Prophets of Doom and Humbling Reminders - April 9 2024

 

Prophets of Doom and Humbling Reminders

April 9 2024



Turns out

the world didn’t end.

The sky darkened,

shadows sharpened,

and the ambient light

turned cool, flat, bloodless.

Birds circled, confused

then retreated to their nests.

Zoo animals

stopped pacing in their cages

and showed signs of distress.

Giant moths

fluttered from their lairs

in the unexpected dark,

while the insects

we usually see

settled in for the night.

So when the moon

blotted out the sun

and the temperature dropped

it seemed the prophecy had come to pass;

the apocalypse

just as they predicted.

A reckoning,

punishment for our sins.

But at least, we were all in it together;

except, that is, for the select few

who knew better

and were sure they’d be spared.

Who knows how they knew.

And who thought

that after all the failed prophecies

over countless millennia

it would be different this time;

the end of the world

for real.

Except it didn’t.

The clockwork universe

did not seize on its gears

and abruptly stop.

The earth

did not grind to a halt

and catapult us off.

And the moon

did not interrupt its steady orbit,

but continued passing smoothly

past a blazing sun.

I have to admire

the prophets of doom

who would not admit defeat.

But simply changed the date

and continued to inveigh,

as if their communication with God

had been temporarily garbled

and they weren’t really wrong at all.

Meanwhile, the rest of us

continued to look up,

oohing and ahhing

and proclaiming our wonder.

Then kept on sinning,

or whatever it was

we were doing before.

Despite the humbling reminder

of implacable forces,

of just how small we are

in a vast indifferent cosmos.

Perhaps the world will end shortly.

But I suspect

it will happen more slowly

and be more disappointing

than awe inspiring,

more frog-in-boiling-water

than beauty and delight.

And after all

who needs the judgment

of a wrathful God,

when we’re so good

at doing it to ourselves?

Even though one happens every 18 months somewhere on earth, and even though the orbital mechanics of sun, moon, and earth are easily explicable, the doomsayers still come out whenever there’s is a total eclipse. Of course, who needs armageddon and superstition when all by ourselves we’re doing a fine job of ending life on earth? (Or at least life as we know it, not to mention civilization.) The frog in boiling water: a not so veiled reference to climate change.

Interesting to think that both my brothers, who are climate change minimizers (at least they’ve progressed from deniers!), would hear my dire warning and think me the sensationalist and doomsayer. The difference, of course, is that I base my prediction on observable fact, not faith, superstition, and a literal reading of 2000 year old scripture. Or, in their case, wishful thinking and convenient blinders. And perhaps a certain hubris about mankind’s (and, more particularly, civilization’s) inevitability.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/solar-eclipse-apocalypse/677999/