I have been so taken by the drama of the Haddad children of Middletown, Maryland. It isn’t the “end of the world” drama. I grew up with that. It isn’t the silliness of Harold Camping’s calculations—although I will say that Doonesbury nailed it in his column this morning. It’s the diversity of responses by the people who are in the situation whether they like it or not. That was the focus of this piece in the New York Times this morning and it is the focus of my ruminations as well.
It is 16 year old Grace Haddad whose response is picked up in the Times headline, “Make My Bed? But You Say the World’s Ending.” Some things come and go, like predictions that the world will end soon. Other things endure forever, like the kinds of reasons kids give for not making their beds.
I marvel, also, at this teenager’s balance. Listen to this one. “My mom has told me directly that I’m not going to get into heaven,” Grace Haddad, 16, said. “At first it was really upsetting, but it’s what she honestly believes.” There may be some “I know I’m talking to a reporter” in the phrasing, but when you put “At first I was really upset” next to “but it’s what she honestly believes,” you get a very stable and balanced teenager.
I sympathize, too, with Kino Douglas. He is an agnostic and his sister Stacey is part of the “end of the world on May 21” group. So far, so good. But, says Kino, “She doesn’t want to talk about anything else.” Ooops. That’s really a tough one. Kino also says he plans to show up at his sister’s house on Sunday morning—the morning after the world didn’t end—to have “a conversation that’s been years in coming.” I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be up to a challenge like that. How could you drop in on a monomaniacal sister on THAT MORNING and be the brother you really ought to me. Thinkin’ of ya, Kino.
Joseph, at age 14, one of the Haddad children, says, “I don’t really have any motivation to try to figure out what I want to do anymore,” he said, “because my main support line, my parents, don’t care.” His mother says she understands that “believers lose friends and you lose family members in the process.” She is “losing a family member;” he is mourning that his parents don’t care about him anymore.
Grace would like to go to a birthday party tonight, “if the world doesn’t end,” but she’d also like to be available for her family, because she thinks they may be emotionally distraught at still
being here.
I think the thing that most caught my interest is that all these reactions are so very normal. They could all be elicited, with different timelines, by the closing of a much-loved local pizza place or the building of a skateboard facility in a nearby park of the erection of a wind turbine just outside your front window. These are very human dilemmas. The difference is that all the relationships will have to be reconfigured on Sunday morning.
Of course, that was true on the first Easter Sunday, too.
This isn't the first time this kind of prediction has been made, as you said, and it won't be the last. But what interests me is all the press coverage this has gotten. So now we go back to the age-old question: Is it getting lots of coverage because everyone's so interested--which is as it should be--or is everyone so interested because the media have latched onto this? And if so, why this one? Is it just the 24-hour news cycle?
ReplyDeleteMy problem with this end-of-the-world thing is that it's so effective at getting people worked up. No matter what you believe, you can't have someone tell you that something really horrible is going to happen to you tomorrow and then not worry about it. Can't be done, no matter how rediculous the assertion. Your fear of it will be in direct proportion to the severity of the event to come.
I hate it that I allow crap like this to affect me, but it does.
-Doug
This time, I think it attracted so much attention because the predictor owns several TV and a bunch of radio stations. This puts him in the category Mark Twain called "anyone who buys his ink by the barrel." It's easier to walk by a guy with a sandwich board.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the Rapture--which requires a Raptor, a fact not often recognized--is a momentous and potentially scary event, but I was interested this time by how many people said something like, "Wow, there's a bunch of people who, on Sunday morning, are going to need a friend. I wonder what I can do." That's a pretty nifty response, I think
It's so good to hear from a Fellow Blogger!
I think you’re talking to a different caliber of people than I am, Pop. Most people I’ve spoken to about this have made some joke about saying, “If you’re so sure you’re going to be taken up, you won’t be needing your car anymore, right?”
ReplyDeleteI’d love to say I’m not one of those people, but it’s hard not to feel judgmental and even angry at people who tell me that I’m not worthy and that I will endure untold suffering while they’re in heaven. It’s not easy to feel compassion for people like that.
You can (one can) feel superior to me, but don’t expect sympathy when it turns out that you had bad intel and that the tea leaves are just tea leaves.
Ya know?
P.S. I LOVE your title here. Nice play.
ReplyDelete