In the wake of what has turned out to be a pretty busy weather day on the East Coast (with thankfully none of the Armageddon-esque predictions about New York or DC being swamped, though there is significant damage all around), it seems a little silly for me to come on here and talk about the end of the world like I had planned to some forty-eight hours or so earlier. You see, when I heard that Irene could hit New York, the center of everything culturally about America that I either love or loathe with ill-hidden envy, I was taken aback.
Maybe, for once, the doomsayers had it right, the "end-times" crowd who not only believe that the world will end in their lifetime, they damn well pray that it does. You know the type, mostly church-associated and all "Jesus will rise and smote the infidels" or some other such stuff that we former believers (or former wannabe non-believers) associate with superstition (the feeling, not the amazing Stevie Wonder song of the same name). I could scoff at such things before, but as the threat from Irene seemed more imminent, I began to wonder: maybe it could all end?
Part of this, I'll admit, is the little boy in me, the one that sat scared straight as some old-timey preacher would come at the invitation of the local pastor and give a fire-and-brimstone sermon about how we're living in the end times and it's only a matter of time before the trumpets from on high tell us to duck and cover, and while we're down there kiss our arse goodbye (thank you, XTC). Part of it is a real fear, however, that for all my "worldly" knowledge, acquired more from books than from worldly experiences (such as warfare, genocide, and an enemy hellbent on destroying me, though God knows that Hulk Hogan tried) is no match for the unknowable, the illogical, the "doesn't fit with what science tells us", because I come from a part of the country where science is still a dirty word.
Logic holds no candle to the idea of Jesus or God just saying "to hell with it" and scrapping the whole plan, in many people's eyes.
My grandmother asked me to read a book called "Heaven Is For Real," about a little kid who apparently visited Heaven and regaled his folks with tales of the afterlife for a time, seeming to confirm that, well, Heaven is for real. I smelled "power of suggestion" and "doctoring" when I saw that the father was a preacher, as well as "blatent political edge" when it turned out the co-author also helped write Sarah Palin's book. So I was not in a place to naturally accept that everything this kid says is "for real."
Now, having read the book, I can say that if this kid thought he went to Heaven, and if it's a comfort to his folks that he says he did, who am I to judge? I know that faith (as opposed to religion) offers hope to the hopeless, and even the cynical part of me would like to believe that there's no harm in comfort. Say you're a victim of the Holocaust; would you be comforted by the idea that after you die, you're pretty much gone? Nope, I'd hope the victims of the Holocaust especially but anyone whose death came in awful circumstances in general might have something more to look forward to than just "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Hope is just a four-letter word, but it's up there with hate and love as being one of the more powerful four-letter words in our language.
That being said, I feel like some gentle, perhaps unintentional, coaching from the parents might have gone on behind the scenes, perhaps helped along by a child's natural imagination. I say this because my niece, who is six months old, has an old remote that her daddy gave her to play with. She can point it at the TV and pretend that she's doing something to the TV (perhaps to freak her out, I could be behind her with the real remote the next time she wants to change the channel and do so). I don't doubt the sincerity of the family, but I do think some grasping at straws might account for some of the more fantastical claims. And underneath it all is the idea that perhaps the end times are right around the corner.
To me, that's the most dangerous thing about religion, whatever your belief system. Trafficking in Armageddon-speak doesn't do much good for a mind easily led by suggestion, like mine was as a kid (and maybe still is, if I can take the doomsdayers seriously when it comes to Irene), and it strikes me as almost the opposite of what Christianity in particular is about. Turning to your religion to smite your enemies, to lay waste to them, is what happened on 9/11, which is about a week or so away from being ten years old. That's a version of "old-timed religion" that isn't good enough for me.
Basically, if you are of the mindset that the world is gonna end and the Bible says so, I wonder about you, I really do. After all, I might not know the Bible backwards and forwards, but I do remember that part about "no one will know" when the world ends. Also, that little thing about being kind to your neighbors, no matter how disgusting their "BBQ sauce - old family receipe involving lime!" is. Heaven may be for real, but I'm guessing you can't get in if you take pleasure in other people's pain when you think you get to go right away while they have to wait a thousand years. Sorry, sounds a little unfair to me.
I think a lot of the end-timers think that, if the world ends today, all their problems will be solved. Poppycock, I say. Problems don't last, but people can, and do, survive the worst of what life has to bear, especially if (but not necessarily mandatory) some matter of faith is within them. Call it what you will, but I'd like to think there's something more to this than sitting in a Starbucks waiting for my heart to stop after one mocha latte too many (I don't even know what a mocha latte is). I could be wrong, however, but I hope I ain't.
Oh, in the book there's a picture of what some little girl thinks Jesus looks like. Trust me, hold it up to a pic of Kenny Loggins from the Eighties and you'd swear they're identical. Blasphemous to believe that "Footloose" could be the anthem of Heaven? Yes, but it sure beats "Your Momma Don't Dance (And Your Daddy Don't Rock and Roll)".
Good night, and good luck
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