Looking Ahead
Second Church of Christ Scientist
Historic West Adams District, Los Angeles
Photo: the Author
Prediction of Mary Baker Eddy, February 22, 1904:
"In the year twenty-one hundred I think will be the end. At that time either the world will be saved through universal salvation, or those who now are working against us will burn up as the physical scientists say the world will be burned up, by volcanic action; we know what they call volcanic action is mortal mind destroying itself...God is making demands upon us." Divinity Course and General Collectanea, compiled by Richard Oakes, p.21; from information preserved by Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB, a secretary to Mary Baker Eddy.
I never know what's coming. People ask, how do you do it? I wonder the same thing sometimes. What's the point? This is awfully silly, I tell myself; and that's how it starts. You would think it would be downhill from there, wouldn't you, yet still I do it and I am always surprised by what comes next. I may not be wrong about the silliness or the pointlessness, you understand, but I'm nearly always surprised. Which quite honestly is as good a reason as any for doing something, don't you think?
How it ends is anyone's guess, of course. 2100 seems good though. I can work with that, can't you?
You can work with that but you don't believe it really or you wouldn't write.
What's the point of doing anything if you know the limit. We are but always hoping, looking for the surprise.
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You are right, of course.
I'm only here for the surprise.
And the laughs.
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The point of writing, even if the world ends sooner rather than later, is that all is contained in the effort itself. I understand Jerome's sentiment, however, and my blog's headline is "We will be known by the tracks we leave behind." As a gay man who will probably never procreate, I want my work to last, but even that if outside our hands.
I was especially drawn to Mary Baker Eddy's comment, "God is making demands of us." That could indeed be the case, though not necessarily the kinds of demands she would think about. Maybe God just wants to be loved (sentiment from "The Color Purple). Maybe we are supposed to love, or at the very least, be kind to one another. Maybe it's beyond the scope of our understanding. I grieve sometimes that I have to die so I would greatly love the idea of God's salvation--let's hope for the best, and what's so bad if we're wrong about God's existence. If we die, and that's it, we won't be conscious to worry about it, but "please, dear Lord, feel free to manifest Your love in my life."
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