Spirit Daily
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Stranded And Losing A Buddy: Spiritual And Prophetic Aspects Of September 11
By Michael H. Brown
First story
A year ago I was out west when it occurred. The Sunday before, I was speaking at an event in California with the seer Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti of Medjugorje. I had focused my talk on the U. S. and how it was asking for trouble. I urged the crowd to further the cause of Our Lady of America, a prophecy that warned America would face an "unprecedented" disaster if it did not quickly return to purity. The same warning was issued to bishops. Reform, or there would be a disaster.
That night, sitting around the speakers' room, Marija -- one of the most delightful and truly spiritual seers I've ever met, the one who receives the monthly message -- ribbed me about my warnings. "I'm just glad you don't say anything about the 'three days of darkness,'" she joked. We went back and forth on how there had to be hope but also on how there was darkness in the current time.
The next day, a Monday, September 10, I was on my way to Salt Lake City, Utah. That night, at a church just outside of town, I repeated the warning. This time, however, I found myself doing something I had never done in ten years of public speaking on the subject. Instead of saying events would happen if we don't convert, if this nation does not go back to God, I found myself plainly stating that "fire will fall."
Of course, I had no idea what was about to occur. The next morning I was checking out of a motel and waiting for my ride to the airport when another guest came dashing through the small lobby. "Turn on CNN," he said with a huff. "The World Trade Center is on fire!"
The clerk turned on the TV across the way and there was the first tower, exuding the smoke we've all seen a thousand times. I went up to the set and peered closely, convinced it had been a small plane crash. A big story, but no calamity. I called my wife to update this website, and as we spoke I saw the other fireball erupt, not realizing at first that the second tower had been hit. On the way to the airport, I fretted to the sponsor of my talk, David Trujillo, that flights might be delayed because there would be disruptions in New York. I had no idea how delayed they would be! I called my wife after checking in for a flight at the Salt Lake City Airport and she told me the Pentagon also had been hit, that there were rumors of a bombing at another spot in the nation's capital, and that it was believed there was another plane up there. She said they were going to close down all the nation's airports.
We were just two minutes from boarding. A moment later came the announcement that the airport was closed and that we were to leave the building immediately. All the televisions had been turned off. I was trying to board a United flight, unaware that it was two of their planes that had been hijacked. When I tried to book a flight for the next day, the attendant I approached was visibly shaking.
I left the airport and called David for help. I had immediately learned there were no hotels available. He came to pick me up, and I waited at American Express, his employer, listening to a speech by the chairman, who was in town to address employees. At that very moment, their headquarters in New York -- right across from the Trade Center -- was in danger of collapsing. Later, unsure when airports would open again, I tried to find a train but the trains were shut down and then tried to find a bus but there were no buses and wouldn't be for days and I was so desperate I wanted to ride with a truck driver or rent a car but the three or four car rentals I tried had nothing whatsoever available.
For the next several days, it was impossible to get out of Salt Lake City. I was stranded. I didn't get home until the following Saturday, and that was by luck: one of the people who had attended my talk worked at Southwest Airlines and snuck me on a flight. I couldn't get through to United -- even in the middle of the night.
And I can't tell you how helpless I felt.
It was an agony for my family and me and this agony greatly deepened when, during my time in Salt Lake, I learned that a very close friend of mine, Daniel Smith of Northport, New York, was missing. He worked at the Trade Center and (it turned out) died when that second plane hit. I had watched his death. He was with Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of the South Tower -- precisely where the nose of the second plane hit.
Hearing that Danny was missing felt like a body blow. It was beyond nauseating. I was also close to his wife, Mary -- who had just gone through a bout of breast cancer. Danny was only 47, and one of the most generous people I knew. He once offered to support me if, as a writer, I needed support, and the very clock we have on our TV was a gift from him. For a while when I lived in Manhattan, he phoned nearly every day. Now I called his wife and we told each other that Danny, at 6'5" and a weight-lifter, was a survivor and that if anyone could survive the wreckage he could -- if anyone could make it out of that smoldering heap. He had two children, 14 and 12.
In that week I was stranded, I stayed at David's home, and spoke by phone to Venezuelan Maria Esperanza -- who was also stranded. She had been in the New York City area on September 11! I use an exclamation mark here because Maria had made a number of prophecies to Spirit Daily leading up to the events. She had warned that "two enemies," one small, one larger, were plotting against the U.S. and that they would try to provoke the U.S. into war not only by a foreign attack but through an attack on our own soil. She warned of this at least twice, and then emphasized in August that "the big event" was approaching. In retrospect, one wonders if the "two powers" were Al Qaeda and Iraq. She saw a "roaring lion" behind it all -- and we later learned by accident that "Osama" means "roaring lion"!
I also looked back at what I call the "1990 prophecy." I had mentioned this too in Sacramento, and the prophecy, granted anonymously in a dream, had warned of coming regional events, indicating that New York City was "under a cloud" and would be for 12 years.
