The End of the World

Well, the world didn't end again today.  Surprise.  Actually, that's just it: if it were to end, it would be a surprise.  Somehow I think if God were to declare the time to end the world is now, he would make it so and not fiddle about with far-fetched, hard to prove nebulous prophecies.  The bottom line from my perspective is God does not want us to know when the world is going to end.  I believe he calls on us to live each day as if it were our last.  If we all did that, perhaps the world would be a better place.  But then again, a lot of people seem to be living as if today were their were their last days with no regard to where they will be a few years from now, a few days, or even a few minutes.

So what do we do with this situation?  Well, I am hard pressed to even venture a guess.  Just live as best we can I guess.  We can wait for the end of the world.  We can scare ourselves silly with fears about being left behind or we can live as if we were going to die tomorrow and be the highly evolved persons we were surely meant to be.  We could dispel evil and denounce those so-called satanic impulses.  We could, and this is quite radical, do unto others as we would have them to undo us.   That rule is truly golden.

Here is a link to a brief synopsis of the Golden Rule as it appears in many of the world's great religions and philosophies:

The Golden Rule in Religion and Philosophy .   

Amazing, huh?  It has been preached probably since the beginning of time.  And sometimes I think it will go unheeded by most until the end of time...as we know it.  

So I guess that is why it is good every once in a while to be reminded of just how temporal our world and, in fact, our being might be.  Not only could the rapture come and destroy life as we know it, it could be brought on by our own actions.  Now that is something to think about, something to remember as we go about our daily lives.  Every moment could be our last.

Well, I guess we dodged another bullet.  The world did not end today.  Next up: December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar.  Maybe it will be just another Y2K footnote in history.  But just in case, maybe we better start living as if it meant something, as if it mattered how we treated others and ourselves.   Just something to keep in mind as we continue on this journey together.  But I do have one request:  can we just quit trying to scare ourselves to death?  Death will come soon enough.  Let's just devote our time to living...and living as God (or whoever) intended us to.