There are basically three opinions when it comes to what's going to happen at the end of this year, as there are basically three opinions in just about anything. (Of course there are more, but I'm only going to mention the three most common.) There are the "let us prepare ourselves for the force of God's wrath coming down upon us" people, the "damn, people, get over it - nothing's gonna happen" people, and the "who knows" people.

I'm a "who knows." For a long time, when word about the terrible fate in store for us at the hands of the dreaded Y2K glitch was beginning to circulate, I was a "get over it." I firmly refused to believe that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. I read some Nostradamus and was scared until I found out that Nostradamus's calendar is actually some 350 years behind. He did his thing in A.D. 350 or so and based everything on that time. So 1999 in Nostradamus time is actually A.D. 2349. So I figured, well, we got next to nothin' to worry about on that front.

About a month ago, however, I started to wonder about what would happen if the world really did end. I don't mean Y2K; I mean Armageddon. I was fascinated by the thought, which led me to other thoughts that I will soon get into. I mean, think about it, guys (although I'm sure that most of you have already): if you haven't fulfilled your life's purpose, all of your life up until now will have been for naught if the world ends. What do you want to have done by the time you die? Let's say you get in a pile-up on the highway tomorrow. Whatever your life has been until that moment will be it. Yes, this all sounds painfully obvious, but really imagine yourself in that position. You're dead, and what will you have to show for your life?

I sometimes wonder how many times I've escaped death. Ever been driving home from wherever, either alone or with someone else at the wheel, and your gut tells you to take a completely different way home? Maybe that's all for a reason. Maybe some old woman is having a diabetic reaction in her car at some place on your normal route home at the very moment at which you feel that instinct. Maybe if that instinct hadn't spoken to you, you would have died. My first thought is that your instinct is the voice of God, but it can't be, because it's my belief that when it's your time, it's your time. That's why I don't believe in the death penalty or assisted suicide, because I believe that only God has the right to decide when someone is to die. So if it's not the voice of God, then what is it? Simple coincidence? Another particularly fascinating thing (to me, at least) is that you pass the anniversary of your death every year. Maybe it's today.

I'm way off track here. My point is that I don't know what's going to happen at the stroke of midnight on January 1 next year. But I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, either. I think that we'll all be laughing ourselves silly when the first business day of the new year comes without any catastrophic disasters, but we shouldn't laugh too hard, because Armageddon, whether personal or global, could strike at any time. I think that we forget that sometimes.