The Beginning of the World As We Know It

It would appear that we are all still here, after all. It won't have gone unnoticed that much internet and general press hay has been made over claims by a certain Harold Camping, who was completely convinced that May 21st was to be the day when everything came to an end. The apocalyptic starting gun, in the form of a chain of earthquakes, was to be fired in New Zealand (that probably makes up for the fact that they are always first for the good stuff like Christmas and New Year) and then spread around the globe. Meanwhile, avoiding all the mayhem, the Rapture would take all the true believers from the earth. And that, as they say, would be that. But it wasn't. And I can't help wondering what Harold must have felt waking up that day of days, not in heaven, but in his own familiar bed in his own familiar house in his own familiar street. CBS news has him quoted as saying that he was 'flabbergasted'. That's an understatement of epic proportions.
It is easy to make Harold and his followers a target for ridicule, but the whole idea of the end of the world got me thinking about the beginning of the world. Not in the sense of Genesis and creation, but in the sense in which the world is renewed each day. We share a deep resonance, I believe, in which we know or feel that the world is always ending and always beginning. Within this general feeling there are epiphanies which make such endings and beginnings more tangible. These moments occur throughout our lives, and it seems to me that to keep our eyes open for those times and seasons is what offers the true apocalypse, the true lifting of the veil. And it is such a revelation which provides us with the resources, regardless of the changes and chances of this life, to live more peacably.
It's the beginning of the world as we know it.... and that essence of life is captured exquisitely by REM in their ironic homage to the subject....