Remember that rhyme about Europe? “Austria was Hungary, very very Hungary, ate a bit of Turkey, dipped in Greece. Long-legged Italy, kicked poor Sicily, into the Mediterranean Sea.” (http://wiki.answers.com) Just an old memory device for school children? Perhaps. But for the nations clustered around the Mediterranean today neither rhyme nor reason seems to depict their plight.

Let me be quick to paraphrase the words of Amos, “I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet” (see Amos 7:14). Truth is, living in the 24/7 news cycle of these tumultuous times, it doesn’t require mega-doses of prescience to make the following prediction here in this Fourth Watch blog.

On Monday Rome issued a bold 18-page response to and proposal for the burgeoning financial crisis engulfing the world.

“Here’s a Fourth Watch story for you,” emailed one of the readers of this blog. And I agree. Early Sunday morning, June 25, 2006, Corporal Gilad Shalit, a nineteen year old soldier with the Israel Defense Forces, was kidnapped by Hamas militants on the Israeli side of its border with Gaza.

Let’s talk health and the end of the world for a moment. You probably would have to be a man to have paid much attention to the two recent headlines that have challenged the medical community. Headline #1—a government panel of physicians and researchers released their findings last week with the recommendation that the simple P.S.A.

Here in the Fourth Watch blog we examine current trends in this nation or the world that I believe are harbingers of earth’s darkest hour (what the ancient Romans called the fourth watch) just before the sunrise of Christ’s return.

If you’re afraid of heights, don’t read any further. But can you imagine people actually doing this for a living? The engineering firm—Wiss (that’s not “woos”), Janey, Elostner Associates Inc., from Northbook, Illinois—has been hired by the National Park Service to provide an inch-by-inch inspection of the Washington Monument in our nation’s capital.

“Trim the Fat, Roast the PIIGS,” yelled one headline. “Is Europe Going to the PIIGS?” chided another. For those who aren’t following the European Union’s debt crisis, PIIGS is an acronym for Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain—five European nations on the brink of bankruptcy. In fact, some are estimating that Greece’s bankruptcy is now 98% certain.

This Tuesday I sat with rapt attention, along with the rest of the student body (you could have heard a pin drop), as Stanley Praimnath recounted his harrowing survival  on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The old American folk song sings it well, doesn’t it?