2020: "What the Hell is Going On?"

So my daughters were asking about apocalypse at lunch today. Like, "What does that word really mean?" Like, "What does it have to do with peace, love and understanding?" That kind of thing. Because, what else are you gonna talk about when a pandemic's rolling across your state (and your own grandmother's fighting it off); when your government's in freefall; and when there's a full-on once-in-a-lifetime fire six miles away (and charging hard)? We're putting our suitcases and backpacks out front, anticipating the evacuation call, wolfing down our skimpy sandwiches, and one of them asks: "So what about that apocalypse shit?" (I'm paraphrasing, but not much.)

I'm out of my depth here, but let me give it a shot.

In the biblical sense, in the tradition of prophets and dreamers and martyrs for righteousness, "apocalypse" is akin to "revelation." Or, maybe even better, "a revealing." I think that's actually the meaning of the original Greek. An "apocalyptic" moment, then, is one of those moments that bares the truth, one of those moments in which the deepest truths about life and communion and what makes life meaningful are revealed among us. As such, these moments set a kind of plumline in our midst, and require an accounting. Which side are we living on? What kinds of choices are we willing to make? In a lot of cases, biblical writers perceived these moments in seasons of profound crisis, international intrigue, human conflict and catastrophe.

So: "apocalypse"? Apocalypse is what it looks like when state troopers beat John Lewis to within an inch of his life on Bloody Sunday in 1965, and when John Lewis returns to blaze the trail for a whole generation of civil rights activists. The truth laid bare. The plumline set. Which side are we living on?

Apocalypse is what's happening in Minneapolis and Portland and Seattle and Chicago and Manchester, New Hampshire: when Black Lives Matter organizers cast a vision for defunding instruments of state violence and investing instead in neighborhoods and schools and families and public goods. Again, the truth laid bare. The plumline set. Which side are we living on?

And, yeah, all these huge, awful, distressing crises? Seems apocalyptic. A government disinterested in being a government. A political party mauling democratic institutions. A disease we can't stop. And, now, in California this week, something like 300 terrible fires, bearing down on small towns, cities. Hell, I saw a story about locusts ruining key crops on the African continent. What's going on?

Undoubtedly, there will be preachers in crowded fundamentalist churches whipping up a frenzy in their people. It's the apocalypse, they'll shout. God is angry (probably at the liberals), they'll snarl. Good thing we're saved, they'll smile. (By the way, put on a mask and tell your people to go home.)

But isn't that kind of Christianity exactly wrong? If "apocalypse" has something to do with truths and meaning...If it sets a kind of plumline in our midst...If we stay awake and alert to this kind of "revealing"...maybe what we're looking at is a key moment for understanding, compassion, empathy and decisive action. We are shaken this year by how dependent we are: on one another, on good government, on democratic institutions, on neighborliness, on the planet and its health, on the climate and its health, on a spirit of mutual care and generous sacrifice. We are reminded how morally and spiritually urgent it is that we look out for one another--not just for ourselves, not even for our families, but for neighbors and strangers, for immigrants and vulnerable kids and folks who worship and pray in other tongues. These truths are laid bare: in a pandemic, in a firestorm of firestorms, in a democratic crisis of epic proportions. The plumline is set.

Which side are we living on?

So, I go back to the first question, or the beginning of our lunchtime conversation. "What does 'apocalypse' have to do with peace, love and understanding?" Maybe everything. We have to choose now. We have to decide how we want to live, what kind of people we want to be. And then we have to live that out, in concrete ways, in consequential action, in new patterns of neighborliness, justice and compassion. It's not enough to feel it. We've got to do it. The plumline is set.