Doomed!

My father, sitting in his retirement armchair and viewing the world through a box plugged in at the opposite side of the room, is convinced of an impending end to it all. Recently, when news of the continuing plague of locusts pervading our planet was reported through the box, I decided to sit down with the guy and go over these apocalyptic prognostications of his. It was scary. Not in a 'tear off my clothes post haste and run around in some hedonistic haze as the death knell approaches' scary. Instead, it's scary to think that my dad, a man that I love very much, is spending a great deal of his golden years ruminating on theories as old 1. The dirt under Adams big toe nail (for all you Christians), 2. The primordial ooze (for all you Evolutionaries). I have no clever analogies for the rest of you. Sorry.

There are a plethora of websites devoted to this quietus and many card carrying doomsayers walking the streets. I thought I'd wade through all the gloom, rhetoric and Bible mazings to see if there is anything to this 'apocalypse' I've heard so much about. The Greeks called the End of the Age the SUNTELIA AION . Ancient historians, most notably Plato, referred to a cycle of catastrophe at the End of the Age. The AION was symbolized by the Ouroboros which is inspired by our own Milky Way, a celestial serpent of light residing in the heavens. Unbeknownst to me until this point, our galaxy keeps a great time cycle that ends in catastrophic change. The sign of the SUNTELIA AION is the sun rising out of the mouth of the ouroboros, which will occur on the solstice, December 2012. Yes, my dears. It's all in the stars. Cover your eyes or turn away if you must, but it is all still written in light that takes millions of light years to reach us.

Many theories here diverge into alien visitations, cow mutilations, the morphing of the sphinx and the face on Mars, crop circles and holidays created by corporations seeking hard earned dollars from easily convinced card buyers, but I'll refrain from telling those tales. I'm more of the the opinion that the first sign may well have been when William S. Burroughs, Beat writer, drug taker and one of the first openly gay men in the United States, did a Nike commercial with Spike Lee.

But, first, let's address a basic question. How many signs are there supposed to be? Simple answer here. I like the number seven, so I'll stick with that.

1. White Horse - False Peace ........................Revelation 6: 1-2
2. Red Horse - Dreadful period of war .........Revelation 6: 3-4
3. Black Horse - Dreadful period of famine...Revelation 6: 5-6
4. Pale Horse - Plagues and pestilences.........Revelation 6: 7-8
5. The most cruel - Period of persecution ........Revelation 6: 9-10
6. A most vile - Ecological cataclysm ...............Revelation 6: 11-12
7. The ¹/₂- hour period of - Silence and trepidation.......the worst is yet to come! Revelation 8:1

Just looking at this list reminds me of those early attempts of my parents to instill a sense of religion in me. I went to Sunday school, they stayed home. I heard that I would burn in Hell unless a very carefully described protocol was followed, they watched the plugged in box. Church scared me. It was a very ornate, quiet, ominous place and a felt I was always on the verge of getting into a lot of trouble. Going there filled me with dread but I buckled under parental pressure. For a while.

Two things turned the tide for me. First, I was told I was to be Mary in the Christmas play. This disturbed me, especially after I was handed the Baby Jesus and told to cradle Him. Baby Jesus, the Doll, stared at me unblinkingly as I, a very shy little girl, imagined holding Him in front of the entire congregation. That simply wasn't going to happen. No sir! Threaten me with hellfire and damnation but I will not stand alone in front of a huge crowd in a darkened room holding a Doll. Secondly, my sister pointed out that I was missing Batman every Sunday as I learnt about Hell. This I could not abide by - missing Batman, I mean. Sunday school ended. I, too, watched the plugged in box.

When I hit my mid teens, I went through a phase in which I conceived it was possible to learn everything. If I was going to figure this God thing out, I knew I'd have to read the Testements, New and Old, in the original Hebrew, Latin and Greek translations - before Justinian got to them! I actually stuck with it for quite a few months, but Latin and Hebrew weighed me down. Way down. My fascination with religion never ended, but the idea of knowing everything quickly dissipated.

After all of my reading, the Top Ten Signs of the apocalypse, as written by Scott Atwood and Christian Shelton, seems to make the most sense.

McDonald's sign reads "Over 666 billion sold."
Two words... Arnold 'The Governator' Schwarzenegger. (That's more than two words, but who's counting? Oh. Apparently, I am.)
Movies are no longer are preceded by previews of coming attractions.
Elmo starts wearing a hooded black cape and carrying scythe.
Your dearly departed grandmother has come for tea a few too many times in the last few weeks.
Driving through brimstone and hellfire makes driving through snow seem easy.
Next on Jerry Springer: "My wife had slept with all four horsemen, and I want a divorce!"
Uncle Gordon's trick knee is acting up something awful.
CNN has an "Approaching Apocalypse" logo and theme music.
God's polling numbers are so low, He's making "selected public appearances" in hopes of revitalizing His image.

As I've written this up, I've taken Tom Waits Real Gone off (a little dreary for a doomsday convo) and put on Ryan Adams Heartbreaker. The argument between Ryan and David Rawlings sets the tone for the Jen/Dad conversation. His theory is loose and still at it's still embryonic, theoretical stage. As he sees it, all of the seven signs have occurred and we're... well, screwed. I pointed out to him that these conditions have been met, time after time, through out history, and he waved me away. He'd gotten his info from the Bible and Fox News. How can I argue with that?