Doomsday 2011

If you know me well, you know the following three things about me:

1. My sleeping hours are quite different than the rest of the country (seriously, check the timestamps on my blog).
2. I think way too much...about everything.
3. I can be pretty dramatic.

All three of these details combined to create a very interesting moment for me this morning.

All day, Twitter and Facebook have been blowing up with statuses regarding the upcoming rapture. I've detailed my life-long struggle with my faith in previous blog posts, so I won't launch into my personal beliefs now. However, it should be no big surprise that I do not believe that the rapture will occur today or that the world will end on October 21, 2011.

Still, I cannot help but wonder about the apocalypse. I blame my all-encompassing fear of death and self-imposed quest for religion. (By the way, is there such thing as a God-fearing agnostic?)

I realize that the rapture isn't the end of the world...yet. I also realize that most Christians do not claim to know the date of the rapture. The rapture is when all of God's chosen believers will ascend to Heaven while the non-believers get to chill on Earth and deal with apocalyptic goodies like earthquakes and fires. According to most of the Christians I know, I won't be making that once-in-a-lifetime trip with Jesus. Comforting.

So, I'll probably be stuck here, blogging about how much the end of days completely sucks and how much I miss Tim Tebow already.

No, but seriously, the notion of the apocalypse (and the rapture, for that matter) completely scares me. Although I think Harold Camping's rapture prediction is complete bogus, I can't help but wonder what if.

Tonight, at 1:00 AM, I was sitting in my kitchen, completely alone and feeling sorry for myself. So, I sat and I thought for a couple hours about how scary the end of the world would be. I thought about my life and how I'd feel if it ended right now in hellfire and brimstone. I thought about all of my friends and family who think I'm destined to spend eternity in hell because I can't get myself to make the leap of faith, no matter how hard I try.

Every morning (weather permitting), around 5:30, I go outside and sit on my porch to watch the sun come up. This morning, the morning of someone's supposed Judgment Day, was no different. I stepped outside and walked to the end of my driveway. As I tread barefoot through the grass, I inhaled deeply. There was a chill in the air that made my blood pump faster. The sky, filled with bright pinks and oranges, was slowly becoming lighter, while the moon made its gradual descent into the dense treeline of my backyard. Fog hung low on the grass of my neighbor's beautiful yard and crept into the church parking lot across the street.


I stood there for nearly an hour, watching the fog slowly dissipate, breathing the cool air, listening to the birds chirp, and watching the breath-taking colors dance in the clouds. I thought about the rapture, my life, my family and friends, and eternity. Before turning back toward my house, I took another deep breath and finally, I smiled with relief.

If the world did end today, I think I'd be okay with that.