...as we know it
“things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil.”
If you grew up in a certain kind of Household, this very moment may be scaring you.
You were warned about “the end times.” You were told that a “trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend.” You get nervous when you hear unexpected music in Von King Park. People would be swept up on that day. Their clothes would be left behind in an ominous pile. A full story without flesh. Even if you did not grow up in Christian/evangelical household, you might still be getting nervous about the End Times. Because Christian theologies have a strong grip on pop culture. It is right to be afraid, because you’re human. This moment is scary because it is historic. The entire world is groaning in agony due to:
a. the coronavirus and
b. State powers fumbling by resisting the expertise of those who know better/counting the cost before all else.
It’s scary. Before you continue reading, breathe. For real. Take a minute to relax your shoulders, unfurrow your brow, do whatever you need to settle your body.
Beloveds, if there is an End of the World™, we have been close to it for a very long time. That is, IF there is an “end to the world™.”
So long as someone is oppressing another, so long as any living creature does not have what they need to survive, so long as someone has made GOOD business making sure that things would always “stay the same,” the world has been ending. If you have endured great loss, perhaps you may have felt like your “whole world changed” or even that “your world ended.”
Worlds sadly end daily. New worlds, and new Suns, are also created every day. It’s disorienting.
In the Christian story, we have been talking about the end of the world for thousands of years. And we’ve been repeating this story for years. That is what it means to be in a tradition. You rehearse the story. Until, well, forever. When you rehearse things over and over, you end up making them true. It takes critical reflection to live faithfully. At some point, we have to stop the uncritical rehearsal and ask, “is this reflective of a Good and Loving God?” The way most of us talk about “the end times,” God is a Cop in the Sky, Big Brother, the Warden, the Overseer, the Master, Santa Claus who “knows if you’ve been bad or good.”
Something that has been helpful for me is news that the word “apocalypse” does not mean “the end of the world.” Its original Greek meaning is more like, “uncovering,” or “unveiling.” When our professor Rev. Dr. Aliou Niang and TA (the not-yet-then but now Dr. Amy Meverden) clued us in on this, I lost it. This simple shift has been helping me to calm myself down for years.
If you don’t trust me, I included three examples of the root word “apocalypse” in other contexts. I want you to see, in plain English, er, Greek, that the word “apocalypse” is used in many other contexts as “uncovering.”
2 Corinthians 12:1, screengrab from scripture4all.org’s Greek Interlinear Bible.
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10, screengrab from scripture4all.org’s Greek Interlinear Bible.
Romans 16:25, screengrab from scripture4all.org’s Greek Interlinear Bible.
If the word Christians want to use is “apocalypse,” then we ought not be talking about “the end of the world.” That will send us into despair and inaction. We oughta be talking about “what’s getting uncovered.” That will empower us to meet the moment.
That feels a lot less anxiety-inducing, right? News reporters uncover truth, makeup influencers uncover their “beauty hauls” and take us through the products/how to use them, I uncover the pot of chili that my dad is making. You know, just to make sure that it’s cooking right. That’s an important step. Love you, Pops.
Uncovering is dangerous only if you have some investment in the veil. It’s why Jennicet Gutiérrez was shushed in the company of Rainbow Inc. at the White House in 2015. It’s why Callie House’s mail was intercepted by the federal government. It’s why non-profits tend not to retain Black women staff members who have “challenging” views.
But the rest of us need uncovering. We need the truth.
Many people profit off making folks believe that the “end of the world is nigh.” They fill stadiums of hopeful believers, they fill orders of apocalypse bunkers, they pad their pockets with money from people who thought they could “buy their way in.”
<<One time, our youth group went to a basketball game specifically for Christian youth groups, and the organizers swindled us into a captive audience situation. They said, “wouldn’t you hate if you left here tonight and got into an accident and didn’t know where your soul was going? You can get to know Christ right now, and you’ll be assured your soul is going to heaven.” Thank God for our chaperones who helped us debrief and process that moment. They were startled by it, too.>>
So many people have been bullied, scared, swindled, frightened into Christianity. So many people have found themselves captive to somebody’s idea of Christ hoping that the time they got dunked (or sprinkled) would preserve them long enough to get them into heaven.
