Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The End of the World

 


 
 
"It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine"

 
R.E.M.
 
 
Oh crap! The end of the world is scheduled for Friday and I am not prepared! I am in a world of hurt (no pun intended) as I have done nothing to get ready for the big event. How do I know it is ending? Simple - the Mayans told us so. Wait a minute - maybe they did not. They did run out their calendar on Friday's date, but no mention of the end of the world. In fact, some are saying the calendar end date is really 200 years from now. In any event, the world may end on Friday - or Thursday - or Monday - or 4 million years from now.

We have seen a bevy of movies as of late describing the way we will meet our end. We have been hits by asteroids, meteors, comets, solar flares, alien invasions and so on. And we can't forget the SUVs which cause global warming. So much global warming, super storms would develop. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, you would freeze solid. No wonder we are paranoid about December 21st.

Lets suppose is was true and we have known about it for a while. How would we have lived our lives? Total hedonism? Passion and/or compassion? World wide travel or hunkered down. Years ago, the church we attended did a sermon series called One Month to Live. If we were told (for whatever reason), we had one month to live, what would we do? How would we live that month?

Many of us, myself included, have a habit of clicking off days without paying much attention. We get up, we do stuff, we have supper, we go to bed. When we get to Friday, we try to remember all the things we have done during the week. More often than not, it is just a blur. Rather than treating every day as a gift, a fragile, precious gift, our days become part of the blur

A man I knew many years ago once told me every night before bed he thought about the interactions he had during the day. In his prayers, he asked for forgiveness for not only sinning against God, but also people he had not treated as he should have. The ones he could not remember or was aware of, he gave a blanket prayer for forgiveness - he wanted to make sure he finished the day "clean". Most of all, we wanted to ensure that each day, every day, he would do better than the day before.

We don't know why the Mayan calendar ends on Friday. Maybe we will never know. We do know this - they never made any claim the calendar ending had ANYTHING to do with the end of world. Hollywood has us prepped for the worst by showing us movies for years that depict horrible things. The Lord on the other hand, has promised us that "no man know the hour, knows the day" that Christ will return. We can take this opportunity to reflect on life, our lives, and the fragile nature of such. Once again, we found out last Friday how fragile life can be.

Will the world end? Absolutely. We just don't know when. All we know is this - every morning when our feet hit the floor, we have a full day of opportunities waiting for us. The only tragedy we face is if we don't take advantage of those golden opportunities. On Friday morning when you get up, enjoy the day!

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