Elizabeth Dias wrote a great article for The New York Times titled ‘The Apocalypse as an “Unveiling”: What Religion Teaches Us About the End Times’. It explores Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist interpretations of the apocalypse as well as its depiction in popular culture (e.g. ‘The Walking Dead’). What stood out to me was the emphasis on apocalypticism as a revealing or an ‘unveiling’. The apocalypse doesn’t have to be a one time event at the end of the world. The apocalypse can occur multiple times when this ‘age’ is brought to an end and a new ‘age’ begins.
In my lifetime, there have been two apocalyptic events in this fashion that have changed my world forever: 9/11 and now the COVID-19 pandemic. Each of these events not only ended the world as many of us knew it but exposed the world for what it is. Whether or not that helps humans reimagine what the world could be is TBD.
LePort 