It is the end of the world, as we know it. That is what it means for something to be uncovered. No more lies, no more swindles, no more twists of the truth.
What is being revealed? Things that many people already knew.
U.S. Healthcare is not designed for everyone to be well. The rich can get tests, compassion and care, even when they are asymptomatic. The number of people who do not have homes in the U.S. is a moral crisis, a public health concern, and a shame considering the number of empty luxury condos I can count in my own neighborhood. The most vulnerable workers carry the brunt of the load, in crisis and every other day. And we BEEN had reparations money!
Of course, a crisis response is not sustainable. This moment has exposed the fact that we can live differently. They just told us we couldn’t.
Still, there have always been prophets who said the world was ending. There is power in listening to the most impacted. If you’ve ever had the chance to hear or read Angela Davis speak, you will notice that she often talks about prisons. Why?
Because if a violation is possible in this space, it is certainly possible elsewhere. How we treat vulnerable people says something about our character as a society. How we practice becomes muscle memory for the future. The ideas we lean on, the assumptions we make about who is worthy of care, the concessions we make for the sake of “civility,” the people we would most quickly sacrifice.
We become what we practice.
(Thank you to my piano and guitar teachers for helping me with this. Now I have a lot more time, and I’m finally getting the chords down to “Out Tonight” from RENT)
If it is possible for us to suspend water, basic healthcare, human rights, concern, compassion to anyone ever, it is possible Anywhere Else. And here we are. In the Anywhere Else.
If the apocalypse means, “unveiling,” then that means that the funk is so stinky that the whole house has to pay attention to it.
<<One time, a racoon (yes, Brooklyn has racoons) found its way into my parents’ house. It sadly died in a crawlspace. It smelled up the whole house. No amount of candles, incense, air freshener covers up the stench of death. Death stinks. Death is not something to wax poetic about. Death is real. Somebody died, Beverly.>>
And yet, perhaps this moment feels like you’re living through the fulfillment of some strange televangelist prophecy. After all, this feels like the stuff of those intense prayers and exhortations. Maybe you might have seen an uptick in this particular scripture from 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” Maybe you’re wondering if this virus is a “punishment” because we didn’t “worship God in spirit and in truth.”
But I do not believe this is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
This moment, however, absolutely is a consequence of the rich and mighty hoarding wealth, resources, and care... and leaving the rest of us to figure it out.
More than this being the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy, more than this being the “End Times,” more than the plagues being released, it is more likely that this moment is exposing this nation and this world for what it is.
There is so much trouble all over this world.
And yet.
This moment is revealing that the remedy has always been community. Mutual aid projects for neighbors, including sex workers, immunocompromised people, elderly people, artists, teachers, bartenders and waiters have either started or been reinvigorated.
We are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us. We are not as strong as our degrees, letters after or before our names, sorority and fraternity colors we wear, the jewelry we were given by our perfect spouse, the speaking engagements we got, the people we have access to, the cars we drive, the houses we own.
Well, perhaps those things might strengthen us for a bit, but they do not insulate us from the Wind.
So, if you’re having some Post Traumatic Christian Stress Disorder, please know that you are not alone. We’ve been consuming (and singing) ideas about “favor”, “wickedness” and “blessings” which often leave predictable cohorts of people outside in the cold. Black folks and all people of color, women, refugees, disabled and chronically ill people, queer and trans folks, cash-poor people… and anyone else who cannot muster up enough capital to pay the cover into the Earthly Kingdom Club hosted by Earthly Kings.
… but there’s something about that name. (If you know, you know.)
A word of caution, though.
Many things will be revealed to us. But we ought not do the Devil’s work for Him. We do not need to suffer in order to learn. We can learn from suffering, but suffering is not how we should learn.
No one needed to get sick. No one needed to die. Ecofascism is the idea that humans were “the real virus” all along. Your auntie, your grandma, your neighbors, did not need to be collateral damage in order for the remaining humans to understand. What kind of God teaches a lesson like that ?
My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?— Jesus, as he was dying.
Besides, if “humans were the virus” was even a valid posture, Corporations and the US military are more responsible for climate change and increasing ocean temps than you and me. If anyone is to learn a lesson, it’s them. And they haven’t.
