What if the Mayans are Right?

Will everything just go “bang?” Will death hurt? Will it be fast?

Courtesy: skepticalraptor.com

(PORTLAND, OR) - What will you do if the Mayans are right? What if the world really ends on December 20th, 2012? Will you decide not to make your car payment? Will you decide not to make your house or apartment rental payment? After all, if the world ends on December 20th, no need to buy Christmas presents, or spend money for groceries for Christmas dinner. Will you attend an “end of the world party,” on December 19th at some fancy night club? Will you party like there is no tomorrow because there might not be a tomorrow? Will you put the party costs on your credit card because the bill will never come?

Or will you call all your friends and relatives and tell them goodbye? Say goodbye to your Facebook friends? Gather your family around you in front of the fire place and hold close all that is dear to you? Will you look for the family bible that has been gathering dust on the shelf? With so many natural disasters happening in the world around us, tsunamis, hurricanes, wild fires and floods, maybe, just maybe, the Mayans are right. Perhaps we are in the “end times,” hurtling through time and space toward the inevitable end? We are certainly capable of destroying ourselves even if God doesn't do it first. What did the Mayans know that we don't?

If you knew the day you were going to die, what would you do differently now? Maybe December 20th looming before us gives us a moment to reflect back on life, a chance to forgive grudges and hard feelings, a chance to stop doing harm. A time to be thankful for the good people and good things around us. A chance to snuggle your kitty for perhaps the last time. Do you wonder where you will go when death actually comes? Where will the kitty go? Will everything just go “bang?” Will death hurt? Will it be fast?

Pray God that it is fast! No one wants to feel the pain of dying. What if you could see the epitaph on your new tomb stone. What would people say about you? Would it be good? When you're dead, people always say good things, because you are now the “poor dearly departed.” But you know how you have lived your life. You know if the good things they are saying about you are true.

What if you could write your own epitaph? What would you put on your tomb stone? Could you be truthful? What the hell, tell the truth you'll be dead anyway! Or if you cannot be truthful about the way you've lived your life, could the Mayans be forcing us all to re-evaluate our past before we jump into the yawning pit of death hoping for heaven?

I'm not thumping the bible here but facing death should cause us to be better persons. What I do know is that “what goes around comes around.” Now is the time to see what might be coming your way. Now is the time to change your life if you are afraid of what your karma might be. Talk more to your kids. Remember what it was like to be their age. Talk to your husband; put your arms around him and make love to him in the bed you share. Pillow talk is the most honest conversation you will have with your mate. It is also important to be honest to yourself. Have a conversation with yourself. Tell yourself it is time to be the person God wants you to be.

I personally do not think that world will end on December 20th, 2012. I would be very suspicious if God chose to share his end-of-the-world time line with anyone, let alone the Mayans. Besides the world hasn't seen all the tribulations promised in the book of Revelations. I think that the calender on your wall which ends December 31'st just starts over again on the next day. Time did not end, the world did not end, the calendar ended! The Mayan calendar too just ends. Perhaps the Mayans just couldn't find a rock big enough to carve more time onto it. The whole purpose of the Mayan calendar, I think, has served to scare us into rethinking our lives, scare us into being better people knowing that our real purpose in life is to help humanity, not to fill our pockets with the money we can't take with us anyway. Still, you can't help but wonder, what if the Mayans are right? I'll get back to you on December 21 on this...maybe.

Please feel free to peruse my personal website, for your reading pleasure, with articles written about me and editorials and essays that I've written myself. https://sites.google.com/a/pdx.edu/don-l-dupay/

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Donald Lee Dupay was a police officer for the Portland, Oregon police bureau, from 1961 to 1977. After five years service as a patrol officer Don was promoted to detective where he worked all the specialty units, morals, auto theft, checks, safe, burglary, special missions, and homicide. He was also an officer coach, instructing others on how to be productive detectives and teaching criminal investigation subjects at the police academy. Don witnessed the unintended consequences of the war on drugs that caused some of the officers in his department to become corrupt. Frustrated by that corruption he quit his job as a homicide detective and became the director of security at a major Portland hotel for several years.

Don has long thought we should legalize the so-called "consensual crimes" of drug distribution and use so we can stop killing each other over our failed drug policies. In his presentations Don offers an interesting perspective on additional unintended consequences - "collateral damage" - the countless innocent lives destroyed by drug prohibition.