THE END

The California preacher who got so much attention with his Judgment Day prediction last month says he has recalculated, and that it will happen this Fall. I forget the date. We’ll see. But as his May deadline approached, I got to thinking.

Twenty or thirty years ago, I would have dismissed the man as just another wacko and not given him a second thought. But that was before I lost my father to a rare, fast-moving disease. And my mother to old age. My best friend in high school -- the healthiest, fittest man I knew -- died of a heart attack at age 50. A brother-in-law dropped dead in his 40s, and a colleague died just last month. All, within the last ten years.

While I ignored the preacher's prediction (What can one do, after all?), it reminded me that we are all on this Earth for only a while -- a relatively long while for some, a short while for others. But still just tiny, nearly imperceptible fractions of a second in the galactic clock.

There’s so much yet to do in this life – not the least of which is to appreciate this priceless gift, and the Lord who gave it to us. The economy may be in the tank and so on and so on, but that’s our doing. After all, we are the life-forms in charge.

It’s easy, amid our many woes, to forget that it is a miracle that we are here at all. Whether you view life and this planet from a religious or astrophysical position, our existence is truly a miracle.

So whenever The End comes, I’ll be ready. I’m just not holding my breath.