Apocalypse or Rapture?
My friend Joanne is a student of Anodea Judith. They believe we are at the dawn of a new global awakening, driven by "dynamic feminine" principles instead of the wretched linear-thinking, warmongering, competitive male principles that got us where we are today. See the book trailer video below:
I'm not so sure. Oh, I'm sure we're at a great epochal crossroads. But I'm skeptical that it will be an "awakening" -- like we just snap open our eyes from a bad dream to the sunrise of the "eco-spiritual renaissance." Some mornings I wake up certain that our collective heads are pointed down at a cosmic birth canal and that getting to the other side will be a bloody mess.
Last night we watched "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo" (2008) on HBO. Oy. Thousands of women and girls being systematically raped and mutilated by feral young men on a pointless rampage. It reminded us what a thin veneer of civilization there is on this planet -- and how terribly depraved humans can get when our traditional laws and institutions fall apart.
Maybe the Age of Aquarius is on its way, but remember the time it took to emerge from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. In parochial school I was taught that the Dark Ages were really wonderful because Catholicism flourished. Now I suspect that Catholicism flourished because the age was so dark. People desperately needed to believe there was something better than chaos, poverty, and premature death.
The Rapture -- Jesus coming to snatch the righteous into heaven -- is not coming. Tribulation is what we've got. Again, I go back to my great-great grandparents, who faced hell on earth as potatoes rotted in their fields. The only "dawning" for them was the dawning realization that there would be no future unless they toughened up and got to work. I think of their passage from hunger to homestead... is this what lies ahead for us now? If so, I think the future will belong to the unsentimental hard workers, not to those counting on supernatural or extraterrestrial rescue.
4.29.2008