So, I wake up and The Mighty Finn McCool's whining. He wants to go out to pee. The faintest hint of light is in the eastern sky. The stars are still overhead. Some clouds have moved in and it looks like it'll be overcast, at least part of the day. The earth still smells sweet after the rain and I can hear the soft roar of the far away surf in the morning silence.
The world, in all it's miraculous glory. . . is still here. WTF??? According to dear Reverend Camping (who, Mother Jones Magazine reports, has amassed $75 million from his faithful followers (WHAT?? $75 million??? Clearly, I'm in the wrong business.), the world was supposed to end today. Absolutely, positively. Bible and The Rev Camping's numerology said so.
Yet here it still is, world without end, amen, in all its wonderous stubborn persistent glory.
So, you might as well have a nice day.
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Calhoun's Can(n)ons was originally published in 1990 in the (now defunct) Morro Bay, CA, Sun Bulletin, and since 1992 has continued in the various resurrections of the Los Osos, CA. Bay News, Bay Breeze, Bay News, Bay News-Tolosa Press. A few years ago, the Can(n)on was added to the Central Coast NewsMission blogsite. Ann Calhoun lives in Los Osos. You can email her at Churadogs at gmail dot com
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13 comments:
I was at a bar tonight in SLO and when the witching hour came around, a woman who had been sitting at the next table was suddenly gone! We all got a good laugh when she came back from the restroom. Then my husband decided that we needed t-shirts with the words, "RAPTURE REJECTS" written across the front. Ai-yi-yi! Anyone missing anyone?
Maybe that is not a good question tonight. After leaving our dinner companion, we decided to drive home and watch the sunset from the Pasadena Street bay access. The big lime green and white Los Osos emergency truck from fire station 15 was parked across the street and two fire fighters were scanning the water with binoculars. Hope everyone is OK and it was a false alarm.
Sadly, as the Times noted yesterday, while we're all having a good laugh about this, many of the followers of this goof have quit their jobs, given him pots of their money, sold their homes and are waiting for the end. I can't imagine the predicament they'll be in today. It's really sad to think about these folks. What's also sad is their impatience. Wait around long enough and everybody's world will end sooner or later. No need to rush it. Plus, the Bible clearly has Jesus saying that no man knows the time of his return. So, people shouldn't sweat it. Have a drink, watch the sunset, smell the roses. We'll all be yanked outta here one way or the other, too late for some, too soon for others, but yanked we will be.
I understand that this nut case had a BS degree from UC Berkley. Maybe that would explain why so many were duped.
He was a lifelong member of a sect called the Christian Reformed Church which comes from Orthodox, RC, Anglican, Evangelical and a host of other sects that practice Christian faith.
I grew up on a farm in among a Russian sect called Doukhobors (puritan Christian farmers) in southern British Columbia, which devolved into a small group called Freedomites that ran around naked and burned their homes etc. Twas interesting for us youngsters to watch.
Sectarianism IMHO, portrays the condition of persons awakening from a long spiritual sleep and not yet quite fully alert to their surroundings.
A sad example about what a lack of critical thinking can bring about.
You nailed the impatience part Ann. What's the rush to get outta here? Unemployment? Boredom? Or a lack of knowing how to find solutions to problems? Its almost a suicide wish (one with no penalty!) this need to believe in rapture.
Hey 'toons- There was also a search&rescue type helicopter flying around Baywood last night, shining its spotlight all over. Anyone have any idea what happened?
Religion is for people that can't handle drugs, Lilly Tomlin.
That said, I don't see too much difference between this huckster and many many more before him. Yes the damage to his followers is obvious and because it's a relatively small group it's easy to identify them but is it so different from hucksters that claim to be politicians looking out for the general welfare while bombing innocent people back to stone age living conditions in the name of national security? And for what? To protect us from a religious cult.
I see stupid people.
Hey alabamasue - I have not heard or read anything yet. Something was going on but so far no news.
Mike Green sez:"That said, I don't see too much difference between this huckster and many many more before him."
Alas, sadly, too true. There's been lots of studies on two different types of folks, let's call them the Vertically Integrated types (hierarchy) and the Lateral Types (small-d democratic or a herd of cats & good luck with that) The VI types NEED order and structure and direction. The LTs go their own way.If you're a VI, you'd gravitate towards systems with some sort of strong "father" telling you what to do, clearly defined rules to follow & etc. And that type of person is likely to be more easily influenced to follow and if the leader is evil or stupid, those folks can get trapped into that system and end up getting hurt. LT's on the other hand tend to keep looking around and saying, WTF??? and then wander off on their own.(herding cats) It's clear to me that the folks following this guy are VIs and sadly they got, and from newspaper reports, duped, and REMAIN duped (cling to the paradign you know vs. let go and go into paradigm free-fall, which can be really, really scary. )
Toonsky sez:"You nailed the impatience part Ann. What's the rush to get outta here? Unemployment? Boredom? Or a lack of knowing how to find solutions to problems? Its almost a suicide wish (one with no penalty!) this need to believe in rapture."
In a funny way, most of us daily, hourly, do the same -- rush through our day focused on a future that doesn't exist yet while totally missing what's right here, right now.
Fogswamp sez:" I grew up on a farm in among a Russian sect called Doukhobors (puritan Christian farmers) in southern British Columbia, which devolved into a small group called Freedomites that ran around naked and burned their homes etc. Twas interesting for us youngsters to watch."
I'll say! What precipitated the burning of their homes? Was it a group burning or just someone running amok and burning their house? Then, coming to their senses and, what? did they then have to rebuild it?
Ann, I once had 18 cats - does that make me a cat herding type? :-)
But wait - we have another chance to be "raptured!!!"
http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9NDGDNO0%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1018
I guess we should have expected a fallback position!
Off the above mentioned site:
"In 2009, the nonprofit Family Radio reported in IRS filings that it received $18.3 million in donations, and had assets of more than $104 million, including $34 million in stocks or other publicly traded securities."
Yikes.
Why did they burn their homes?
Well, as my parents put it, during the 1930s the Freedomites got themselves in serious trouble with the Provincial and Dominion governments, and 900 or so were shipped off to an Island (Piers) on the Pacific near the US boarder, and imprisoned for 3-5
years.
Their children were self-taught because they believed schools corrupted the morals of their children. When forced to school them they burnt the schools in communities.
According to many journalists they were treated rather harshly during imprisonment. Their children were even taken away and given to others before the got there.
When they got back they had nothing left and refused to pay land taxes, because they believed land was a gift of God, and burned their homes, even up into the 1950 & 1960s, in defiance.
Many Canadians sympathized with them because the Canadian gov't gave them military exemption when they came to Canada and during the second world war tried to in-script their young people, which created unrest. This was one of the very reason they left Russia and their leader was still in a Siberian jail.
Their homes weren't much and many had hardpan dirt floors, which was common with early settlers is our area at the time.
I don't know why they went nude, probably some religious reason.
OOPS = I meant "conscript" not in-script.
My gosh, how interesting. Canada is such a civilized country, I'm surprised they didn't give them some kind of exemption like the Amish and other "ite" (Hutterite) communities get regarding home schooling & etc. ( Though, if you refuse to compromise in any way (no property/income taxes)then likely there could be no exemptions or accommodations)
And, yeah, interning them and taking kids away, Yikes. Thanks for the info. So much little known history all around us.
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