Doomsday

Mary is a character that I initially found myself relating to. I was raised in a bible believing church by bible believing parents and have for the past few years challenged and shaped my own faith in God. However, as I read further into her narrative I  found myself becoming a little confused. I realized that we did not have as much in common as i had originally thought. I was truly surprised at her level of  certainty of the role nuclear war would play and then be down played by God’s desire to preserve the Earth and the role of the Anti-Christ who prevents nuclear war altogether as a deceptive peace maker. I began to reflect on how many stories I have heard in regards to the “end.” I cannot recall  hearing  many accounts of the book of Revelation and how the end of the world as we know it will play out. Perhaps my spiritual influences have played the safe card by not attempting to describe the details of the world’s final showdown. I have seen movie adaptations of Left Behind and others in the same vein, but after watching them I noticed the same reactions every time in the audience.  the general sentiment could be  summed up simply as: “Wow” and “That’s awful.” In spite of what played  out on the screen in front of the audience everyone simply mentally to move on to  their own current issues. There was no discussion or attempts to interpret the end but a simple admonition to make sure that you were not there…Not on the earth when it is supposed to end. This then brought me to a resounding theme in my own personal experience with the end of the world- the rapture. I have heard so many songs, sermons and conversations discussing the rapture of the saints. In fact, I am certain that many songs that I sang weekly  allude to the fact that despite of what has happened and what might possibly happen, God is in control. If we lived “right”  we would “be caught up to meet him,” therefore bypassing or being at least safe from any apocalyptic events. Which then brings me back to Mary. Why was she preoccupied with finding the exact details for herself? What purpose does it serve to figure  out the end for herself? Am I so self absorbed that I am blind an unable to acknowledge the “signs of the times”? To be frank I am quite satisfied with taking one day at a time without attempting to define God or the impending doom, regeneration or salvation that will befall the earth and those who inhabit it. Perhaps from the beginning of human history every civilization or people has experienced their own apocalypse. Their worlds seemed as if they  would collapse and at times they did.  The “end” has always ushered in the beginning somewhere else for someone else.