Later, after all hope for recovery was lost, when finally Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called off hope, and they had a service for Danny, I was asked to give a eulogy and drove to Long Island. What a surreal scene. As I crossed the Whitestone Bridge to Long Island, there was Manhattan to the right -- missing its two largest buildings, buildings I had watched being constructed when I was in college, and draped in an eerie fog. I had never seen such a cloud over Manhattan. More important was the sense that if American doesn't do an immediate moral about-face, a truly dramatic turnaround, events will come swiftly and September 11 will be seen as only the beginning.
We'll talk about September 11 and prophecy tomorrow. Right now I'd like to remember my friend, and ask prayers for him. Danny Smith: he had been orphaned at the age of 15, and he had been through a bunch of trials. His wife had just had that bout with breast cancer, and he himself had just recovered from heart bypass surgery. At that time, he had penned a note to his kids. "I will always be with you," he told them. "I love you." He had done that going into surgery just in case.
His wife, Mary, was to keep that note and give it to the children at the end of September.
Danny Smith: we loved you, buddy, and often, at night, I hear that clock you gave me ticking.
(next: the prophetic significance of September 11--copied below for your convenience)
The Pulse Prophecy: September 11 Was But One In A Series Of Coming Events
Second story
Today is September 11 and some day it may not be as famous as it is today. There will be other events. There will be other dates. This will always be remembered but the future will be a busy one. We believe there are reasons for hope -- any purification ends up good -- and also reasons to expect far more turmoil. Look at today's Mass reading: "I tell you, brothers, the time is short," says 1 Corinthians 7:29, adding a few lines later that "the world as we know it is passing away."
And so it is. Slowly -- in the way God is gradual -- the evil we have manufactured will be broken down. That's good news. But in the meantime, we lament. A cloud has descended. We wrote yesterday about the "1990 prophecy" and how this purported revelation, granted anonymously in a dream, had said there would be an "evil cloud" over New York City for 12 years. September 11 occurred just a year before that deadline passed, leaving a highly visible cloud over New York.
Now, that cloud is moving across the country and to all nations. Have you not felt it lately? Has it not seemed like something has come down upon us? Do you not feel a denseness?
We wrote yesterday about how, in the weeks following September 11, there actually was a strange fog over Manhattan -- in addition to the smoke. A stillness. An eeriness. Now the rest of the country will feel it. September 11 was what might be called a prophetic "high-point" event. It spiked a series of other events. But it should not be seen as alone. It was part of a chain of events, natural and man-made, that have occurred since the late 1980s, when regional events began to intensify and according to the 1990 prophecy will eventually precipitate a truly large event.
September 11 was big in the media but was not quite an earth-stopping event. Rather, it was a signal that societal events -- purification of our materialistic way -- will accompany other forms of purification. As we reported a year ago, strange images appeared in the formations of smoke and flame from the two towers. Many of you saw those demonic formations. They were even visible on videos. Coincidence? We can see many things in any smoke, but the number of detailed images defied such rationalization.
No: something very spiritual was transpiring. There were the demonic faces, and also many faces of what looked like people -- perhaps victims? Does God allow them to manifest this way? Was there a message to pray for their souls? And as for the demons: was this representative of the evil in those who carried forth this hideous act -- the terrorists -- or did it also symbolize the evil that was being purged?
We're not talking about the victims. We're talking about society in general. When we study the World Trade Center we see certain things God does not like. It was a cold steel idol, and it represented our focus on money and man: on self-idolatry. Was it a coincidence that the financial center of the world was covered in a smoke that carried a sulfur-like acridity for weeks after the event -- the stench of death? Was it a
coincidence that photographers spotted a mysterious stranger playing a trumpet near Ground Zero? "Many of the so-called values of present Western civilization are anything but values," said the Vatican's Cardinal Paul Poupard yesterday, in remembering the tragedy. "Rather, they are anti-values that in no way are Christian, but, instead, are the rejection and negation of these values."
Cardinal Poupard referred, for example, to "the destruction of the family,
the exaltation of homosexuality, the spread of pornography, growing immorality, abortion, gratuitous violence, the exclusion of God in the edification of society."
Lo: this is not to criticize New York, a city we love, in a nation we love, but to issue a warning. The World Trade Center was but one in a series of heightened events. In the future, it is not only terrorism we will watch, but the signs in other aspects of society, as well as nature. September 11 followed in the wake of hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, and earthquakes that had been building since the 1800s -- since around the time of LaSalette -- and began to spike in the 1980s.
This spike is only beginning.
Does that mean we fear? Does that mean we cower in terror?
No one has fear who prays adequately.
There is nothing to fear. What God allows He allows for our betterment. Our world will improve. As it says in today's second Mass reading, from Luke 6:20, "Blest are you who are weeping; you shall laugh."
But for now, there is evil to confront and reality to face. "The artifice shall not stand," said the 1990 prophecy. "Your very conceptions of happiness and comforts are a great evil and falsity. The pride will be broken." The prophecy added: "These chastisements will differ according to regions, and will not always or usually be immediately noticeable for what they are." From the apparition site of Medjugorje -- which is the most impressive site since Fatima -- has come word that one seer who must remain nameless, when asked if September 11 was part of the famous "secrets," allegedly said, "Oh no. They are much bigger."
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