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.