Apocalypse
Apocalypse
The word apocalypse didn't always mean what it means these days. These days we think of the end of the world, a culmination of catastrophic events, a doomsday finale caused by humanity. The word comes from the Greek apokalyptein- "uncover, disclose, reveal;" even in Middle English the word's general sense was "insight, vision; hallucination." As with many words, with time and usage, it took on a meaning different or opposite from the original. One word for this kind of semantic shift is pejoration.
These semantic shifts offer us a window into the way we see and think about the world. "Innovations" used to be looked at suspiciously. Theologically, to innovate would mean to depart from orthodoxy. There's a lot to be said for being suspicious of innovations. The idea of "new and improved" is a mantra of capitalism; if you grew up with a television, you are familiar with businesses endlessly improving their products or even just their packaging. The guitarist, Bob Quine, used to buy multiples of guitar pedals he liked because "they always ruin them when they try to make them better." In the west, as we freed ourselves from the too-tight grip of the church, through the discoveries of science, a flip occurred. Traditionally, the ancients, our ancestors, were thought to be wiser than we are. With the development of technology, the idea of modern-is-better took hold. Old fashioned things were taken to the junk yard or left to sit on park benches, forgotten and feeding the pigeons. Maybe the contemporary craze for farm sinks and things salvaged from old houses are a sign that we are coming around to a more balanced view of tradition or the old-fashioned. It's not either/or, it's either/or and more, the saying goes.
We live in a time of reproductions with no originals. In the frenzy to be free of traditional constraints dressed like priests, the masses throw off their chains and replace faith with bets on the new. New systems of government, new systems of media, new medicine, and an endless stream of new products promise to do the job of the old products better; and if you hold on to tradition, if you don't get on board the innovation express, you might be labeled a Luddite! It seems this impulse to improve is itself a character of the human being; even if the rules have changed since the printing press was invented, or Martin Luther reformed Christianity as he understood it, we're still trying to figure out what we can do differently and how to makes things better. There's no going back- we want to learn to be comfortable (or uncomfortable) within the paradoxes that twist us into knots. This 'presencing' involves a willful surrender to what is, a deep breath, a stillness; and courage to persevere into our collective dark places with the gentleness of a moccasin.
So what is this apocalypse now? How are we to be not overwhelmed by the simultaneity of unspeakable suffering and Halftime shows. What do we see when we remove the lid and look inside, what is the revelation of the events unfolding around and within us? "The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become aware of their inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves." (Jung) If the hermetic "As above so below. As below so above" equation is true, each one of us can learn to identify our shadow, or double, and become MORE conscious; in doing so, we are able to contribute to healing the violent schisms in the world; we become LESS tolerant of the space between who we are on the outside and who we are within- we strive to bring these parts of ourselves into harmony. In this way, the world lifts the lid from the box and lets the light in and, in global community, we look at ourselves together. When we look over there and see the unspeakable violence of human against human, we don't say that is another, we see that we are that, too, and maybe aren't that at this moment because of the mysteries of fate.