Act Like Ya Got Some Sense

On a recent Sunday morning I started to sing a couple of hymns from my churchgoing days, before I turned 16. "The Prayer of St. Francis" was one:

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to conso-o-o-le,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my so-o-o-ul...
Make me a channel of your peace...
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned...
And in dying that we're born to eternal life.

With respect to that eternal-life part, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently caused a stir by saying heaven is a fantasy. Apparently nobody told those Rapture people, or maybe somebody did and they said, "Fuck Stephen Hawking." For the 10 or 12 people out there who read this and don't know who the Rapture people are, they're the ones who believed that some kind of divine process was going to absorb the deserving among them into heaven on May 21. Didn't happen, by the way. Harold Camping, who spearheads that movement, now says the shit is really going to hit the fan on October 21. We'll be judged, rewarded or destroyed along with the rest of the world.
Color me mildly skeptical, but maybe they could persuade me to get on board. If so, though, I'd like some insurance. I would like Mr. Camping to guarantee that I'll receive compensation if, in fact, the world doesn't end in October. Because when I cross that line and have complete conviction that October is it, I'm going to quit my job. And I'm going to spend my money. And I'm going to eat what I want and drink what I want and stop exercising. You get the picture. Live every day like it's your last because pretty soon it's going to be. Unless it's not.
So when I get to October 21, at the ostensible tail end of my brief Bacchanalian existence, who's going to support me and my family? I bought a Blu-ray player and surround-sound system, man, and now I'm busted. You're telling me life goes on now? I don't get sucked into heaven or die some sort of horrible death (now, anyway)? You can't do that to a poor sot like me and just say, oops, the Rapture has been postponed. Where's the accountability here?
If the Rapture were to happen, YouTube would go ape shit, until it was destroyed. I mean, everyone has a cellphone video camera. I give that Rapture video four stars. It doesn't quite measure up to the Mentos-and-Coke geyser, but it's not bad. Speaking of cellphones, I have to believe all those people floating up into heaven would interfere with service. Some people would be more pissed about that than having been left behind. "OMG, my texting isn't working." FYI, I'd be RFLMAO, FWIW.
So instead of being marginalized and relegated to the lunatic fringe, these people get mainstream-media coverage. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. At least they did do some almost-tongue-in-cheek stuff. The WSJ published a piece about how people are making money off of the believers by, for example, saying they'll take care of the pets after the owners ascend to heaven. Not sure why the pets wouldn't go to heaven, too. Not a dog-friendly place, I suppose. Can't have St. Peter stepping in dog shit. But, aside from maybe a reference to it as a curiosity, why do these people receive press coverage at all? Because the media have to fill up TV channels and website and, still, even print in some cases? And here I am, culpable as well by writing about them, for the 10 or 12 of you out there. I get the irony. I still don't even understand the apparent contradiction between God being all-forgiving but some people not making it to heaven. Repent and you're saved, motherfucker. Or maybe not. I need one of those dummy books--"The Dummies Guide to Heaven." Yellow and black cover with flitting people.
This whole affair just calls to mind what the Metro security guy said to the throngs on the train platform in D.C. over the Easter/Cherry Blossom weekend a few years ago: "Act like ya got some sense."