I am angry

Today I am angry.

I've taken a keen interest in the recent news frenzy of doomsday coming on May 21rst. Not because I believe it, but because my job surrounds me with wide eyed teenagers who live on the computer and look to me for some spiritual input.

I've heard the arguments of the times of Noah...that a day is as a thousand years in the bible...and that the time to be ready is now. And I've marveled at how it so often in a mix of truth and error that confusion is bred.

I've followed the story of the Doomsday spokesperson of NYC, Fitzpatrick. who spent his entire life savings of 140 grand to pay for advertising in the subways and buses of NYC. And today I saw the pictures of a confused and deflated man, checking his watch as a loud, jeering man with a wiry black beard, stands next to him and sneers into the camera as he holds up some of Fitzpatrick's flyer's. And it makes me angry.

My heart breaks for him and bristles at the callousness of humanity to mock a man who is down. We all have much to learn.

I stood in a checkout line the other day and listened to the checker and bagger go back and forth about the validity of the Bible, the concept of prophecy, and the Second Coming. And I prided myself that I had the reassurance the there would be no end of the world on May 21rst because of my knowledge of the Bible and the fact that it says no man knows the day or hour. And I was silent.

But as I loaded my groceries in the car a slow wave came over me, questions that made me think. Does it really matter if the world doesn't end tomorrow? Do I somehow rest in complacency because I know it won't happen? Would I give all I had to spread the word and stand publicly in Times square if I was truly convicted? Have I become lazy in "truth".

I do not believe in the method of Fitzpatrick, or the message that he taught. But I cannot point a finger or mock a man who has sold out for hope and now lost it all. I can only be convicted of my own responsibility to know what I believe.

I wonder what drives humanity to find the weaker man, to kick someone who is already down? Somehow the golden rule has been forgotten. Who has never been wrong? Who has never been prideful? Who has never been awkward or alone? Let them take up the dirty job of hate. As for me, I will never claim to have been immune from any of these things. And today, as Fitzpatrick wakes up bewildered and alone...I will pray. Pray for healing in a man who is broken, pray for hope when its hard to see, and pray that someday...God will come.

The Evolution of Man

She lays on his arm, her tiny head engulfed by his broad hand. He has black grease stains up to his elbows that soap didn't take off. It's clung to the callouses on his fingers like black ink spots would on men who write stories, and it tells his story.

A hard working man's man who loves cars, and sports, and getting dirty. Who doesn't have time for frills or fluff or delicate things. But you wouldn't guess it now. Because she is nothing but delicate and perfectly at home there. And he handles her as gently as a person could and holds her with a tenderness that cannot be rivaled, for she belongs to him. She is his child.


He used to worry about the frailness of babies, used to worry about the diapers, and demands, and needs of those mysterious things. But you wouldn't guess it now, because he has stepped up to the plate and taken that ball home...changing diapers in seconds, dressing, burping, feeding.

I watch him kiss them, listen to him gurgle and coo, and hear him tell extravagant stories to two little big eyed babies...and I wonder at the evolution of this man from just a guy...to father.

It's time to go now and he scoops her up with a deftness he has previously always shown in anything physical, and walks out the door, only to return seconds later and ask..."is there another binki? this one doesn't match her outfit."