Rapture

Things got bad and things got worse
Half like blessing, half like curse
It's these blessings so hard to see sometimes
Gotta little clearer about dusk last night
Ain't nobody got a blessing like mine
Ain't nobody got a blessing like mine

It's a red sky night and I'm doing alright
It's a red sky night and I'm doing just fine

("Red at Night," Gaslight Anthem)

While many in this world spent the day huddled together awaiting the moment when their God would elevate and save them, and many more laughed at such fear and delusion, I spent the afternoon under a sunny sky and a canopy of thick new green, walking my good, red dog, watching him stop to sniff the dandelions or chase the bees across the grass. He did not care one way or the other if the world ended, only that he be allowed to revel in the moment when the clouds made shadows across the fields, the kind he could chase and pounce on, rolling in the grass beneath them as though trying to pull them around him. And in watching him, running alongside him and rolling with him, I found myself caught up in the moment as well, the possibility of calamity and my utter bewilderment at those who had faith in such a thing became forgotten things, less important than the sun igniting each and every hair of Duncan's head or the way his face turns upward at the song of the birds in the trees.

Rapture came this evening as the clock struck six laying next to my dog in the tall grass on a hillside, the kind sun on our closed eyes, the wind playing harp in the branches and leaves overhead. That is all the salvation I need. 

 Thank God for a good dog.