Snatched

So apparently Saturday is the Rapture.

Photo found here

I only found out about this twenty minutes ago, but I’m told there have been signs everywhere. I don’t really know how I missed them.  

Not remembering the specific details of the Rapture, I looked it up. I would have preferred to ask Seth Hord, but as we no longer live in the same city and I actually have no idea what he is currently doing with his life or if he’s even in the country (anyone know? Is he back from Lithuania?), I turned to the all-knowing internet. I learned some really awesome etymological things: Wikipedia is great. I also read some really perplexing arguments as to why May 21 is the Rapture day and October 21 is the end of the world: ebiblefellowship.com is confusing. Actually, to be fair, a couple things made sense. But most did not.

The last three weeks or so I’ve been blog-stalking a girl I had a few classes with at BYU. I didn’t know her well at all in Provo, but I always liked her, and when I stumbled upon her blog I was thrilled. I’ve enjoyed going through her archives and reading past posts, particularly the ones around the new year. What, you ask, could this possibly have to do with the Rapture? Have you stopped eating breakfast again? Is blogger wigging out like last week? I’ll tell you.

Each new year she chooses a word or phrase for the year, something to work on and aspire to for the next twelve months, like “become” or “happiness” (yes, I did take those words from her blog). I like this idea for a few reasons: first, I love words, and focusing on all the ideas behind one word sounds fascinating to me. Second, I am a terrible goal setter. I don’t do new year’s resolutions, and I don’t make goals. They don’t motivate me. But I feel like this exercise might.

While I absolutely do not believe that the Rapture will occur on Saturday, nor do I believe that October 21 will be the end of the world, I do think that Harold Camping has one thing right: we need to be actively working on progressing and perfecting ourselves. Granted, he says it in terms of immediate salvation or certain destruction, and he would not agree with my rationale at all, but still—if the Rapture actually did happen on Saturday, would I be ready for it?

I’m pretty sure my answer is no. And I’m not okay with that.

But I’ve been thinking about the idea of progression through one word since I started this particular round of blog-stalking, and I feel like it is a good way for me to get to where I want to be. I want to be in a place where I’d be okay if the Rapture were in three days, or if I got hit by a bus, or whatever.

So I’m late for the new year, but who cares. Maybe January isn’t a good time for me to start things anyway. 

Also, what verb do you use when referring to the Rapture? Does the Rapture occur? Come? What happens to the people, exactly? Taken up? I know how I'd want to phrase things, but I'm not sure how they're commonly phrased among Rapture-believing people.