Apocalypse Now?

A verse in the bible that caught my eye, oh, so long ago, is this one:" As in the days of Noah people will be going about their business, then, Wham! It's all over! No-one will see it coming ..." (You may not recognise this as word for word, from Matt 24, , but believe me, I've caught the gist.) 

There is a myth in the bible about a righteous man, Noah, who built an enormous boat and saved himself and his family from a worldwide flood. It goes like this:Everyone else went about harming themselves and killing others, so God called, "Time!" and sent a flood to wipe everybody out except the good guys, and two, or five, of every animal, who went into self-isolation in that very, very, big boat. The naughty people,meanwhile,  had been going to the market and hiring wedding venues, just as they always did, entirely oblivious to their impending doom. Noah had seen it coming, and bought gopher wood.

 

I little care about offending bible literalists who shy away in disbelief at my use of the word, "myth" . A story can be a myth, and still carry an essential truth. Myths usually do... Bhuddists call it Karma, when bad things happen as a consequence of terrible behaviour. "You plant a peach tree, you get peaches ..." That's how it is. The idea of a vengeful deity who can create flawed people in the first place, then drown them for their flaws, doesn't do it for me.

 

Moving on ..

So, this isn't the end of the world then. The pandemic isn't an unforeseen event, the virus won't discriminate between the goodies and the baddies, but nevertheless, this DOES feel a bit apocalyptic, I think because the world as we knew it on 1January 2020, will not be the world that it is unfolding.

 

Imagine what it could become. There's the world of the low-life who mugged the nurse for her ID, and stole the grocery-shop from the boot of the car of the man in a wheelchair, there's always that option. Those would be the people who will eventually drown in the flood of their own inhumanity. Then there are my people, your people, who are responding to this worldwide emergency with an outpouring of goodness and compassion.

 

Let's work on that one. The ark that we have built is our ordinary everyday good-heartedness that will not see a neighbour go hungry, or a homeless man die on the streets. Threats too big for us to imagine, change the world, but first, they change us.

 

Stay well.

 

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