Heaven can wait … for a long while

The lack of Judgment Day on Saturday, May 21, got me thinking.

Does mankind -- and womankind, for that matter -- need an official day for The Reckoning?

Don’t we, as individuals, face certain judgments, face certain reckonings at various parts in our lives?

We don’t need a firm date in order to be ready, we just need to be ready.

I think we Baby Boomers think about this because, well, we have more yesterdays behind us and fewer tomorrows ahead of us.

We’re the generation that believe we could live forever. We intend to be, after all, forever young.

But we’re aging, and that gives us some pause. It doesn’t stop us in our tracks certainly, but it can get us to thinking.

My thinking is that Harold Camping is full of crap. The world didn’t end, as he predicted, in a rumble of earthquakes on May 21. It won’t end in a ball of fire on Oct. 21, as he says now that he’s recalculated his dates.

It isn’t going to end on Dec. 21 as told by the ancient Mayans.

There are enough other Days of Reckoning that just happen, not because they’ve been foretold by a Doomsday prophet or some strange calendar.

Look at the floods and tornadoes and other weather events over the years.

I’m not saying they are products of a Rapture, but are natural events that, sadly for some, is a Judgment Day.

A visit to a doctor might reveal news of an illness that might be terminal.

I always get a little jittery on my annual visit. I’ve tried to keep myself in good health, have tried to eat an apple a day, but you never know.

My father died at age 64 of complications related to a pulmonary infection.

I’m close to 58.

It’s a weird thing with men, I think, but we expect to live longer than our fathers, but some don’t. I can’t tell you the number of stories I’ve heard or read about sons who don’t live past the age of their dads when they died.

My Day of Reckoning on that score will be June 19, 2017.

I reckon I’ll live longer than that, a lot longer is the plan. I’ll take after my mother in that regard, thank you very much. She’s still going strong at 85.

My point is that we need to live our lives the best way we can day in and day out, not according to some whack job's deadline.