I am just completely fascinated with the End Times. Who wouldn't be? There are two facets to this world: one is that of love, joy, positivity, light, compassion, good, encouragement, beauty and appreciation... and then there is one of hate, anger, pessimism, darkness, hurt, selfishness, evil, ugliness and oppression. When will the two meet for judgment? When will one preside over the other? For centuries and centuries this dichotomy has lived in an ironic harmony with each other -- one side not gaining over the other for very long. There has always been this push/pull of good and bad, and it is human nature to want to know what happens at the end of the novel. Does the good guy win? Does the bad guy get punished? Or does the bad guy prevail, turning the whole thing into a dramatic tragedy?

Throughout history, there has been a great number of people predicting the future. Everything from the prophets of the Bible to Nostradamus to Sylvia Brown. Some weren't half bad at it... others didn't even come close. As a Christian, I believe in the Book of Revelation, and that there will be a day of judgment. Some theologists state that the Book of Revelation represents each individual's day of judgment, and that there isn't any "mass" End Times -- only that each human with their own individual spirit will have their own personal "End Times" when they die. These theologists insist that the prophetic words of the Book of Revelation are figurative, not literal.

Then there are others who think that the words are somewhat literal. That they should be interpreted with secret symbols and signs. That statements reveal prophetic words in Ezekiel 38/39 as foretelling a war between the Soviet Union and the restored nation of Israel (the Gog/Magog war) just before the Second Coming of Jesus. So many have tried to interpret the translations of the Bible in order to predict how, when, where and to whom these events will occur.

The latest thing racing across the Internet is the 2012 Mayan Prophecy. Here's a bit more about it (reprinted from an article in USA today about a year ago):

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Special to USA TODAY
With humanity coming up fast on 2012, publishers are helping readers gear up and count down to this mysterious — some even call it apocalyptic — date that ancient Mayan societies were anticipating thousands of years ago.

Since November, at least three new books on 2012 have arrived in mainstream bookstores. A fourth is due this fall. Each arrives in the wake of the 2006 success of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which has been selling thousands of copies a month since its release in May and counts more than 40,000 in print. The books also build on popular interest in the Maya, fueled in part by Mel Gibson's December 2006 film about Mayan civilization, Apocalpyto.

Authors disagree about what humankind should expect on Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya's "Long Count" calendar marks the end of a 5,126-year era.

Journalist Lawrence Joseph forecasts widespread catastrophe in Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End. Spiritual healer Andrew Smith predicts a restoration of a "true balance between Divine Feminine and Masculine" in The Revolution of 2012: Vol. 1, The Preparation. In 2012, Daniel Pinchbeck anticipates a "change in the nature of consciousness," assisted by indigenous insights and psychedelic drug use.

The buildup to 2012 echoes excitement and fear expressed on the eve of the new millennium, popularly known as Y2K, though on a smaller scale, says Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor at Publishers Weekly. She says publishers seem to be courting readers who believe humanity is creating its own ecological disasters and desperately needs ancient indigenous wisdom.

Even the History Channel is running with this new Doomsday Prophecy, with an excerpt taken from a documentary aired back in August:



And it's not just Mayan astronomy that predicts that Winter Solstice 2012 is something significant:

-- In Egypt, the pyramids of Giza seem to have been built so that they would provide both a time marker and an optimum viewing platform for the astronomical phenomena associated with the winter solstice of 2012. On that day, the Milky Way will seem to rise horizontally with the Nile River on the ground, while Orion’s belt will align perfectly with the three major pyramids. In addition to that, the the sun will rise up into alignment with the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

--I've read that NASA predicts that the poles will reverse in a "polar shift" in 2012, but I haven't been able to find evidence of that. What I did find, though, was this article: In February 2001, the Sun did a magnetic polar shift. The next one is due again in 2012. NASA scientists who monitor the Sun say that our star's awesome magnetic field flipped 22 months ago, signaling the arrival of a solar maximum. But it wasn't so obvious to the average human. The Sun's magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It's a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one. "This always happens around the time of solar maximum," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that Solar Max is really here." The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork. Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.

