Do you feel it, too?

Food for the hungry cannot come from empty shelves.  Money to assist the needy cannot come from an empty purse.  Support and understanding cannot come from the emotionally starved.  Teaching cannot come from the unlearned.  And most important of all, spiritual guidance cannot come from the spiritually weak.  -- Marion G. Romney

It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark. -- Howard Ruff

Let us be in a position so we are able to not only feed ourselves through home production and storage, but others as well. -- Ezra Taft Benson, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and LDS Church President

There is a wise old saying, "Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."  Thrift is a practice of not wasting anything.  Some people get by because of the absence of expense.  They have their shoes resoled, they patch, they mend, they sew, and they save money.  -- James E. Faust

Our emphasis on this subject is not grounds for crisis thinking or panic.  Quite the contrary, personal and family preparedness should be a way of provident living, an orderly approach to using the resources, gifts and talents the Lord shares with us.  -- Victor L. Brown

The time will come when gold will hold no comparison in value to a bushel of wheat.  -- Brigham Young

Each of these quotes has come to my attention over the past week either through the wonders of Facebook or a post on a blog that I've read.  You may notice that the quotes are predominantly LDS leaders... but the sources I where I saw them quoted were not.  Two things I find striking about all of this... first, as a Mormon I'm pretty comfortable with the counsel to be prepared, have a food stock and grow a garden but I see a growing trend toward others feeling the same pull toward this simple and common sense life-style and second, I believe that the more often counsel is repeated, the more we should be paying attention to it.  All of these quotes in the same week make me believe that the time to prepare is drawing to an end.  It's an urgent need now and the time to be prepared rather than preparing.

Generally I avoid news programs on TV and the internet.  The negative sensationalism is just too much for me.  I see threats of war in the Middle East and wonder how that's going to effect transporting food from growers to grocery stores if (or probably when) it disrupts the oil supply.  I see news of impending economic collapse and wonder if the meager amount of money I do have saved will have any value at all in a year.  I see a policeman pepper-spraying college students engaged in a peaceful protest and wonder if there will be any legal protections, or protectors, left.  It's easy to imagine the world becoming a very scary place to live even I don't want it to be that way.  And so I keep preparing a bit here and a bit there and I hope, when the time really does come, that I've done enough...