Apocalypse Now, Progressive Style – Part I
by Carter Phipps
May 21st. Apocalypse now. The rapture has come and gone. At least that’s the story as told by the latest Christian end-times believers who think that the world is coming to an end—oh, a few days ago. People quit jobs, spent their savings, said goodbye to friends and family—all with the firm belief that last exit to heaven was actually here. One couple in Florida spent their life savings, because why would they need it after May 21st? Yes, it’s crazy. Yes, it’s sad. Yes, this seems to happen about once every five years. Yes, it’s hard to believe in a modern age that this kind of thinking can still flourish to such a degree.
In academia they call this sort of thing eschatological thinking or golden age millennialism (the reference is from the Bible where Christ will eventually reign in paradise for 1000 years). Truth be told, this kind of thing has always been a fundamental part of religious traditions. While it may have been weaned out of some over the last few hundred years, it’s hardly a side issue. Just about every major religion, even Buddhism, has some kind of central messianic eschatological tradition. If it’s not the second coming of the Christ, it’s the return of the Mahdi, or the coming of the Maitreya, or the appearance of the Kalki, the end of the Iron Age, the coming of a new Jerusalem, the return of Quezacotl, the…well, you get the idea. And even today, most religious traditions still have a rich and active eschatological strain.
I wrote a great deal about this in an article almost a decade ago (which you can find here). It’s a fascinating subject. And even after failure upon failure, people are shockingly undeterred. End times thinking is one of those mind viruses that simply won’t bow to the reality of failure. Continue reading…
When we become aware of the vastness of the entire evolutionary process–from the big bang to the present moment–that is called awakening to Deep Time. It means having the capacity to assume a perspective that is nothing less than cosmic and being able to see whatever’s happening to us personally from its lofty vantage point. It is also the profound recognition that our very own present-day highly evolved capacity for consciousness, cognition, introspection, compassion, empathy, and even spiritual insight has all been produced by this deep-time developmental process. This means so much! It means that our personal experience is not half as personal as it seems to be. It also means something that is so startling it is hard to let in. 
Quick: “masculine”–take ten seconds and say the words that come to mind that describe masculine. Next, do the same with “feminine.” That was the first exercise that my friend and colleague 
Have you ever had a mysterious attraction to a particular historical figure without really knowing why. . . until one day you find out something about their life and “bam!” it all makes sense? I recently had this experience with the twentieth century design pioneer 
One of the most challenging virtues for any smart, progressive, sophisticated person to cultivate today may be the quality of inspired conviction, or the utopian belief that something radically new and different is possible. In fact, we live at a time when the ideal of living passionately for anything beyond our own personal happiness or maybe that of your family and friends often seems naive, traditional, or even dangerous. 
