To get the ingredients for my birthday dessert (yes, we are celebrating a little later than usual due to a Gala Event we attended on my birthday), I had to make a grocery run this evening. In some ways as I walked around Kroger, it reminded me of the run on supplies during the height of Covid. There were so many empty shelves and bins. Although I had to improvise on the spot, I was able to find the necessary things I needed for tomorrow’s celebration.
Driving home I started thinking about beliefs in which I was brought up. That there would be an end times, an Armageddon, and the after. Several of those beliefs seem to be coming to fruition on the daily. Enough to make me wonder if a belief is becoming a reality. Here are a few of the things I was taught.
There would be money to buy things, but there wouldn’t be anything to buy. If I remember correctly, this was stated about food and necessities, not material things. That may have been because one can’t eat a car or clothes. We have entered into that time due to things like a lack of employees and supply chain challenges.
Greed would actual I even into a God for so many. We have billionaires who would rather race into space than create affordable housing, fund schools, or help feed the world. Our children are more interested in how to make the most money, often trying to figure out how to get rich quick with the least amount of effort. Even thinking about doing anything for free or because it is the right thing to do rubs so many the wrong way.
Society would turn against churches and religions. Churches are beginning to sound more like political action committees than demonstrating the teachings of Christ. So many churches have had scandals involving sex with minors. Few congregates believe in giving to the poor or taking care of those who are ill. We can tell this by the people the Christian Right elect to office and the policies they support. The largest stray from Bible teachings in which I grew up is the undying love of Trump and family, demonstrating their hypocrisy over and over by not practicing what they are preaching. Because of these things, more people are losing and leaving their faith.
Then, at a most basic level, there is how we as collective treat one another—lawlessness and selfishness would be on the rise. People showing up at school board meetings shouting and threatening educators. People threatening law enforcement officers for doing their jobs. People, ever younger, taking up guns to kill one another. People threatening poll workers, transgender people, Black and people of color, and anyone else who scares them or whom they perceive to be of threat to their order of supremacy. Kindness and civility seem to be at an all-time low.
It often feels we are at a crossroads. Do we take the path of least resistance and do nothing? Or, do we take the path that begins to lift us all to be better and more caring, the harder path at this time in history?
I know which path I shall take. Which path will you travel?
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 