Posts Tagged ‘End of the World’

The Invasion of the Cicadas

Posted: June 3, 2011 in Uncategorized
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Just thirteen short years ago, in Lewinsky spring, just as a certain president was going underground, so were the Cicadas. Their rising up in the thawing of spring, this cyclical arch of springing forth from suspended animation, led to the surging song of males that would lure sacrificial females to their job, dropping like, well, cicadas once their eggs were laid.

And now, as a part of renewal and return, they are back. By the billions they are back. On May 25, not too far off from certain predictions of the end of the world, they starting popping out of their tiny holes in the ground. Their name was legion, which was of some concern for the apocalyptically minded.  But in time, a very short time, they will disappear as quickly as they came. And one morning we will go outside and be greeted by a deafening silence.

So what is their purpose in the great big scheme of things? What part of the food chain do they occupy? And why the odd interval, this thirteen-year slumber between insect-scale orgies of mating and giving birth?

We must resist an interpretation from the human point of view as their existence most likely has little to do with homo sapiens.

Did they serve as an alarm clock for long-hibernating creatures we’ve never seen? Or did they go underground one time, in escape from, say, an impending ice age, or a great atmospheric disturbance caused by a rogue meteor, and stay subterranean for maybe thirteen years, until the coast was clear? And did that just become a habit, even though there was no more ice or no more atmospheric disturbance? Face it, habits are hard to break.

I just drove past a bus stop where a man was beating them off as though the furies of hell had just descended. They must have thought him a tree. Or another rather large cicada.  He was shouting at them as he sliced his arms to and fro. I’m not sure what the cicadas thought about the incident, but I am sure that the bus stop man believed he had entered a battle of epic, of biblical proportion.

I’m betting the farm on a more mystical role for the winged, singing creatures. It might be that they show us and show us exceptionally well that the end of the world does come. But it comes in cycles, time and again. So if their particular and limited cycle of life exists within the great big cosmic cycle of life that might be saying something to us about our species. Just what that is, I’m not sure. But even if I was sure I wouldn’t tell. Because you would say that he’s just got cicada on the brain, it’s clouded his mind, there is buzzing in his ears. And you might be right.

The End of the World Rescheduled

Posted: May 21, 2011 in Uncategorized
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It’s happened again. The end of the world has been postponed, rescheduled, rained out, or miscalculated. I woke up this morning, May 21, and the world still was. I really didn’t expect otherwise.

Predicting the end of the world is not new; it seems to take place at periodic intervals by various religious movements, popular culture and soothsayers of various stripes. Big time-table events like the turning of a millennium, tend to ratchet up the fever. It happened in the year 1000 AD, and people were on the roof tops dressed in white waiting for their ride.

Truth be told the expectation and disappointment is found on the pages of the New Testament. The earliest Christian writings have plenteous references to the immanent throwing of the switch. For them Jesus played a significant role. The one who was raised from the dead would also serve as the emcee of the big event. What happened, though, was that it didn’t come as they thought. Individual Christians had their personal ends through death before the corporate end of the world happened. And then they had to start making sense of either an indefinite postponement or a different scheme altogether.

The later letters in the New Testament have explanations for this delay with encouragement to not lose hope. And others, like John’s Gospel, finally say in one way or another that the judgment has already come when you encounter Jesus – new worlds have been born and the kingdom has already come. The scholars call this “realized eschatology.” It’s the end game that’s already happened and we live as new creatures because of it.

So you see, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Lots of people throughout history have slept through fitful nights of dire predictions only to awaken to a sun rising like always. And they say, “I guess they were wrong.” And they were. Failed predictions tend to damage the credibility of the predictor.

I don’t expect such an ending in my lifetime, or ever, really. We can, of course, destroy the planet all by ourselves. But that’s not the same as a divine mega-event that transforms the whole picture in a flash. I rather live with the hope that God is already here, pulsing through everything that is, and that the future brings the unfolding of the life of God in the universe. For me, everyday is the end and beginning, and every death and birth the same. God has created and is creating and Christ has come and is present in the mystery of God.

That’s really quite enough for me.