The end of the world came last week.  Again.

It was a disappointment.  Again.

Not as disappointing as, say, the Mayan Calendar thing.  Not nearly as unsatisfying as Y2K.   Nowhere near the level of the promised Zombie Apocalypse that just never seems to arrive.

Still, I’m left feeling a certain sense of betrayal.

They called it Grid Ex II, and it was supposed to shut down the power to the planet for hours, days, or eons, depending upon who you read.  We were warned to stockpile necessities and batten down the proverbial hatches.  I suppose, if you have literal hatches, you were supposed to batten them down as well.  I wouldn’t know.

I didn’t really get nervous about it until the President went on the air and said, “If you like your electricity, you get to keep your electricity.”  Then I got panicky.

So, the big day came and… nothing happened. I mean, the tech heads did tech things, and the computer geeks geeked, but Average American noticed nothing.  I was looking for chaos, destruction, rioting in the streets.  Frankly, I was hoping that a runaway power failure might cause my student loan records to be erased.  That would have been worth living on gopher meat and digging a pit toilet in the back yard…at least for a while.  Alas, it turned out to be a rather boring day.

I have to admit, I wasn’t all that concerned about this one.  It had been billed as a drill, and I’ve been a teacher long enough to know how drills work.  When we have fire drills, we don’t actually set anything ablaze.  We pretend.  For an earthquake drill, we duck and cover, but no one sets off underground explosions to make the earth shake.  We just act like we’re on the old Star Trek set and throw ourselves around in silly poses.

*Note to my school administration: in my classroom, we follow state regulations and take our earthquake drills very seriously.  We never play Star Trek, and I never scream, “The sky is falling!  Death comes for you!!” to the children.  I’ve just heard about it from other classes.

It’s not that I want the world to end.  I’m not fantasizing about a whole Mad Max post-apocalyptic lifestyle.

Much

It’s just that, I’d like to know…you know?  You go look on the internet; you see some people are prepared for anything.  They have bunkers that will protect them from a nuclear blast.  Freeze-dried food that will last for a century.   Water purification systems that will allow you to drink…whatever you need to drink.  Bug-out bags, bug-out trailers, pharmaceutical gardens…you can spend your life savings, and your lifetime, on this.

And some people do.

I guess that’s what gets me.  As a husband, as a father, as “The Man of the House,” it’s my responsibility to protect the ones I love.  It’s my job to make sure that, if the zombies come, we have whatever we need to do whatever it is you’re supposed to do when the zombies come.  I also have a responsibility to manage our resources, because if I spend too much money on disaster supplies and we have to live on the MRE’s I stockpiled, the family will be most seriously displeased.

It’s my responsibility.

And yet it’s God’s responsibility.

As with most things in life, it comes down to balance.  The same God that tells me to study the ant (Proverbs 6:6) also tells me to consider the flowers of the field (Luke 12:27).  But where is the balance?  At what point does wisdom become a lack of trust?

I’m still chewing on that.  I would dearly love to hear what you think.   Are you a Prepper?  Do you have supplies enough to ride out a nuclear winter?  Or are you figuring that God will take care of it?  Let me know.

Oh, and if you have a good recipe for gopher, I’d like to try it out.