Epilogue

Hello to everyone who's reading this.

Obviously, the rapture didn't happen yesterday, and this "liveblog of the rapture" is a work of fiction. I started this project with two ideas in mind: one, to have fun exploring the idea of what the Rapture would look like, and two, to help promote my wife's art sale. (See above.) I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

That said, there is a very real tragedy that happened last weekend. No, the world didn't end...but for thousands of people who believed that the world would end yesterday, the fact that they are still here has to come as a profound shock. A lot of these people had no "plan B," and planned their lives so that they would meet their end penniless and homeless. Why shouldn't they have? After all, there's no need for money or shelter on the Last Day On Earth. The papers are saying that these folks will need social services, including counseling, in order to overcome what for them is a personal disaster. One might ask why they weren't in counseling to begin with, but that's not germane to this discussion. I don't bear any of these persons ill will. In fact, I pity them, which is unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, the worst thing I can feel for anyone; but I still hope that they can get on with their lives despite the damage they've done to themselves.

My intention with this was not to mock Christians in general. I am not a Christian and haven't been since before I was a teenager; but my intention was to write The Author as a true believer who is doing what for him is the most logical thing, that is, to continue to warn others and bring them into the fold by the best means he had available. Simply put, to make him a believable character, despite the ridiculous situation he was in.

I am not a Christian; but I do believe in The Apocalypse. Apocalypse is a Greek word, which means, literally, revealing; to bring out from hiding. It is that which happens when we open our eyes and discover that the world is not as we were led to believe, as with happens with any true initiation. It is an experience as shocking and horrifying as the rapture was purported to be for those left behind. It can make you grow or it can destroy you. If there is any reason to feel sorry for the people who deluded themselves and others into believing this fantasy, then consider that what most, and probably all, of them have just gone through, is nothing less than a single-serving Apocalypse.

As for the rest of us, maybe this episode can be an object lesson in the importance of critical thinking.

This is maxomai, signing off.