Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

     When I read in yesterday's newspaper that the Rapture was coming on May 21st at 6 pm, I thought about calling my attorney to make sure that my estate, such as it is, would go to persons among the chosen few. Then I realized that I had no way of telling who would be chosen and who would not.      Further reflection convinced me that it doesn't matter – those chosen would not need what little pittance I had planned for them, while those remaining behind would be too busy suffering the events of the Tribulation.      Perhaps a little digression would be good at this point. According to Wikipedia, the Rapture is a reference to 1st Thessalonians 4:15-17, in which Paul cites "the word of the Lord" about the return of Jesus to gather his saints. ...and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be raptured (or "caught up") together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.  ...

As I have written previously (see 8/30/09), on many mornings I partially wake up and allow “seeds” of ideas to “germinate” in my head. But it doesn’t work that way every morning. Today, for example, I was busily dreaming right through the time when I usually start to get into that “half awake, half asleep” state that I think of as my period of communication with my Muse. (The Greeks had a really odd and poetic way of putting things). Anyway, it was one of those complicated dreams that is chock full of things that are contrary to common sense. In this dream I finally did as I have done before: even though I was deep in dreamland I realized that, “This is a dream. I must wake up.” But it didn’t work. Barbara was in the dream, and I finally told her (in the dream, of course) that I was dreaming, and asked her to poke me so that I would wake up. Which she did, but it didn’t help. Finally I began to awaken, but in this in-between state, I thought that I was only dreaming that I was wa...