I grew up casually but firmly believing that the world would end in fire, one way or the other.
The one way was nuclear war, and the other was divine judgment. Although I could and did imagine possible distant futures, I knew they were unlikely. If the bombs didn't get us, Jesus would. Both scenarios made sense and seemed right to me, but of course, I hoped it would be Jesus who got us.
I was born in 1978 in Brasilia, and spent my childhood in Brazil. Mine was the last generation of children to know that catastrophic nuclear war could be just around the corner. I don't know what it was like for kids in the States, but there was nothing in the structure of our lives that made concession to this reality. There were no fifties-style classroom desk drills, no bomb shelters.
I was very impressed when, while visiting with relatives on Long Island at twelve years old, my uncle told me that the high poles lining the beach were air raid sirens. The Berlin Wall fell the following year.
Nuclear bombs were the infinity plus one of our arguments when playing war in the neighborhood. They probably still are. I shot you. I'm not dead, I have special armor. Tank. Bunker. B-52. Nuclear bomb, I win. No, spaceship with lasers. Spaceship can't escape nuclear bomb, you lose!
There was more than one “what if” conversation had in the several neighborhoods I lived in. What if there were a nuclear war? My dad said, my teacher said, we'd all be dead, no we wouldn't.
We moved every year of my childhood until I was sixteen, when we lived in Arlington, Massachusetts for two solid years. When I realized we'd reached this milestone I bound up the stairs of our Philadelphia-style house announcing that it was high time we moved. Although we would have moved regardless of my opinion, I still wonder that I did that. I had it so good in that town. Perhaps I was giving my parents my blessing. I think I had told myself it was a better way to live.
As a child I read. My mother kept me as well supplied as she could. There was no real public library system in Brazil, and there was certainly no internet then. I read my mother's books over and over again. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Asimov. Again and again.
At age nine or ten I read On The Beach, Nevil Shute's novel about an American submarine crew hanging out in Australia until post-war nuclear fallout enveloped the entire world and mankind went extinct. It was explained to me that that would never happen in a real nuclear war; at some point the fallout would dissipate, and total extinction was improbable. I don't recall if I asked or if the information was volunteered.
I loved that book.
When I was fifteen, by that time living in Massachusetts and working at a used bookshop, I came across an earlier Shute novel. I enjoyed it, but was disappointed that it was a small romance story. Sure, it was set against the backdrop of the Battle of Britain, but that was small potatoes compared to complete annihilation.
I've not read On the Beach since I was a kid. I have no idea if it was saying anything important, but it certainly seemed to me then that it was. I mean, how can you beat an extinction event for provoking an existential crisis and bringing about meaningful self-examination?
I examined myself daily. My special concern for a while was to not commit the unforgivable sin, but I got over that soon enough. I was always careful, whenever I thought about the end of the world, to ask God for forgiveness for whatever sins I'd committed since the last time. And I thought about the apocalypse several times a day, every day. The imminent end was my reality. There were signs of the times. Earthquakes. Wars. Rumors of wars!
I should clarify. I wasn't usually thinking about the end of the world, I was thinking about Jesus’ return. The fiery consummation of the world would be one of the results of that return.
My mindset was not depressive or bleak. I knew that if Jesus came back while I was sinning or not up to date on my prayers, I'd still be saved. I had no doubt of that. I'd worked through that when I'd worked through my fear of the Devil sneaking up on me and making me curse God in my mind. (The unforgivable sin is cursing the Holy Spirit, and over the years I've spoken to many who feared the same satanic ambush in the dark that I did.) I wasn't worried about being saved. I just wanted to minimize my embarrassment when I went to be with Jesus. I couldn't help but constantly dash off these prayers so I wouldn't have to tell him what I was sorry for face to face.
For a similar reason I always dressed quickly. I didn't want to get caught up into the air with only one shoe on, or worse, naked. To this day the thought comes unbidden to me as I slip on my briefs or tie my shoes: Okay, Jesus can come back now. I'm ready. I don't even believe in the Rapture anymore (it's unbiblical, y'all, try the Day of Resurrection on for size), but I feel progressively better with each item of clothing I put on in the morning, imagining myself caught up in the sky with other people in varied states of undress.
As a kid I hadn't gotten the memo that when we all got sucked up into the air we'd be going naked.
Nineteen eighty-eight was a big year. It was my first full year as a confessed Christian, and my father's second. My mother had been praying for my father’s salvation since she'd converted at a Bible study for Americans in Brasilia shortly before my birth. Nineteen eighty-eight was also the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Forty years is a biblically portentous time period. Jesus likes to be portentous. Bet you he comes back around now, it was said.
We reminded ourselves that no one knew the hour, but we knew that Jesus could come back tomorrow, and that there were a lot of tomorrows in a year.
Layer, when I went to college in Florida, I became friends with a guy whose church had split up over 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988. Houses had been sold, good-byes been told, arrangements for pets had been made, faucets been left dripping for those same pets.
We were wiser than that. I knew that any date that I saw predicted on a lamppost flyer or heard prophesied from a pulpit I could safely eliminate as a possible ETA for Jesus the Lord, because he would come like a thief in the night, but any other day was a possibility.
And the thing was, once Jesus came back, this was all going to burn.
I was comfortable with the thought that billions might die in atom-splitting fire and poison. I resigned myself to the fact that billions would die eternally. Although I did some things to bring those close to me onto my Jesus ark, I spent my teenage years having written the world off.
My first year as a teen a huge fire burned our house down along with thousands more.
Comments
Post a Comment