If we take the word of Harold Camping and believe in his predicted rapture, the end times happen in a few hours. The chosen ones, they say, will disappear on earth and will be taken up to heaven. While those left behind are doomed to eternal damnation as the Armageddon goes into full swing.
I do not know what these doomsayers are up to, but it seems everyone is simply caught up with the Apocalypse. At work, some of my colleagues fear that they'd be left behind. I even had a heart to heart talk with one of them, assuring that should she stay behind, sooner or later she will be taken up there too. She said that while my words are kind only the Creator knows who will enter his kingdom.
Speaking of the Kingdom, I think I have no place there. Not that I would want to burn down under. But if I'd be given a choice, I would rather stay here - in this place - to be reborn in countless lives until my soul finds its purpose. Compassion calls for a Master to let his creations undergo refinement until it reaches a near-perfect state. It doesn't matter if it takes a thousand lifetimes to accomplish such feat but in the end, all must return to the source with a clear understanding of the universe.
But who am I to pre-empt the Boss?
Perhaps, the reason why this rapture affects me is because of the people who spoke of the end times like it will really happen today. I recall seeing posters of the same rapture (with images of angels suspended in the sky and blowing their trumpets) when I was in grade school. It coincided with the UFO phenomena so I thought the aliens have come to spirit us away.
No massive spaceships appeared in the sky. The rapture didn't happen.
If we wish to believe the end times are near, the news already hints of tell-tale signs: extreme weather, destruction of nature, global food crisis. We are actually the ones stirring our own Armageddon.
While I find it absurd for a man to predict our final days, the very reason for refusing the rapture is the selfishness of it. Are the religious bigots the only ones allowed in heaven? How about those who loved - more than they had loved themselves? How about those non-believers who worked their entire lives making the world a better place? How about the sinners, the refused, the ones denied to express their own faith yet they try to be compassionate to all living things around them?
How about the children who were born yesterday, and whose lives will shape the future of humanity?
So I was there in my work station, listening to a colleague while she was caught in a whiff of epiphany. The sudden change of heart was brought by her fascination with the coming rapture. I didn't make fun of her beliefs or raised doubts about it. But behind the serious chat conversation, only one image stayed in my head.
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| baby lenin, rubbing his eyes |
Tribulation may come to other people, but for this child, the world spins madly on.
Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on.
The Weepies
World Spins Madly On