The end of the world

So apparently the Mayan calender predicts that the end of the world is nigh on 21/12/12. That we are possibly expecting a cataclysmic event or annihilation; that aliens will be present to take a chosen few to a safe haven (as long as you can get to the top of a, now closed off, mountain in a little village in France).

 People have died in the name of this event, killed themselves with fear.

 One American shop owner has made huge profits in sales of 'end of the world' supply boxes, the sales of underground shelters in China has tripled!!!

BUT, maybe we are missing the point!

A conversation I had a few days ago with a teenager about the 'end of the world' on 21/12/12 led me to try to explain to her that surely 'the end of the world' is a relative theory. That somewhere as we were speaking, the world had ended for someone who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, who had just seen a loved one die suddenly, who couldn't put food in the mouths of their adored children who were dying of malnutrition, whose baby was born sleeping...the list is endless

Then only yesterday, too close to home for me personally as I know Newtown, 28 innocent lives were lost to a mentally unstable young man with a vendetta. Newtown was the first town that Mr Beehive and I visited when we did our 'look-see' visit back in 2005. We stopped in this beautiful, quintessential New England town partly drawn in by the view over the trees and valley and partly to get an amazing sandwich from the deli on the main street. There was a Montessori school close by that we were also visiting and it could so easily have been the place we chose to live. It IS an idyllic place, until yesterday at least. Instead we chose to live just some 12 miles away,  In one short hour, those poor babies and their carers went to school or work as normal, not to see lunchtime. The whole of Connecticut went into lockdown in the schools, parents' hearts hit the floor as the news unfolded. The world ended.

In China, a mad man entered a nursery and maimed 27 innocent babies. Their parents' dropped their children off, maybe on the way to work, to receive a very similar phone call as those parents in CT, some 6000 miles away.

A mall in Oregon saw more people killed this week.
In Syria lives are lost on a daily basis, a conflict killing thousands, mainly innocents.
Belfast appears to be returning to the days of old with car bombs and shootings.
I could go on and on and on.

President Obama has promised 'Meaningful Action' in the wake of the Newtown massacre.

Let's just hope THIS is the point.

Let's just hope that the 21/12/12 sees a coming of a NEW AGE, a new world within which free access to guns in the US is heavily restricted, where sticking plasters of enabling schools to have concealed firearms is NOT the answer.

I hope that 21/12/12 brings a dawning where people begin to understand that we are humans first and foremost, it doesn't matter what religion people are, that we can live in harmony rather than using religion as an umbrella under which to fight each other. Religion should enhance, not destroy.

21/12/12 needs to bring an era in which children are safe to cross the road, go to school, walk to the shops, be at home with their loved ones without the fear that they might be kidnapped, killed, raped, attacked.

For so many, the end of the world has already come, it has claimed all that they have known and loved within it. For the majority, that wasn't Mother Nature, or their god's doing, it was the doing of another human being - a drunk after a night out, the son of a teacher in an elementary school, their neighbour in Northern Ireland or Syria.

The end of the world theory on 21/12/12 is a wake up call. Nothing is coming to destroy us.

WE ARE DESTROYING OURSELVES!

To everyone who has lost a child/partner/sister/brother/loved one today in the awful shooting in CT I extend the hand of love and friendship to you all and know my heart bleeds with yours.