Walking Through a Wall of Fire

Ask most people to describe what an “apocalypse” is and they're likely to paint some kind of frightening picture. You have the dark Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now,” which was a takeoff on Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness.” You also have the various “end times” scenarios popular with foggy-minded Christians that begin with a worldwide calamity or apocalypse. Some might even mention the closing book of the Bible, Revelation, which is also known as “the Apocalypse.”

Apocalypse. Apocalyptic. Since noon I’ve been trying to launch this July 27 edition of Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture. It’s now almost 6:30 p.m. I’ve been stuck because I gave myself a daunting task: write something that takes an optimistic view of our future. I even put on some smooth jazz to help myself break free and ride the evening breezes that blow off the ocean here on Florida’s Atlantic coast. It worked, and now I’m underway and the first thing I come up with is “apocalypse.” You might be temped to ask, “What’s up Mr. B?”

Well, it turns out that an apocalypse is as optimistic a vision as I can manage right now and that ain’t all bad because most people are pretty balled up in their understanding of what an apocalypse is all about. But before untangling that twine I want to mention that I just came back from visiting my family in Detroit.

You might be thinking, “If you want to talk about apocalypse as most people define it, Detroit is a good place to start.” Here’s the scoop on Detroit, which just might be the canary in the coal mine for the entire country: Not long ago Detroit had 1.8 million people in the city itself, not counting the suburbs. Now it’s down to 900,000—roughly half. They’re working on a plan to raze large areas of the city, moving the few people still living there to other sections. Right now these neighborhoods look like those post-apocalypse movies where desperate scavengers suddenly discover some isolated enclave of survivors holed up in an urban desert. Detroit’s new idea is to group the people and cut expenses for public safety and other municipal services. The land would be restored to its natural state and hopefully farmed. Of course, some older people don’t want to go.

I suppose there’s something positive in creating urban farms from man-made blight (I don’t think women will object to the gender-specific adjective), man-made blight in neighborhoods which not long ago housed families enjoying good paying jobs and a clear path to upward mobility for their next generation.

The New York Times recently reported one of the saddest stories coming from our current depression in places like Detroit: the death of the black middle class. This nation’s major industries had provided the jobs that fostered upward generational shifts for black American families, just as they had for working class whites. My own family is a good example. You don’t get that in second- and third-world countries because all family members have to pitch in just to survive. Those industries—autos, steel, building trades—created the tremendous wealth that made America powerful, and expansion of the middle class possible. As they slipped away we’ve continued to prosper by recycling that same wealth. But now those days are coming to an end. What’s next? No one seems to know. Thomas Friedman of the Times offers vague and nebulous visions of technological advances and new vocations for the clever. There’ll be some of that but I can’t see tweeting and social networking as wealth-building substitutes for our great manufacturing industries.

Oh yea, I almost forget. I promised an optimistic vision of the future and to explain how it connects with the word “apocalypse.” Well, it turns out apocalypse understood as an end time is misunderstood. Apocalypse is actually a time of transition from an era of strife to an era of peace and tranquility, a wall of fire we must walk through to find a better world. It’s even that way in the New Testament book of Revelation. Check it out.

But don’t get me wrong: A time of apocalypse is a time for extreme vigilance. We are in such a time right now and those of us able to love our neighbors as we do ourselves must make sure that the selfish hoarders don’t have their way as we move toward a new, more inclusive economy.

What will the world look like on the other side of our wall of fire? I can’t say for sure. I know it will be different. Perhaps less materialistic, less object-oriented, a place that celebrates the pleasures built into creation, into our own bodies.

I keep picturing those urban farms and pastures they’re dreaming of in Detroit, of man-made decadence returned to natural beauty. Who knows, maybe on the far side of that apocalyptic wall, Detroit’s “canary in the coal mine” which signaled the end of our 20th century expansion will become a dove carrying an olive branch of hope.