Today the entire eastern seaboard
of the United States was all abuzz with the news of an earthquake that hit
Virginia and shook the walls of homes and buildings as far north as Montreal,
Canada. At the time of the rumbling I was in my car on the south shore of Long
Island heading towards Jones Beach and can honestly say I didn’t feel a thing.
My wife and I plopped down into
our beach chairs, stretched out under the mid-August sun when the vibrations of
my cell phone deterred me from drifting into the tranquility of twilight sleep.
It was my good friend and band-mate, Bob, who called to ask me if I felt the
walls of my house shake. At first I thought he was referring to the band
practice we had in my basement the night before. “No?” he questioned in
disbelief, “Didn’t you just feel the earthquake?” I had no idea what he was
talking about but then he fully explained the day’s events. “Holy smokes!” I
shrieked, “You’ve got to be kidding!” and for a brief moment, all the warnings
about God’s wrath that hailed from the pulpit during the years I occupied a pew
in a Pentecostal church haunted me. “Oh crap,” I wondered, “What if they’re
right?” There’s no denying that in recent years the weather has been very
strange and the occurrences of natural disasters have been more frequent. If I
were a Bible enthusiast I’d probably be out in the streets shouting, “Repent! The
end is near!” But I’m not, and I try to use logic, science and common sense to
explain why we repeatedly seem to be feeling the fury of Mother Earth.
As my wife and I were leaving the
beach later that afternoon, we ran into an old acquaintance from the church I had
escaped from nearly ten years ago. “Did you feel the earthquake?” she asked
with an expression that was a combination of heightened concern and cautious
exuberance.
“Get ready!” she smiled pointing
towards the clouds, “Jesus is returning soon!”
I don’t quite know what it is
with me, but whenever I hear certain folks sounding joyfully anxious over
tragic events and relating them to a vengeful God, I tend to lose my tolerance.
What exactly are they hoping for? It seems clear to me that according to them,
before Jesus gets here, God’s children are going to have to face some
cataclysmic events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, economic
collapse and all the wonderful incidents making today’s headlines. Those,
however, who have made a conscious decision to make Jesus their personal
savior, will be mysteriously removed from the planet in a twinkling of an eye
and join him in the clouds as they embark on their way to eternal bliss with
the angels and saints. Do these people really and truly believe this or have
they simply convinced themselves that this extraordinary event will take place
only to put their own fears to rest?
Not for anything, but it sounds
to me as if their fear of death has them hoping for an improbable escape. It
also sounds to me like they have an undeserved tremendous regard for
themselves; like they are so special that God would hand select them to
magically ascend into the heavens leaving behind millions of people who
probably lived more Christ-centered lives than they themselves have lived.
Everybody, sooner or later, has to face a physical death. If there is any truth
to the presumption that humans have spirits or souls, then there should be no
reason to fear death or no reason to want to physically escape death because spirit
is eternal; it does not die. Truthfully, I think Fundamental Christians have
done a great job of ruining Jesus’ reputation. I see Jesus as a gentle, caring,
non-judgmental, compassionate soul who saw the hypocrisy in the arrogant, self-righteous
religious hierarchy who thought they were holier than thou. I see Jesus as a
deep teacher of Truth; someone who saw way beyond dogma and silly doctrines. I
see Jesus as an enlightened avatar who knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that
only love and humility could save humanity from themselves and not from the
wrath of a jealous tyrannical creator. I see Jesus as someone who definitely
would not approve of a belief system with his name attached to it. I do not see
Jesus as the self-appointed leader of a club of do-gooders.
When a child dies due to a
natural disaster do we blame God? When a tree just so happens to fall on a car
and kill the driver is it God who made it happen? When earthquakes hit Japan
and Haiti was it God who caused them? I seriously doubt it. Earthquakes,
hurricanes and tornadoes have been occurring since the beginning of time, the
only differences are, we didn’t have as many people on the planet and we didn’t
have 24-hour CNN coverage. There also weren’t nuclear reactors built on fault
lines, so when radiation spills into our oceans do we attribute it to God’s
wrath. Humans continually screw themselves. If and when civilization is
obliterated, it wasn’t God saying “I told you so,” it was our own reckless and
greedy behavior. The earth is a living thing. How much longer does anyone think
we can poison her waterways, put toxins in her soil and cut down her forests?
Eventually, just like a woman scorned, she will take revenge.
We were given safe, natural and
efficient ways to produce energy. We have the options of wind, solar and water
power yet we continue to drill the earth for her lifeblood, oil, and kill each
other in bloody battle in the process. We continue to annihilate hundreds and
thousands of men, women, children, not to mention animals and plant life, over
the illusion of money and wealth and unfortunately the church that bears the
name of its central figure is caught up in the same illusion. Churches are
forever campaigning to raise money to build more and more churches to
perpetuate more and more lies about how one faith is “truer” than the next. The
God we choose to serve is usually based upon what suits our needs. It’s too bad
we haven’t figured out that we are all one and have the same needs.
~John Rullo~
CLAIRE DALY: Mary was my father’s cousin who grew up with his family in 
