Too Busy to Rapture

So, according to Harold Camping, the Rapture should occur tomorrow, with the end of the world happening later in October of this year.

I'm not particularly concerned, not because I think I'm going to be Raptured (and if what he says is true, I guess I'm a candidate, being a church-goer and all), but because practically speaking, whether it happens or not, I'll probably be too busy to be bothered about it, unless it causes something akin to the TV show Flash Forward where planes crash, traffic accidents happen, and patients in surgery die because key people suddenly disappear.

In which case, it behooves all of us not to get on planes, trains, or automobiles that have Christians operating them.  Or, for that matter, have surgery or dental work done by a Christian.  I'm looking at you Dr. Rich!  I'm not getting my teeth drilled tomorrow, despite all your good works in poverty-stricken areas of Africa.

Oh wait.  It probably wouldn't matter for me anyway, since I might be Raptured as well.  Also, the Rapture is supposed to be tomorrow, on a Saturday, and his office is closed that day.

But everyone else--beware!  I'm not sure how this Rapture stuff works, and how an individual might be Raptured.  Is there a blast of light that accompanies a person's Rapture?  If so, radiation could be involved.  And if there is radiation, what is the radioactive half-life of the remains of a Raptured Christian, if there are remains at all?  How many feet do you have to stand away from such remains (or the Christian in the process of Rapturing) so as not to be irradiated?  Or, would you want to be irradiated, if the radiation happened to be of a benevolent kind?  Would you end up with nothing more than a nice tan, or could it zoom in and kill cancers?

These maybe important things to think about for the potentially un-Raptured.

However, the potential Rapturing of my very kind-hearted dentist makes me think of charities, particularly Christian ones.  If all the good Christians are going to be Raptured tomorrow, I guess that spells the end of such relief aid agencies as World Vision, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Catholic Relief Services, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, Baptist World Aid, Episcopal Relief and Development, IMA World Health, the UCC's Church World Service, etc., not to mention the various local Christian-supported homeless shelters and food banks in every community.  Hopefully, everyone else can make up the difference of billions of dollars a year in relief aid and volunteers.  If not, then places like Haiti and the Congo are going to be in even worse straits than they are now.

Rapture or not, I'm planning to stick around. Got books to write, fiber to spin, yarn to knit, and a garden to work.  That's a St. Francis of Assisi reference.  It's said that someone walked by one day and saw him working in his garden and asked him what he would do if he found out that the end of the world would happen that day.  He looked up and said, "I'll just keep working in my garden," and went back to his work.

Makes sense to me.