Normal

In an odd ways this feels like Easter again.   Holy Week always feels like the scheduled time to consider endings and beginnings and the triumph of new beginnings.  Harold Camping*s prediction caught more people this time around than 1994. I think media saturation has a lot to do with it.  Whatever the cause, there was no rapture this time either.  In an interesting way, the possibility that Jesus was coming again on Saturday at 6 PM, made the conversation about Jesus* Second Coming (a major tenet of the Christian faith) more real. Now we are back to normal.  I think for a few, it may look a little different.

Today we return to normal.

Some people never left

Normal.

Of course the idea of normal

Has always been

Our creation.

Good, bad, just the way it is

God-given, God-forsaken:

Normal remains

In the eye of the beholder,

The throat

Of the speaker.

Over the weekend:

Floods, tornadoes,

Volcanoes,

The cleanup in Japan

Continued still,

Continues now.

New tears and cleanup

Today

To the south of us.

New prayers as well.

This is normal

When we think of it

Really think of it

None of us are ever

Left behind,

Bereft.

We are in it

Together.

This is normal.

Today I return to survey the garden.

I cannot yet drive to the garden store,

So I assess what God has planted.

I pick four lilies of the valley, fragrant,

Two purple columbine, intricately made.

I declare this normal and wonderful.

I declare this good.

When it doesn*t happen

I think this is worth considering.

When it doesn*t happen,

How will we sit with those

Who waited,

Full in expectation

Of the end?

Bags packed.

Cars given away.

Bank accounts cleared.

When it doesn*t happen,

How will we join with them,

Not leave them behind?

When it doesn*t happen,

How will we rapture them back

Among the living,

Among the not so certain,

Not so sure,

Those of us who continue to wait,

Will continue to wait?

How will we greet them

When it doesn*t happen

Tomorrow?

How will we extend our hands?

Not so rapturous

Oh, Catharine, really!  One more pass at the Rapture.  It*s such an interesting concept.  

People are really so hopeful: hopeful to be right, hopeful to be included, hopeful that there is a real end to bad things and Jesus will come take them out of this hell-hole.  Jesus promised he would come again. It seems we can be assured that it won*t be when we think it will be.  Why should now be any different?  Every time I think I have something mapped out, pinned down,  it changes.  Usually something better comes along which I don*t figure out... for months, maybe years.  Rapture on Saturday at 6?  It sounds plenty appealing, in all kinds of ways.  Leaving the irritants behind?  Also appealing.  It could happen.  Sometimes we do live as if it will never happen.  

It will.

Time: Now, later, much later?

Who: All, most, a few?

The only thing we know is that Jesus will come again.  He promised.

It seems I*m not using the vocabulary right.

I always have to rephrase things,

Put things in my own words.

It goes with the territory.

So let me get this right:

Saturday at 6 PM,

The Already Chosen

Will be given a Free from Judgment pass,

Taken directly to heaven.

I guess it*s called The Rapture

Because the Free from Judgment folk

Will be So Happy.

The rest of us?

Not so rapturous.

We do such odd things

With religion,

Read sacred texts as if every word was packed

With hidden meaning.

What if Jesus really meant every word

Of the Sermon on the Mount?

What if

We believed he died for every single one of us?

Like he said?

What then?

We do such odd things with religion.

All of us

Really all of us.

The religion itself

Doesn*t matter.

We think we have the answers

Full and complete

When all we usually have

Is questions and sometimes

A one-liner

Or two.

The latest thought:

Put dry ice in your empty shoes

On Saturday at 6 PM.

Leave *em guessing.

Judgment Day

So this is a conundrum.  Do I correct the reflections I wrote before I conflated Judgment Day and the End of the World?  I won*t.  It does make for interesting conversations.  I have a few colleagues who have said they will stick around, even if...  

It seems to me that if believing Christians are needed anywhere, it*s that time post-Judgment,  and pre-End of the World, in the time of earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes erupting everywhere...

It seems I had it wrong.

Saturday at 6 PM is only

Judgment Day.

The End of the World

Comes later.

Next October.

Trust me to equate the two.

No,

We*re told the particular period of time

Between Judgment Day

And the End of the World

Will be wild indeed.

It seems fit that I stick around

With my priest and therapist

Background.

I*ll have plenty of work

If I don*t get caught

In lava flows.

At least it will end before winter.

No need to plant the tulip bulbs

For spring.

No need to schedule the winter furnace check-up.

