Fifteen-Year-Old Fear
in Life, Etc.
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When the first Bush was president, when I was ten years old, during the Gulf War, I stayed up too late and watched a TV doc on Nostradamus and his doomsday prophecies. I didn't sleep that night, not at all, and sleep did not come easy for many nights to come. Some fifteen years ago, the end of the world was, if not here, near.
Four years ago, when I was 21, the end of the world was here. September 11, 2001. I walked from Geology class to the student center with my friend Kelly, clueless, until someone rushed up to us to gush, "We're under attack! We're under attack!" And we were. The person informed us on the strikes on New York, on the Pentagon, and who knew where else? From the safety of Vermont, I watched the first tower fall on television and gasped, in a crowded and largely silent dining hall, surrounded by my fellow students. We all knew—this was the end of life as we knew it.
At 25, tonight, I find myself wondering if sleep will come tonight. Dark and scary thoughts of the end times dancing in my uneasy mind. I am pensive. I am disturbed.
As if war and Katrina weren't enough to think about, a harmless conversation today spiraled into talk of Apocalypse, and in it course brought up three current events that are weighing heavily on me today, spinning through my uneasy mind.
"In the poultry farms of Vietnam and Thailand, in the slums of Indonesia, along the migratory routes of wild fowl in China, a new strain of bird flu is mutating and spreading. It's just a matter of time, scientists say, before the strain—H5N1, the most virulent form of influenza ever identified—will fully lodge itself within the human population. When that happens, start looking for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—in particular, the one named Pestilence who's riding a pale horse."That comes from an excellent piece in Sept. 20's Houston Chronicle. Admittedly, my knowledge—and thus, fear—of this flu is brand new and limited, but it's still an important issue and a real—and vital—fear. As this article states, the U.S. has finally joined the rest of the world and acknowledged this ominous potential pandemic. But as Andrew Sullivan writes:
In a national emergency in the U.S. under Bush, you're on your own. Next time, we shouldn't be shocked by federal ineptitude. We should just prepare to save ourselves.I'm sorry, but it feels to me like something other than Rita is brewing. My gut tells me this. Maybe it's not doomsday... but hard times lie ahead.
If you'd like to join me in my worry, in my dramatic reflection and paranoia, follow any of the above links. Blog-search for "Able Danger" (as blogs are one of the few sources covering this story with any urgency). Learn about this bird flu. Google for "Nostradamus Katrina." There is some freaky shit out there. It's disturbing. And if you'd like to add another whole dimension to this and listen to Madonna read from Revelation, mixing her creepy reciting from the text with her song "Justify My Love," download The Beast Within remix. Oh Madonna!
Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecyTonight, all this, including thoughts of Iraq and the Boxing Day Tsunami, and memories of 9/11 and that silly Nostradamus show, force me to remember those Four Horsemen—War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. And I don't want to think of any of those four dirty words right now. I just want to sleep, peacefully, easy, careless. But with every televised image of the Texas traffic-jammed exodus, with every mental snap of harbingers on horseback, and with every disturbing Photoshop-ed Beast picture from the internet, it just screams at me... it screams something.
And blessed are those who hear
And who keep what is written therein
For the time is near
[from Revelation 1:3]
CNN lights up my room. I can't turn it off tonight. It feels like September 12 all over again...
Have I scared you yet? Hell, I'm starting to scare myself. I need to sleep because I sound nuts...
Really, I'm not. I swear.
I know that you are enduring patiently
And you have not grown weary
but I have this against you
that you have abandoned the love you had
[from Revelation 2:1-4]
Comments
There's more in the bible on that but Matthew 24 and Mark 13 come to my mind. Basically, it's saying bad stuff is going to happen but no one but God knows when Christ's second coming will occur.Given that war, disease, pestilence and all that has occurred in horrifying abundance since Christ’s death, plus the fact that “soon” to God is a bit longer than the “soon” to humans, I would venture the thought that the times that we are experiencing is no more harrowing than the times of the previous generations. In fact, I believe that we are living in some of the safest times. Take the Sars “epidemic.” How many died in that compared to the flu of 1918 which killed more people than the actual war?But I know where you’re coming from. I was bit freaked by the Psalms prophecies.Psalms 91: “you will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day” –the 1991 Gulf War which suggests the missiles sent by Saddam into IsraelOr maybe Psalms 105, which talk about the tribes of Israel evacuating and taking shelter in Egypt. A parallel to all those victims of Katrina?…. So I guess we have about 45 years left to live.Wow… this is a lot longer than I had planned. Take care there Patrick.
I agree with you. It seems as if Mother Nature herself has stepped in with her own sort of "population control" with the tsunami, Katrina, and now Rita. Add Bush to that lineup and we're all screwed...We miss you in Boston,Avery, Eamon and GavinP.S. I'm a year old yesterday :)
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