Talked to Dad last night, had one of those surreal conversations.  He truly believes Obama is the guy standing on the brink of world destruction and chaos as we come closer to the rapture and the end of the world in 2012.  I honestly hope my dad goes before 2013 gets here, because it's going to be SO awkward...  It would be laughable if he weren't so serious.  I feel really bad for him.

 

I grew up with my dad obsessing over prophecy and numerology and all that dramatic mystical bible stuff.  He had me scared to death all the time.  I know he means well, but he ~really~ wants this big rapture that he's built up in his head, and he's convinced it's coming.  Our family fell apart in 1978 so badly that teachers asked my mom to come in for meetings and asking if there was trouble at home, and Mom would sit there and weep.  She was a mess.  What could we say?  My dad believed Christ was coming, he saw no reason to do anything but listen to his radio all day and do just enough farm chores to get through, and we had no real relationship with him at all.  Mom had to work to feed us, and we had no social lives whatsoever.  No one understood, because the problem was so off the wall.

 

But Christ never came.  He's been supposed to come several times since then, each time during a big flurry of radio preachers and big changes happening in the world economy.  I'll never forget Dad interrogating me over the scanners we use in retail, the lectures over how we were going to be barcoded and scanned some day as the mark of the beast.  He got my brother so wrapped up in it that my brother would call me and fret about it almost as much as Dad did.

 

Then there was Y2K.  I won't even go into Y2K.  I'm sure you're getting the picture.

 

So now there are these big shows on TV about the Mayan calendar stopping at 2012, and Nostradamus having a 'lost' book show up about the galaxial axis lining up in 2012, and there are other world prophecies coming out about 2012.  Guess what, now all the radio preachers are saying 2012.  Go figure.  The end of the world is supposed to happen on 12-21-12.  I'm sure if my dad were internet savvy he'd be trying to get everyone to go to the official end of the world website.

 

December 21 2012, The official Website for 122112 Information

 

So Obama won the presidency.  The Tribulation is upon us.  Dad is so excited he can hardly stand it.  So for the next 4 years our phone calls will revolve around this obsession, and trying to maintain any kind of normal relationship with the guy will be very frustrating.  I love my dad.  He's very unique and part of the last vestiges of a long family history.

 

I in no way want to ridicule people who really believe the end is upon us.  I think there are a lot of modern mainstream Christians who are also getting wrapped up in this prophecy stuff, and I don't think that as part of a belief system is any more wrong than anyone else's belief system.  I personally will believe it when I see it.  I've lived through too many prophetic 'tribulations' to drop everything I'm living for and let it all fall apart on the presumption that I don't need to hold my life together much longer, because it will soon be 'over'.

 

But it will be both a dread and a relief when 2013 gets here.  I'm dreading the big letdown my dad will go through, and I'll be relieved that we made it through another big emotionally draining prophecy obsession.

 

As for how I feel about the election, I journaled this privately yesterday.  "Whoever wins the election, wins.  No matter who gets in there, there will be solar flares coming up in the next 3 years screwing up all our latest new navigation, media, and other satellite technology, and that's THE most pressing problem our world is facing that you will never hear in the news while scientists race to correct for that before massive blackouts lock our country down to a standstill, because solar cycles are real and unstoppable.  And we're still going to have all kinds of problems anyway, no matter who gets in there.  I'd prefer 'my people' run things, but I'm not flaky enough to believe any particular party can 'fix' anything that Wall Street and other big business owns and corrupts as the ludicrously wealthy gallop out of control playing a game called world markets."

 

If there is chaos and destruction coming, I believe most of the problem will be various media inciting 8 billion people to panic.