ARMAGEDDON.

Albrecht Dürer, The Revelation of St John: The Four Riders of the Apocalypse

Does anyone else get the feeling we're headed towards our apocalyptic doom?

Not to put a damper on anyone's week, but seriously. Think about it.

1. Katrina

2. El Nino

3. That huge tsunami in SEAsia

4. Cyclone in Burma

5. Earthquake in China

6. US not a world power anymore?

7. US-college-educated job-holders foraging for food at empty food banks  (highlight on CNN's AC360)

8. Gas is $4/gallon?

Oh, yea. I almost forgot.

9. 9/11 and the ensuing "War on Terror" that's clearly going well for us

p.s. 10. Avian flu in Korea (chicken being the only meat I crave around this part of the earth)

So, I'm doing a little research on the Internet. And I found this site for a book called "Apocalypse 2012." And it's kindof creepy. But I guess the guy's premise is pretty much the same as mine for looking into this, umm, unfortunate amalgamation of disastrous world events.

Also, I think I read elsewhere about how apparently we're getting sucked in closer and closer to the sun and that's another reason our world is going all crazy with the environment and global warming and death and disease and all those African and Asian genocides and crazy governments (OK, European and American governments are kinda crazy, too) and just all these big, bad things are all happening all of a sudden. 

ORRR have all these things been happening all along and I just wasn't paying enough attention to the news and the world OUT there? Maybe all these disasters HAVE been happening but all of a sudden our world is global enough and has enough technology that EVERYONE else has access to all this information AS it happens. Maybe for all of history, death and destruction is exactly what's been on the menu but we just weren't aware of all the bad things happening elsewhere in tune with the things right in our vicinity. Does that make sense?

This makes me think, SERIOUSLY, if our apocalyptic end is forecasted for 2012, and in some cases in 2060 (the apocalypse according to Isaac Newton).

In one manuscript from the early 1700s, Newton used the cryptic Book of Daniel to calculate the date for the Apocalypse, reaching the conclusion that the world would end no earlier than 2060. “It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner,” Newton wrote.

So, this is kindof worrying me. All this doomsday thinking and these crazy environmental and economical and political events make me question, maybe law school is not where I should be heading right now. Maybe CHURCH is the right place for me to go. Because, okay, let's say the world ends in 2012.  That's ONE year after I graduate from law school. And right now, the plan is I'll be trading in my soul and human-helping instincts for a corporate expense account and a fancy schmancy big law firm job. And I'm not sure that's the way I want to greet the Final Judgement Day. (The current plan accounts for living many years AFTER my corporate law days when my responsible investment decisions enable me to give back to the community/world writ large). 

Judgement Day (via Terminator 2)

Maybe, if the world is going to end in 4 years, I need to do some serious soul-searching and live a better, happier, generous-er life NOW, instead of banking on doing that all at a mysteriously future point in time commonly known as "later." And MAYBE that's the meaning behind the saying (and I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg or which comes  first),

Live like you'll die tomorrow but dream like you'll live forever

and the Beverley Mitchell lyrics:  

Let's dream like we're gonna live forever

And live, like we could die tomorrow

So, really, my apocalyptic (this is my new favorite word!!!) fears are just driving home the point, to relish life each and every day as though it were my last. To really act as I would in front of a fear-inducing, justice-breathing God every day and treat people as though this God were going to come down and confront me tomorrow.

(I discovered how to color my text today. Did you notice?)