Left Behind...AGAIN!

The Tall Lady has deserted us. On Wednesday morning, she loaded up the aptly named Escape, and departed for the Cabin with her mom and dad, abandoning five poor, helpless, little cats to my questionable, if well-intentioned, care. She has gone (she says) to plant blueberry bushes, cut lawns, and to take an inventory of what remains in the house following the recent break-in. It's been three days, and I feel like an orphan.

The Fierce Black Panthers seem to think it's recess!

I was a little concerned that we might lose her last Saturday evening. That was when fundamentalist Christian broadcaster Harold Camping said that the Rapture was due to occur. I was imagining the alarmed expressions on the faces of our three startled kittens, when their warm lap suddenly disappeared from under them, leaving them alone on the armchair with mom's yarn and knitting needles. Of course, I would have been there too - left behind...AGAIN!

The Rapture, my fellow infidels, refers to the moment mentioned in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, when the faithful few "which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them (the righteous departed) in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Many "Christian" fundamentalists interpret this as the time when a white, conservative, nordic Jesus will carry all of the inbred, narrow-minded, selfish, bigoted buffoons like themselves to a Heaven that resembles some antebellum Dixie Disneyland. As it says on W.C. Fields' headstone: "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

Some of the "faithful" parted with their substantial earthly treasures last week, giving them away to the Republican Party, West Bank building societies or celebrity rehab clinics. Now they're all feeling a little disgruntled. Almost a whole week has gone by, and the wicked are still with them - or more properly, they are still with us.

I went out for coffee with a group of friends on Thursday afternoon. After all, the cats have already been abandoned by one parent, they can do without the other one for an hour or two. One of our topics of conversation was the uneventful passing of the Rapture's deadline. My friend, Richard Abrams, listened very carefully to everyone, and posed an interesting hypothesis: what if it actually had happened?

What if there really was a Rapture on Saturday night, and Jesus had already picked everybody that he wanted to play on his team? What if we - you, me, the Tall Lady and even poor Richard himself had just not been chosen?

Well, I'm used to it.

But then, Harold Camping wasn't picked either!