The Sun shifts it's magnetic field every 11 years, and it has already happened for this solar cycle. The Earth's magnetic field flip is much more erratic and has happened approximately 25 times in the last 5 million years. It's been about 740,000 years since the last flip, however, so we're long overdue. There is evidence that we may be heading towards a reversal (the dipole magnetic field is weakening and the higher order terms are increasing), but we can't predict when it would happen. Depending upon how quickly the field reversal happens, it could cause problems for things like electric power lines and oil pipelines, and if the field goes to near zero, it might cause a higher background radiation at the ground, but there is no evidence that previous reversals have had any major biological effect. The forces due to the interaction of the solar and terrestrial magnetic fields are only very small perturbations.
(NASA, October 2000)

Okay, some of the scientific stuff is plausible. But as a Christian, I am fully bound to my perceptions that humankind as a whole cannot possibly know exactly when the world will end. But wait... will it really end?

Many New Age thinkers/believers feel that 2012 only marks a new era -- a shift in the consciousness of the world. I did some deep searching on this via the Internet our of sheer curiosity, and I have to admit that it was pretty entertaining. Some of what I read was:

--That the new Indigo children will create a world of consciousness... one where even autistic children of this day and age will communicate and thrive.

--That money will be unnecessary, and that the people who remain on this Earth after the 2012 event will live outdoors, in harmony, in glorious weather, and in peace with no suffering, tragedy or pain.

--That hidden genetics will kick-in and allow us to communicate telepathically.

--That from now until 2012, our planet will experience a rush of droughts, earthquakes, famines, floods, storms, wars and more.

So, what's really going to happen? Will there be a big "event" on December 21st, 2012? Will the poles of the Earth immediately reverse, throwing our planet into a cataclysmic Armageddon? Or will something subtler happen, causing a positive shift in consciousness, allowing the "good" to finally prevail over "evil?" Or better yet, do all of these predict the Second Coming of Jesus, in a timeline that will fulfill all of the Bible prophecies and mirror the Book of Revelation?

The truth is simply this: No one really knows. Not one person. There isn't any one human being that can predict what will happen as a result. Sure, we can predict some events. I'll admit that there seems to be a lot of accuracy in the Mayan calendar. But like an analogy I read recently, I can make accurate scientific predictions, too. I can predict with precise accuracy that it will be colder in December than it will be in June. I can predict that I will be one year older next year. I can predict that the Perseid meteor shower will occur at the same time of the calendar year than it did last year.

But here's the thing: I cannot predict what the RESULT of all those events will be. Will the cold winter mean we'll be paying more in heating costs, because we might be living in a house next year? Will it mean that I will feel colder because the wind might blow harder? Will the fact that I'm a year older mean that I will be happier? Or slower? Or more relaxed? Will the meteor shower be spectacular, or just average? I have no clue. I know all of those things will happen, but I cannot say for certain what those events will mean to me, or how they will affect my life.

It's the same with the Mayan prophecies, or the NASA predictions, or the words that John wrote in the Book of Revelation. I'm sure that they are right, and that their predictions are accurate. But how will they affect me? Or my life? Or my loved ones? What will be the result of those events? NO ONE KNOWS. And that will continue to remain a mystery, because the future hasn't happened yet.

And so, what we do then, is prepare. How do we prepare? Some say to find a good shelter, and then stockpile food and water. Others say to move to certain areas of the Earth.

My advice? Pray. And try to connect yourself with God. Even if you aren't a devout Christian, just sit quietly and ask God to help you see what you are supposed to do, if anything. My prayers have showed me to just keep doing what I'm doing. Love, enjoy, experience, express/show kindness, and live life as good and as purely as I possibly can. If the End Times are coming, there isn't anything that you can do about it. And nothing you can do ahead of time will change the outcome or your role in the whole thing. Just sit back, relax, have faith and enjoy the ride.