Eschatological Tranquility

Quite spontaneous and not consciously related, I've had a few seemingly similar thoughts recently that I consider interesting and want to move here from Facebook to more easily preserve.

I suppose it all started with a quote I shared from Mennonite in a Little Black Dress that started a discussion about religion. It led to talk of Calvinism and predestination. In reflecting on the discussion in an IM conversation, the following popped out of my mouth fingers:

Part of the reason I don't know that I belong in the church is that I'm almost exclusively focused on this world and really don't care that much about "salvation" or the afterworld - I have my sense of God grounded in Christianity, but with the express goal of "Heaven on earth." Oh, wait, it's "on earth as it is in Heaven" - Lord's Prayer.

That was a couple of days ago. Then this morning at work I went the library's collection of CDs and grabbed a few to listen to while we were out pulling holds from the morning's list. One of them was R.E.M., and the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" came on. While working and listening and thinking off in the stacks, the following thought struck me, and I used it to introduce the video when I shared it on FB:

Still one of my favorite songs ever, but the existential angst doesn’t resonate quite so much as it used to. Somewhere along the line I lost my eschatological tranquility and would now rather see a grand evolution than revolution.



Eschatological = Theology and/or philosophy concerned with the end of the world = {the Second Coming, the Judgment Day, the beginning of the next age, Armageddon, apocalypse, Ragnarok, the alien invasion, nuclear war, global warming, popular culture, Barack Obama's presidency, etc.} = It's the End of the World As We Know It

Tranquility = I Feel Fine