A concrete thing you can do-- write down/draw/compose a poem to describe things you’re seeing today. What does the world feel like to you today? Where is your heart? What are you worried about? What brings you hope? What images come to mind? What songs are vibrating in your mind’s ear? Set a timer for 10 minutes and just let it out.
Compare what you’ve written to the same apocalyptic texts haunting you now.
Do you notice similarities? Differences? Where are they?
Consider: These apocalyptic texts are evidence that someone in history has felt like you do. History, inside and out of the Bible, is a gift. For me at least, it is affirming to be able to say, “oh snap, they were actually under a pharaoh who wanted them to build bricks without straw and pay rent without living wage” “oh snap, these were people whose very landmarks and calendars were appropriated and destroyed,” “oh snap, so people were just means of production and they didn’t even get to be human.”
Consider: Those people are not necessarily “telling the future” so much as they might be “telling the truth.” And because truth is eternal, it feels pretty intense right now. It feels like prophecy because there have always been rulers in high places who carry out wickedness.
When I am fearful, I return to the wisdom of the sages. How did they survive? How did they hold on? I ask my ancestors and sometimes they don’t have answers. Sometimes they just say, “I know, baby.” That is witness enough.
How did they make sense of the nonsense? And how did they go on when nothing fit? When death knocked too many times at the same door? When the wicked bosses and tyrants prospered? When the people who shoulda still been with us ain’t anymore? For this, I turn to the old music like the Fisk Jubilee Singers preserve.
<<Because honestly, “You Deserve It” and “Every Praise” just don’t slap in times like these.>>
Imagine that these stories, laments, fears, and yes, prophecies are a Facebook Timeline. Everybody is just saying how they feel, not realizing that perhaps thousands of years later, someone might come back to your post as wisdom. We resonate with these stories because there will always be people who swindle the most vulnerable. Throughout history, we’ve had Pharaohs, Caesars, Emperors, Presidents. It feels intense, new, real, eerie, because we have always had a war between powers and the rest of us.
BUT.
There will always be people who tell the truth. There will always be people who resist. There will always be people who journal. People who get the children together in a circle and let them know what Those Days were like. You can be one of those people.
If you find yourself scared, I feel you. Me too. I wanted 2020 to be something different. I mourn the lives lost daily. I lament the incompetence and refusal of our nation to respond appropriately. I cry for the families. And when I’m not as heated, I mourn the now-small-potatoes-in-the-scheme-of-things opportunities that disappeared, the dates I wanted to go on, the parties I wanted to stunt at, the apple pies, the candy bags in church, the hugs. I mourn the illusion (at least) that I could be in control of my life. This, quite frankly, is NOT what I was expecting on this season of The Real World.
Here’s another peek under the veil. May it be so.
Revelation 21:3-4 (NRSV)
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. [God] will dwell with them; they will be [God’s] peoples, and God [Godself] will be with them; 4 [God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more....”
Everybody Rejoice, The Wiz, 1978
“Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up
Into the morning into happiness
Hello world
It's like a different way of living now
And thank you world
We always knew that we'd be free somehow
In harmony
And show the world that we've got liberty
It's such a change
For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
A new day is coming. A new heaven and a new earth is coming. I see it. It’s one where tears will be wiped away because we’ll be able to touch each other’s faces again with tenderness. It’s the world that was born out of us practicing a new way of living today. Of practicing care, concern, of compassion for the most vulnerable to the point that there no longer is “a vulnerable” one. One where everyone has a home, everyone has food, everyone is safe, debts are forgiven, everyone has free quality and humane healthcare, where wars and spats are done, where each body can get what it needs, where love flows free.
May it be uncovered.
Oh, why Eartha Kitt dressed as CatWoman? First of all, why not? Secondly, Eartha Kitt told the truth about the Vietnam War at the White House. Her truth-telling “made Lady Bird Johnson” cry. She lost a lot of work due to that, and eventually could only get gigs in Europe. Thought it’d be nice to see a Black woman in a mask. A little something for the cosplayers and the history buffs, ya know?
Photo cred: https://www.66batmania.com/bios/villains/catwoman-eartha-kitt/.
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