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| I have a more serious pantry, but this is not it! |
So much speculation takes place about this "end." Alot of it is based on biblical interpretations; much of it is analyzed from occurring world events without connection to religiosity. When people have only themselves to believe in, the measures taken to survive have nothing to do with a reliance on God.
How does anyone really prepare for any tumultuous "end" without hope given to us by a Higher Source of power than what we can muster for ourselves? If our whole world becomes riddled with the effects of war and disaster, and all of surviving mankind proceeds in dog-eat-dog fashion, what sort of living will that be? And for how long can it be borne?
I'm not a numbers person, but I'm pretty sure if you take the number of people ever in history that have lived and died, that number exceeds the number of people living today. All the former have died; all living today will someday die a physical death. None of us has ever had say about this, or even how we will die and in what state of readiness.
To add to this truth, we will never be handed carte blanche about commandeering every detail within our lifespan that affects personal well-being. BUT--we have been handed an inherent will to make the most and best of our lives, and come what may, we will try to take charge of the details.
When we have children, it seems our will is then directed largely to making good lives for them and towards securing their futures. This is about protecting the species, and especially our own offspring. Once you are a parent your life is no longer your own. You think your heart pulses in one steady beat, but when your child suffers a life blow or a threat to their being, a section of your heart seizes up. You are not good to go again until all is well. This sensitivity is most usual in the nature of the beast of parenting.
Considering this, "doomsday preppers" are only (in extreme measure) doing what they are hard-wired to do.
They are stockpiling for a "long winter," but if this "long winter" occurs it will involve much more than isolation brought on by cold temperatures and impassable snowdrifts.
"Preppers" are arming themselves for warfare WITH warfare. They are securing fortresses with surveillance capabilities and building elaborate bunkers with tunnelways. They are establishing ultra-expensive systems to generate energy for powering modern conveniences our pioneer ancestors lived without. So too are huge arsenals a part of these scenarios; weapons to protect and defend and if necessary, destroy.
Destroy who for what? I don't say this in mockery, but I am afraid it is their fellow man, and over a box of Cheerios. In the sphere of taking care of your family, you're going to want food for your family first. Have you seen the tremendous amounts of food inventories amassed by preppers? The thinking is to carry loved ones through as long a time as possible, presumably to better times. Not knowing how long this might take, every box of Cheerios is going to matter. If one is spared for one neighbor, where might that lead?
The amounts of money we invest in watching out for our families is really always huge, be it in preparation for college or doomsday. But "doomsday loans" are not available the way college loans are. It is hard enough for some people to stock the cupboards for a coming week of groceries, so it is not like the industrious ant versus the slacker grasshopper. We do what we can according to our means, and most of us regardless of the times strive to have moderately extra in our pantries.
Money though, isn't the real or only issue when some people dare to not over-ready themselves for this "long winter." Some people actually rely on something called "FAITH," and I don't mean faith in the power of one's self.
It may be that the biggest "preppers" out there are those who go door-to-door speaking in their faith about "the end times." They are not laying up their treasures (survival items) here on earth; their treasures are revealed in sentiments of belief.
Sentiments of belief are available to anyone. You don't have to belong to a church to have them, but it seems to me that they need to involve a larger force than our small selves, or even a community of small selves.
The hard-wiring within ourselves tells us always to "line our ducks in a row" in preparation for what is to come. How many people do you know readied extensively for retirement, paid off the mortgage and booked that European trip or found just the right motorhome, only to learn they had cancer, or were affected with some other daunting, life-altering circumstance?
It happens all the time that we find we weren't in charge of anything. We ready for one thought-obsessed part of our life, and then get run over trying to cross the street. Sometimes we get run over trying to help our child get to the other side safely.
If a doomsday prepper speaks of faith, is the quality of that faith diminished by his/her big-time prepping? I'm not the one to say or know. We all do what we are hard-wired to do. We love our families and we want to secure their futures. We want to "be ready."
But it seems we need to be ready with more than material items of survival in our possession. We need to have something bigger than ourselves to rely on, and sometimes that means saying this much: "Less (items of physical survival) will be plenty for me."
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