“I’m Sorry You Weren’t Saved in the Rapture.”

Thus reads the official blog for Judgment Day 2011. The automated blog post was intended to be an “I told you so” to survivors of Judgment Day and an attempt to have us left behind find our way to Jesus and save our souls before the second wave hits.

While Harold Camping, the retired civil engineer turned prophet, still has not officially emerged from seclusion there have been several pastors across the country asking for forgiveness from parishioners due to the misguided information.

Matt Ivers from Idaho offers this apology:

“I am very sorry for wrongly teaching that and it is my best and sincere interest to not mislead, frustrate, or lie to anyone. I hope that you can forgive me and that we can all grow spiritually from this lesson.”

I think it would be wonderful to all grow spiritually from this experience. For starters, I’d like us to become more conscious and responsible about the things we say.

One of the most fascinating things about this whole Rapture business is how many of us sat up and took notice. Like the prophets in the Old Testament, our contemporary prophets are not always dialed in to the exact truthiness of a thing. But, wow, do they have passion. When someone believes something with all of their being, it is hard not to stop and marvel at it, wonder how it came to be that they feel so strong about it and decide for myself if I, too, am of the same mind.

However, many of us push our way into the “fields” of other people and attempt to manipulate their organic decision making processes.

George W. Bush looked very sincere, even earnest, about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) but he wasn’t passionate. It was Colin Powell, who I actually trusted, that was most convincing because of his character. “Well, maybe they do have them,” said the part of me that wants to trust others…

Renowned scientist, Stephen Hawking, came out publicly last week and suggested that the only reason he is still alive today is due to science. It makes me wonder.

“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

Hawking, the 69 year old physicist, is much like Albert Einstein in the latter years of his life, offering his $.02 about humanity, God and what, if anything, might come beyond this life.

What troubles me, however, is the arrogance that tends to accompany such declarations. Many of us believe that we think a certain way, therefore it must be so. There tends to be a dismissal of the possibility that I may be wrong, that I may be influenced by my emotions, my personal journey, and that, most important, others may believe and “know” things that directly conflict with things that I “know.” And what is more, it tends to be those already in the public eye that have the greatest impact on our beliefs. Yet, with the power of the Internet, we hear from all sorts of folks now.

There is a spiritual pride that many believers assume when they know something. There is also a pride that many non-believers assume when they know something. That pride tends to resemble straight arrogance when we assume that because I know it, you must know it as well. Even more, if you refuse to know it, you are either an idiot, ignorant, or going to burn in Hell.

Whether my computer will simply power down into nothingness at the end of my life or if I return to a conscious state of endless bliss and everythingness, my process of self-discovery and transformation is my own.

If I need you to believe what I believe in order to feel more assurance that what I believe is correct, then I don’t really know what I know.

As one of the old school prophets suggested, “Not By Might, Nor By Power, But By My Spirit – Zechariah 4:6.” Live and let live, people. Trust your heart and live the life you believe is yours to live, regardless of all the chatter that may surround you.

When a government (headed by people we the people elect) say and do crazy things, are their absurd behaviors a result of the individuals themselves or is it part of a larger, systemic institutional insanity that is really to blame?

If a man walks into a school board meeting, spray paints a red “V” on the wall that resembles something concocted in and by Hollywood to resemble some authentic symbol of revolution, anarchy or dissent and then goes on to shoot up the place, can we say that his instability is personal and not institutional?

When a body of law-makers votes for a war based on unverified evidence of weapons of mass destruction but everyone seems to believe there are in fact weapons of destruction, is the insanity about the individuals themselves who voted yes or about the tribal consciousness that believes that one country has the right to attack another country?

When a couple of high school kids murder their fellow students on their way to eat an unhealthy school lunch and a few miles away hums one of the largest assembly plants that builds weapons of mass destruction, is it about the personal mental illnesses of the boys or the national mental illness of the corporations, governments and voters?

If a shark appears in the Red Sea (a body of water connected to every other ocean in the world) and starts eating tourists much in the way that Jaws terrorized Amity but the Egyptian government suggests that the shark was trained by Israeli intelligence to disrupt tourism, is it about the absurd ideas of an individual who suggests it or about the culture that allows such thoughts to exist? Jaws or Jews?

“What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark (in the sea) to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question, but it needs time to confirm,” South Sinai Governor Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha was quoted as saying by state news site egynews.net.

If I never had a fear of sharks until I went to see a movie called “Jaws” at a very young age, is it me that is crazy if I fear sharks and I live thousands of miles from an ocean or is it Steven Spielberg, or Hollywood, or a society that pays for tickets to see horror films, or a nature channel that airs an insatiable series called “Shark Week?”

We are so quick to label this or that person “insane” or “sociopathic” and yet we typically resist the notion that an entire way of thinking or doing can be mentally unhealthy.

I turned on the TV the other night to find Sarah Palin, a candidate for Vice President of the United States of America, teaching Kate Gosselin of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” fame (a reality show about a couple, well now a woman, with 8 kids, bad hair and an attitude) how to shoot a shot gun because they were going on a camping trip together with their kids and they might, just might, encounter a bear so they had better know how to defend their kids.

Sarah Palin, herself, is a fascinating example of how things have gotten totally insane in this country. Penelope Trunk, the Brazen Careerist, suggested that Palin is “running her career in ways I intuitively think we should all be running our careers.” Why? Because she left an elected position as governor of Alaska so she could better position herself to become president… Does that really make sense in the grand scheme of things? Or, right now, Rahm Emanuel, who left Chicago to go work for the President of the United States, is being pummeled here in Chicago, where he’d like to serve as mayor, because he left the city temporarily… Really?

That’s absurd. Isn’t it absurd? How is it not absurd? Am I crazy for thinking it is crazy? Are we all crazy? Is it just me?

I’m still afraid of sharks and I watch Shark Week every August with a fervor that deeply troubles my wife who would jump for joy if her husband would just once go diving with her (in the ocean).

One of the few times in my life that I have actually ventured into the open sea happened to have been snorkeling in the Red Sea. “There are no sharks in here, silly, it is just like a big lake,” said my buddy as we kicked our feet harder and farther, past the coral and into the oil streaks… That’s insane.