#667 – Dick Bernard: Today

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Supposedly today is the end of it all, at least the Mayan calendar ends.
So it’s been good knowin’ yah, until/unless we meet again.
If it isn’t over today, Nostradamus and the Masonic Cross seem to indicate by the end of 2012 it will be all over, so perhaps there are a few days left to make things right….
On the other hand comes the Christmas letter I each year receive from the most overtly Christian person I know, from Bemidji (she’s never said her denomination, but that’s irrelevant. She is never pushy.) The end times have been on her mind, though, and she devoted the last two paragraphs of her always interesting Christmas letter to the topic:
“I’m sure you have been made aware of the December 21, 2012 Mayan calendar date. there have been many TV programs about that date being linked to the end of the world. Do I believe that?? Not at all! I do believe the Lord’s return is close at hand but certainly not on December 21. I have plans for travel in 2013 to Mississippi and Louisiana in February, Greece in April, and New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in September.
As the verse in the bible so clearly states about the Lord’s return, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.” (Matthew 24:36). You need to be ready at all times for His return because, “…for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh.” (Matthew 24:44) “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown.” (Revelation 3:11)….”
What I like about her comment is that, regardless of her belief, she acknowledges the unknowability of it all. (Except – she’ll be amused when I point this out to her, I think – that she declares the end of time won’t be today!)
The end comes for all of us: thousands today, unexpectedly, without warning. A traffic accident; heart attack…it is not worth wasting time in worry. A physical or natural catastrophe could easily happen and destroy our notion of the future. So?
Best we can do is to do what we can, every day, to clean up our own abundant messes and do what we can to help leave some kind of a future to those who come after us. (I’m not talking “fiscal cliff” here either, or setting about to accumulate more personal money.)
As individuals we are cause in the matter of the future, however short or far away that might be.
Back in November, a friend sent me a marvelous Louie Schwartzberg video on the topic of Gratitude, based on the theme of Today.
Here it is. It’s only ten minutes of your time, today. Take the time.
It’s also included in my own Christmas message for 2012 which is, if you’re interested, here.
Have a great day. Every day.
(My friends Christmas card is cute: A pleasant snowman with angel halo and wings, a bird sitting on one of its stick arms; the arms holding a string of stars. “All is calm…all is bright” is the caption. I like that.
I recall another friend, at another time, New Years Eve 1999 – the end of the Fall that we call Y2K.
She was flying to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, and planned her flight so as to not be in the air at the stroke of midnight January 1, 2000.
It wasn’t till she was in flight that the thought occurred that, probably, the computer clocks were probably not running on U.S. Central Standard Time….)