Doomsday

Years ago, my wife and I were paying our bill at a restaurant, one that accepts personal checks.

My wife made out the check and handed it to the cashier, who immediately noticed the check number: 666.

This number, inevitably falling after 665, is best known for being the so-called mark of the beast in the New Testament book of Revelation. The clerk looked at my wife and said -- this is a paraphrase (it's been a long time) -- "Hey, 6-6-6, what do you think? Should we be worried?"

My dear spouse helpfully referred the cashier to me with the remark, and this I recall with perfect clarity: "Ask my husband, he's been to seminary."

My reply that long-ago day remains the same as you read in this column: Don't worry about it.

Unlike John Hagee, who has built his entire television ministry on forecasting the end of the world, and others -- such as the late Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey, who had similar ideas -- I don't regard the book of Revelation as a mysterious guidebook of possible future events.

I'm not, in other words, interested in guessing about doomsday. You won't hear me say words such as, "In these last days."

Such talk is a fruitless enterprise; it is conversation Jesus himself discouraged.

Our time is much better spent trying to show compassion and caring, in demonstrable ways, to others.

Our mental energy is more productively engaged in introspection, in the local centering prayer exercises on Saturday morning encouraged by my colleague, Father Bob Towner, or walking the labyrinth at the church I'm privileged to pastor at, Abbey Road Christian Church.

Leave the end of the world to God. Please.

This doesn't stop the speculation, of course. Since 1947, a publication titled "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" has promoted a metaphorical Doomsday Clock -- its own secular estimation of how close we all are to global catastrophe.

For 2016, the bulletin says the world is "three minutes to midnight."

Listen to the scientists' explanation for the dire state of things: "The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon. That probability has not been reduced. The Clock ticks. Global danger looms. Wise leaders should act -- immediately."

It should be pointed out that the world was also at three minutes to midnight in 2015 -- and we're still here.

The most depressing forecast of the scientists was in 1953, when the clock was set at two minutes, thanks to both the U.S. and the former Soviet Union testing the hydrogen bomb.

The most optimistic world forecast -- 17 minutes to midnight -- was in 1991 after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended.

I think of the apocalyptic rantings of men like John Hagee and the intentionally alarming forecasts of the atomic scientists, and the words attributed to a penniless itinerant carpenter come to mind: "Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can't accomplish a little thing like that, what's the use of worrying over bigger things?" (Luke 12:25-26, New Living Translation).

Ultimately, you and I don't have access to classified briefings.

We're not privy to the kind of information President Obama and other world leaders receive each day. We're not in the loop. We're not going to know.

Maybe we should focus on what is right in front of us: the person in grief, the lady who is ill, the man who needs encouragement, the child who needs attention.

Push doomsday where it belongs -- out of mind.