Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

Natural catastrophes are not limited to the fourth century B.C.E. when today's verses were written. Many think we are on the brink of one these days. Global warming has at last gotten Nobel prize recognition because of the disaster it portends if we do not change our ways. The price of gas goes up as we use up non-renewable resources in ways that may mean there will be none left to sustain our children's children. The cutting of jungle forests destroys the natural consumers of carbon dioxide as surely as locusts leveled the trees, crops and vineyards of Judea.

If I had just one kind of repentance, one kind of change that I would like God to bring about in us this Lent, it would be a change to a simpler and more globally-conscious lifestyle. If I could have just one prayer answered this Lent, it would be that God would have mercy and deliver us from the catastrophes I see before us as surely as God delivered Judah. Joel believed God would do those things. I would like to believe that as well.