So, apparently there’s a little rumor going around that Saturday, May 21, 2011 is the day of Rapture- the end of the world.
People have been proclaiming the end of the world has been/ will be coming for as long as they have been able to paint the ominous black letters on sandwich boards and stand on a street corner. In more typical circumstances, these sign holders are old and tired and dirty. We roll our eyes and giggle or maybe take a moment to pause and reflect on the sad state of their lives.
With the most recent hullabaloo about the end of the world, fuzzy math and very specific interpretations of the Bible have prompted a number of people to quit their jobs and calculate their life savings to last them no further than May 21, 2011. They have worked to bring themselves to terms with the end and fervently tried to warn others of the fateful day that is to come.
This is when the nervous giggling starts, because while the rational of us know that we will still all wake up Sunday morning to our newspapers and our coffee and maybe some laundry, there is that LITTLE part of us that knows we really don’t know for sure, nor can we ever.
Saturday, May 21, 2011 will be the end of the world. It will be the end of the world for the tree that gets bulldozed in a forest. It will be the end of the world for a fish that can’t escape the black goo that gets spilled into water. It will be the end of the world for a family who can’t find work and now has their home entering into a state of foreclosure. It will be the end of the world for an illegal immigrant who gets discovered and deported. It will be the end of the world for a young child whose education is delayed because of budget cuts and for another child who gets bullied, yet again, because there are children who are as intolerant of difference as their parents are. It will be the end of the world for an elder who is forced to choose food over necessary medication. It will be the end of the world for an innocent, in a small village, who gets caught up in fighting between two political powers who think they are both right.
It will be the end of the world for those out there that have just run out of the resources to fight and to survive- the ones who have no more options and the ones who have been beaten down to the point where they simply can’t stand again. This is happening in our world every day. Only the strong survive? What happened to honor? What happened to the perseverance and hope for a better tomorrow? What happened to the basic security of knowing that those of us with a good work ethic and a conscience can have a happy ending?
Maybe Saturday, May 21, 2011, will be the end of the world- as we know it (to quote REM.) Maybe a new world will begin- a world where we are respectful of the resources the Earth has provided, a world where we can once again work hard and achieve the “American Dream,” a world where we are able to properly invest in the future for our children and adequately honor those who have been here before we were. Maybe, just maybe, it will be filled with compromise and a world without wars.
Maybe when we all wake up Sunday morning we can do more to perpetuate a world without end. Plant a tree, walk instead of driving, invest more in local businesses to keep American money in America. Embrace another culture. Volunteer to mentor a child or check in on an elderly neighbor. Will any of these actions stop an Armageddon? Well, as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly did not fall in a day, either. Even though you can’t change the whole big world, you do have what it takes to change your own little corner of it.
The Beatles: The End
People have been proclaiming the end of the world has been/ will be coming for as long as they have been able to paint the ominous black letters on sandwich boards and stand on a street corner. In more typical circumstances, these sign holders are old and tired and dirty. We roll our eyes and giggle or maybe take a moment to pause and reflect on the sad state of their lives.
With the most recent hullabaloo about the end of the world, fuzzy math and very specific interpretations of the Bible have prompted a number of people to quit their jobs and calculate their life savings to last them no further than May 21, 2011. They have worked to bring themselves to terms with the end and fervently tried to warn others of the fateful day that is to come.
This is when the nervous giggling starts, because while the rational of us know that we will still all wake up Sunday morning to our newspapers and our coffee and maybe some laundry, there is that LITTLE part of us that knows we really don’t know for sure, nor can we ever.
Saturday, May 21, 2011 will be the end of the world. It will be the end of the world for the tree that gets bulldozed in a forest. It will be the end of the world for a fish that can’t escape the black goo that gets spilled into water. It will be the end of the world for a family who can’t find work and now has their home entering into a state of foreclosure. It will be the end of the world for an illegal immigrant who gets discovered and deported. It will be the end of the world for a young child whose education is delayed because of budget cuts and for another child who gets bullied, yet again, because there are children who are as intolerant of difference as their parents are. It will be the end of the world for an elder who is forced to choose food over necessary medication. It will be the end of the world for an innocent, in a small village, who gets caught up in fighting between two political powers who think they are both right.
It will be the end of the world for those out there that have just run out of the resources to fight and to survive- the ones who have no more options and the ones who have been beaten down to the point where they simply can’t stand again. This is happening in our world every day. Only the strong survive? What happened to honor? What happened to the perseverance and hope for a better tomorrow? What happened to the basic security of knowing that those of us with a good work ethic and a conscience can have a happy ending?
Maybe Saturday, May 21, 2011, will be the end of the world- as we know it (to quote REM.) Maybe a new world will begin- a world where we are respectful of the resources the Earth has provided, a world where we can once again work hard and achieve the “American Dream,” a world where we are able to properly invest in the future for our children and adequately honor those who have been here before we were. Maybe, just maybe, it will be filled with compromise and a world without wars.
Maybe when we all wake up Sunday morning we can do more to perpetuate a world without end. Plant a tree, walk instead of driving, invest more in local businesses to keep American money in America. Embrace another culture. Volunteer to mentor a child or check in on an elderly neighbor. Will any of these actions stop an Armageddon? Well, as the old saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it certainly did not fall in a day, either. Even though you can’t change the whole big world, you do have what it takes to change your own little corner of it.
The Beatles: The End
No comments:
Post a Comment