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My son had enough of living in a small city. So at the age of 21, he went to live in a big city. He found a couch to sub-let in Brooklyn, New York. His first night there was September 10, 2001. There was a great deal of noise that awoke him the next day. He was not used to hearing so many sirens. New York City was different than the Catskill Mountains.
He finally got up to check out what the commotion might be about. Shortly there after he saw one of the World Trade Center towers collapse. He said it was like witnessing the beginning of the end of the world.
Time went by. He got interested in different predictions as to how a day might come when something bigger might happen, that would look even more like the end of the world. My son started a rock band, called Dead Unicorn and set out to make bad news themed albums.
His first recording was entitled “Yellowstone Super Volcano,” featuring songs about the magma that had erupted in the past covering a large area surrounding Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in ash, which was believed by some to be about due for an encore.
Next came “Global Thermonuclear War.” More cheery songs with better known possible terrors. This was followed by “Pandemic.” Swine flu, Bird Flu, Ebola or Zeka virus, or some military grade weaponized microbe that, take your pick, could put an end to most of us.
At the age of 65, I’m back to looking at Grandmother’s Bible. I haven’t spent much time with it, but it appears that Grandmother, was trying to draw my attention to certain passages.
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“Astronaut Problems” is in the works. Alien invasion is the problem sung about there.
He has a web page newsforendtimes.com, with posts from various sources. The headliner graphic features a painting of angels ascending towards a figure who looks like Jesus Christ, with out stretched arms. While he finds all doom scenarios covered to date to be a matter of district possibility, the album to be inspired by Biblical prophesy of the Rapture, in his mind remain fanciful.
I never gave the matter much thought. While sorting out some books to get rid of due to lack of space, I found a Bible that my Grandmother gave me in October 1961 or so goes the inscription. It has a leather bound cover with pages that they used to call “onion skin.” The binding includes a zipper to protect the pages. It is the only book I have ever seen that you can zip up after reading. It is a book built for traveling and it used to travel with me, back and forth to church until I was about twelve years old. It is an authorized King James Version of the Bible. The church I attended believed that it was written by God, every word of it. To think otherwise was just wrong.
It was difficult reading for a child and it seemed to me that a good deal of adults found parts of it confusing. Even the Ministers admitted it wasn’t all clear to them either at least not the unimportant parts such as who was related to who and stuff that was probably obvious to those who lived in the times and places written about, but which read like gibberish in modern times.
Thankfully most of the writing that I was taught to memorize and be able to recite was pretty straight forward. There were inspiring passages about how to Iive the right way. I recall it being scary to me that the adults I knew weren’t living like that. I figured that the take home message was that you were supposed to try and to pray for forgiveness when you couldn’t.
At the age of 12, I changed churches. Bible study there included readings from a variety of translations of the Holy Book followed by open discussion as to what it all might mean. I first thought that all involved in questioning the Word of God were probably going to regret that decision for eternity.
However his approach soon grew on me. The Bible my Grandmother gave me stopped traveling. It remained unzipped because the zipper had broken when I was at the other church and unread because I didn’t believe in it anymore.
When I left home to go to college, the Bible stayed home. I soon stopped going to church. At the age of 65, I’m back to looking at Grandmother’s Bible. I haven’t spent much time with it, but it appears that Grandmother, was trying to draw my attention to certain passages. I have only found a couple of verses where a short red line was drawn in pencil. They refer to the End of the World. I don’t recall my Grandmother ever advising me on anything in that book. I thought of it to be quite inappropriate to mark it up on my own. Who knows, my Grandmother might have made those marks to remind herself of something.
In Matthew Chapter 24 she underlined “. . . sign of thy coming”, in Verse 3. The whole verse reads, “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”m The verse before that describes Jesus’ reaction to his disciplines pointing out the buildings of the temple in Jerusalem, much in the way friends might point out some of the amazing high rise buildings in New York City today, “And Jesus said unto the, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Jesus goes on to mention signs of the end getting near which appear daily in the news. The internet is full of You Tube videos, etc, etc on how interpreters of the Bible see things going down before the end. Most caution that there will be many “false prophets” saying stuff about how to know when it is time to start praying more than you have been. They usually leave out how you can be sure that they are not one of the false prophets that they are warning you about.
My son doesn’t live in New York City anymore, but he still lives on the Planet Earth. His message today is live life to its fullest each day that you are here and if major shit hits the big fan, enjoy the show.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
David Shaw: My son doesn’t live in New York City anymore, but he still lives on the Planet Earth. His message today is live life to its fullest each day that you are here and if major shit hits the big fan, enjoy the show. >>> Your son’s message is pathetically inappropriate. If major shit hits the fan – unstoppable climate change, a giant meteor hitting us, nuclear war – no one (including your son) is going to enjoy the show unless he (or she) is consumed with bitterness and hatred towards life itself. Because it is not just we… Read more »