On our knees or pruning trees
The great Christian reformer, Martin Luther, was once asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow. His response? Luther said he'd plant an apple tree. Another great reformer, John Wesley, answered the same question by saying he would go about his "last day" like every other day: get up for prayer at 4 a.m., attend a religious service, tend to the sick and the poor, visit the lonely, etc.
Would we in the 21st century also go on with life like Luther and Wesley (men who, incidentally, were confident about their future after this earthly life), or have we been conditioned by marketers, media and government spin doctors to live in fear of tomorrow?
This fall Canadians coast-to-coast were inundated with horror stories about the H1N1 flu, which produced a fair amount of public panic and revealed the general incompetence of governments to deal with pandemics and other types of emergencies.
While many were trying to inoculate themselves against this supposed killer flu, others were rushing out to see yet another "end-of-the-world" movie which suggests that, flu shot or no flu shot, we're all toast in a little less than a year.
The film 2012 suggests the ancient Mayans left us a calendar which predicts a cataclysm of epic proportions that awaits Earth in the year 2012. Funny, I remember back in 1999 hearing all about the Y2K bug and how we were all going to freeze in the dark. Prophets and heretics have long been predicting the end of the world.
The H1N1 issue was the last in a long list of blows to our collective psyche in 2009, a year that saw a massive economic recession send many Canadians to food banks as well as unemployment lines.
As people of faith, should we actually welcome the sense of fear that flu pandemics foster? Should we encourage people to see 2012 so they face the future—or lack thereof? These are questions I've been wrestling with at a deep, personal level because many non-believing friends, knowing of my Christian faith, have come to me and asked "big questions" associated with "the end": is there a God? Is this life all there is? What is heaven like, and will my dog be there with me?
Of course, many people go the other way, struggling against the inevitable end of life. Some have a "live for today" attitude that ranges from simple sexual hedonism to destructive behaviours such as criminal activities and drug use.
Others such as U.S. scientist Ray Kurweil believe science is our salvation. Kurweil recently made headlines for suggesting that within 20 years humans will have the ability to literally live forever because of technological innovations that will eradicate disease. Microscopic machines called nanobots will swim through human arteries warding off disease, letting us live as long as we like, assuming we don't step out in front of a bus.
Kurweil is a fabulous speaker and thinker. His books such as The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near are breathtaking in their reach for technological salvation. But should we want to live forever? Kurweil and others have even begun to speculate that human intelligence and machines will merge into a "singularity"—a hybrid human-mechanical being along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies.
It's easy for scientists and their social engineering colleagues to shove aside those things that are inconvenient but which make human beings, well, human. Pain and suffering go along with love, compassion and mercy. Such things do not show up in the writings of Kurweil or Hollywood script writers. Would their world have room for a Mother Teresa or a Henri Nouwen? A Martin Luther King or a Billy Graham?
Luther and Wesley had it right when they answered the question about the end of the world by essentially saying that it's not frantic last-minute "preparations" for the end that ultimately matters; it's how you live your life every day. Yes, we should think and plan how to live our lives right, but we must live life right in every ordinary moment of life.
Christians know where they come from and where they are going (Daniel 12:1-3 and Mark 13:1-8). If the world does end in 2012, we'll be ready, whether on our knees or pruning our apple trees.
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