas and not others.

In Washington, D.C., "unexplained" odors have been reported across the district  -- seeming to come and go for no discernible reason (sulfur-like again). Firefighters received dozens of calls and responded to reports of the odor at 11 schools. What it was seemed a mystery, said The Washington Post.

At the same time residents have called authorities along Lake Erie about a similar rotten-egg-like odor.

Decaying plants and fish? A strange smell has made the news in numerous Ohio communities, according to one report (lasting up to two months), while an outbreak of red tide on Florida's west coast has caused respiratory problems -- noses that have started burning and ceaseless coughing. It is like nature rebelling.

Some of it seems related to decaying fish (in Lake Erie, the higher the waves, the more of an odor seems to be released). But it seems eerily symbolic.

Most noteworthy has been the stress observed in our seas. This we will tackle next: a great untold and perhaps prophetic story. As we enter a cycle of purification, nature seems to be making a statement.

10/10/05