Disaster Movies

I love dis­as­ter movies. They attempt to depict what would hap­pen if a mas­sive earth­quake hit an urban area or if the pilot of your plane sud­denly dies. Peo­ple under pres­sure reveal many things about human nature. Most films show that peo­ple are at their best and their worst when things go bad. There are heroes and vil­lains. Some are calm, some are hys­ter­i­cal. Each movie seeks to show the flaws in our tech­nol­ogy or our phi­los­o­phy of life.

I ignore the movies with polit­i­cal agen­das. I am just not that stu­pid. I can smell manip­u­la­tion a mile away. Give me some­thing a bit more sub­tle and intrigu­ing. Also, give me some­thing in which nature is the issue and not mere human­ity. After all, by com­par­i­son, we are very weak, but we hate to admit our weak­nesses. We are not help­less, but we are no match for avalanches, tor­na­does, hur­ri­canes, and giant rocks from outer space.

When we real­ize our depen­dence on greater things, we aspire to spir­i­tual great­ness. The story of the life and death of Jesus is a dis­as­ter story of human prej­u­dice and igno­rance. He had few if any prob­lems with nature. If there was a gale-level storm, he just told it to stop. Don’t have a boat to cross the lake — just walk across it. No prob­lem! Fac­ing reli­gious or gov­ern­men­tal big­otry? That is the real dis­as­ter! The story of Jesus is one of the “best and bright­est” seek­ing to kill God in the name of God and country.

There are all sorts of apoc­a­lyp­tic sce­nar­ios that writ­ers por­tray as the end of the world. The Bible has a few of them. Peter is pretty accu­rate. He said it would end with fire. Since the sun will super­nova sooner or later, he has hedged his bet. Jesus com­pared it to an invad­ing army. Per­son­ally, I don’t worry which sce­nario is final. I will prob­a­bly not live long enough to see either one. My own apoc­a­lyp­tic demise is more the issue, and that is what has defined my role as the hero of my own story. While every­one else is obliv­i­ous to one sce­nario or another, I am prepar­ing for the impossible.

It is kind of fun and makes daily life more inter­est­ing. Sorry I ruined your day!