Eternity

I also had a nice conversation with a neighbor whom I hired to build a barn ten years ago. Lee, being a good Christian, suggested that I prepare for the hereafter. He had an official-looking and well-used Bible at hand to provide authority for his points.

Lee was especially keen about the upcoming millennium and the then-popular portents of doom. He urged with legitimate sincerity that "it's the end of the world in 2000, don't be left behind, get ready." We discussed some of the problems with the millennium dating, given the shift of four years caused by the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Was Lee late for the Rapture? Had the millennium arrived in 1996? Was he one of the unhappy souls left unraptured? Or, was he jumping the gun? Would the rapture be in 2004?

After haggling about dates for a while I suggested that he had a more important and fundamental misunderstanding in his reasoning that left it "insufficient."

"What do you mean?

I asked him where he thought he was. "Wisconsin, Town of Mukwonago" he replied.

"That's the problem" I said as I helped him lift a sheet of plywood. "You don't know where you are. You are in Eternity, right now, right here."

Postponing Eternity to a date certain (or in Lee's case a date not so certain) is slight of hand, an illusion, a bad dream.

Seeing Eternity in the present is a blessing.