Are we prepared to think about un-creation?

"Earthrise" (William Anders, 1968)

GOD saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil -- evil, evil, evil from morning to night. GOD was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. GOD said, "I'll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep; people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds -- the works. I'm sorry I made them."

But Noah was different. GOD liked what he saw in Noah.

- Genesis 6:5-8
(translation from The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language by Eugene H. Peterson)

Wait: what?

God can DO that? Just ... get rid of it??

Well, I suppose . . . . Yes, somehow, the world came into being. I guess I need to be able to wrap my head around the idea that the opposite could happen.

Somehow creation happened.  So what about un-creation . . . ?

The people in the ancient world who put the Bible together grappled in Genesis with a question that most of us try not to think about. They made use of old stories that attempted to cope with the possibility that the world could end. No one had ever seen a world-ending flood, but they had seen plenty of smaller floods. And that had made them think . . . .

With respect to the "Back From the Brink" resolution, I see a connection between the Noah story and the fundamental question: what are we prepared to think about? And: what's the use of thinking about it?

A while back, it dawned on me that the catastrophic risk we face from nuclear weapons is unlike any other, and it is particularly difficult for people to think about.

Today I will go a step further and say that the vast majority of us probably won't think about it, at least not until something very shocking jolts us into awareness.

Sleepers wake!

Boy Scout Second Class Rank Emblem

When I was a kid, back in the '60s, I was a Boy Scout. I devoted many hours to learning first aid and other survival skills in the hopes of earning an array of brightly colored badges. It was never quite clear to me what exactly we were being asked to "be prepared" for; our parents weren't telling us. I can't help thinking that the high level of anxiety in US society in those days about nuclear weapons had something to do with it.

Ironically, we are now being told by the International Committee of the Red Cross that, when it comes to nuclear weapons, that sort of preparedness simply won't be enough. (See ICRC video "Nuclear weapons: A disaster we cannot prepare for") Instead, the ICRC is now urging us to do the mental and political preparedness that takes the form of advocating to get rid of nuclear weapons -- before they are used.

My sister delved into this very challenge in her book, Thinking in an Emergency.

When all of us finally do truly come face-to-face with the possibility of un-creation, who among us will not be paralyzed by fear or despair? Who will be prepared to do the work that needs to be done at that moment to continue moving us back from the brink? How do we prepare ourselves?


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Related post:

In 1945, László Moholy-Nagy invited us to hold three things in our minds at the same time, even if we didn't want to: the image of a skyscraper, that monument to human society and endeavor; a rendering of the way that image is fragmented by a crystal ball; and the word "nuclear." (See: 9/11 Fourteen Years On - A Visual Reflection (á la Alfred C. Barnes) )