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Rapture of the Things of Man

You know that evangelical belief some hold where the righteous shall be suddenly taken up?


My Catholic heart doesn’t buy it. 


Eucharist spontaneously transforming into human flesh and the mother of God appearing to children in Portugal or Yugoslavia or ushering in the rose covered tilma of Juan Diego?


All this is true.


But righteous humans saved from all suffering as a reward for not having sex before wedlock while loudly and quietly judging the rest of us for who we love or our use of expletives or alcohol?


I don’t think so. 


What will be ushered in one glorious morning, will be a rapture of the things of man. 

All of our egotistical creations will be gone in an instant. 

These trees, lined up in our neighborhood can stay. 

Dirt paths lined by maples all the same age and height will be a lovely echo of our past attempts to think we can assert order


Or that we should. 

Not sure if the lawns stay or go,
But the truck with the wooden trailer on my street with rakes and a loud leaf blower will go, along with the sidewalks and cars

Just blip poof gone

Stucco houses 

Gone 

And the street signs that name everything like Adam named the animals—we weren’t content to stop at living creatures? We must name the paths between us, the neighborhood, the city, the county, the state, region, nation...an endless division upon division 

Instead we would have a clear view to the pastureland but we wouldn’t call it pasture—just grasses—to the west and the trailing Sierras to the east with a blanket of snow.

Well not a blanket, 
Not a dusting of icing sugar, 

Just snow
Grass
Trees

If God is just, and He is

I like to think he wouldn’t separate us one from the other. He wouldn’t continue our sinful mistakes. 

He would take away every vanity of human existence 

from metal skyscrapers 

to coal plants 

to asphalt highways 

and machines that milk the cows over there.  

He will take it all, and it shall vanish, 

dissolve like pollen into a puddle after the rainfall.


He will leave us here as we witness 

our Mother heal and 

His Mother praying for us 

Until we are ready to try again, to get behind the Boulder and begin together in the same direction. 


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