No need

To purchase a new supply

of sidewalk salt.

Musings on the Rapture

 I can*t help but be fascinated by our sisters and brothers who know exactly when the end times will come.  This Saturday, May 21st,  at 6 PM.  I think about people traveling across time zones to get another hour of possibility before the Rapture.  I wonder if God has a list, like Santa Claus, and is checking it twice.  No, I don*t think so.  I really don*t think so.  Such fascination, however, does lead  me to think about what really counts in the Kingdom.  I know we have a glimpse of it now.  I know Jesus gave us a splendid template, that it*s simple and hard all at the same time.   I know when I think I*ve got it made, I*m yanked up by the shorthairs and realize I have a lot more to learn.

Today is sun.

Yesterday Jeff and Sawyer brought me sunflowers

As a reminder.

The bishop blessed the office

And all who would meet there.

He blessed it for life

Abundant.

Today more petals have fallen

Off the redbud.

I joked that the Rapture

Might come by time zones.

This morning I read 6 PM

On May 21,

As if God cares about

The way we order time

Or date.

They say it will be three percent

Of those alive.

It will still leave things pretty crowded

Down here.

We*ll be busy, I understand,

With the Beast.

Of course it might be that the three percent

Have died already.

It may just make a mess

In the cemeteries,

Then only certain family plots.

This seems convenient.

I wonder how they figured                                                                      

Percentage.

I believe God will come when He wills,

Take whom He wishes.

I think he has been

Harrowing Hell for a long time

Since Jesus.

He pulls us up and out

By the shorthairs,

Hauls us up,

The lost sheep,

The prodigals who need to see

That God wins the extravagance prize

Over the top.

The weather at the end of the world

We*ve been having some weird weather late winter/early spring.  Even without the Revelation decoder ring, it almost feels like Holy Week.  I know it*s Easter.  I know when the Second Coming arrives, whatever its predictors, Life will come in full.  Life like we*ve never seen before.  Easter forever.

Thundersnow in February,

Spring golfball-sized hail,

Sky yellow with roiled clouds,

The weather predictions and actualities

Continue to give us

So much to think about,

Wonder about

Take cover from.

I think it*s spring

Simply spring.

The transition is sudden and late

This year.

Some say

It*s all in the book of Revelation.

This is predicted

For the end of the world.

This is the tribulation time.

No, it doesn*t say this exactly,

But Revelation is a book

Written in code.

Some believe they have

The master decoder ring.

With every inch of rain,

Peal of thunder,

Bucket of hail:

It*s coming

It*s coming soon.

The thunder, the rain, the hail,

The Four Horsemen

Are riding

All the way down.

Time of Tribulation

 It is so easy to name *those people*    Those people are clearly not me.  I would never be like Rod or Michael or that father and stepmother who tortured and killed their son and buried him under a cement slab.  I would not be the mother who didn*t miss him for two years. Not me.  Yet all are tragic figures of tragic human systems, which took years to get to where they are.  It did not happen overnight.  I know I am equally capable of doing the self-serving, rationalizing things each of these have accomplished.  Even among the blooming flowers and nesting birds.  When I can know this (God-willing I know this)  I have a place to begin.

Those people who believe the world will end

In a week and a half,

Those people

Know we are in the Time of Tribulation,

The Rapture will come

On May 21.

Somehow this morning

It seems right.

I wonder if

It will come sequentially

Across time zones.

I am glad the Bishop is visiting

This Sunday,

Will bless my office

For its remaining week.

This week the flowers bloom

Birds sing

The sparrows have their nest ensconced

In the gutter.

The Tribune has placed three articles

Of human cluelessness and tragedy

On the exact same page:

The next chapter of the former governor;

The continuing saga of the inner city priest;

The boy killed in anger and buried

Under a cement slab,

Not missed for two years.

Each article is preceded by years and years

And years

Of human tragedy,

Perhaps the Time of Tribulation.

I do not believe the Bible

Can name the exact time

Of the Second Coming

Or who will be Raptured.

Today it seems the Time of Tribulation

Might wait for the trees to flower

The clematis to vine upwards,

Might wait for the focus to be

Completely elsewhere

Set aside

Hidden in the middle section

Of a daily paper,

On one page which can missed completely

Covered over by the news

Of the new reality TV show

Contestants chosen by judges blindfolded

So they won*t be distracted

By appearance.

Today it seems May 21^st

Might be right.