February 25, 2021
~Christina Rossetti
I have an Armageddon closet, and no, it isn’t filled with guns.
It has five-pound bags of flour, canned beans, soup. Salsa, canned fruit, bags of lentils, oatmeal and cereal. And an extra bottle of organic ketchup.
It’s not even a closet, it’s a shelf in the linen cupboard that wasn’t being put to very good use.
Not like a friend who has a true Armageddon closet, stuffed with bulk items from Costco. Nowadays, those bulk items are “emergency supplies.”
I’m thinking about the Armageddon closet this morning because yesterday I went to Trader Joe’s and for the first time in…eight, nine months?…I didn’t feel like “stocking up.” I wheeled the mostly empty cart past the carefully ranked tins of kidney and pinto and black beans and the upright packages of lentils. I didn’t even glance at the fully stocked shelves of toilet paper and paper towels.
Zipped through and picked up only what we actually needed for the next few days. Fresh veg, fruit, milk.
This filled one bag. Not four.
It’s such a quiet change. No great spiritual realization like a bolt of blue from the shimmering sky. Just…an inner relaxation of something that has been clenched tight for nearly a year.
A subliminal ball of fear that I hadn’t even recognized until now.
The apocalypse hasn’t happened. At least not the worldwide massive death tolls of the Covid apocalypse we were warned was INEVITABLE unless we gave up stupefying amounts of our civil and human rights and discarded common sense in the name of “safety.“
Other things on the world stage, many related to the “pandemic emergency,” fill media and social media. I only pick up tendrils of those frantic and often poisonous snippets because I have no interest in what they tell me are facts.
Am I an ostrich with my head in the sand? Some, perhaps the majority, would no doubt say so.
*****
So what has changed that has allowed me to stop compulsively purchasing mass quantities of nonperishables? To stop buying in, even subliminally, to the apocalyptic narrative promulgated by those who want us to be afraid, be very afraid?
Maybe it’s the unending parade of lovely, clement days that roll by here in Santa Barbara. I do feel immense compassion for Texas, for the world with freezing weather and tragedies abounding, but…
Wringing my hands about horrors elsewhere doesn’t help those situations, and does nothing positive for me. Sending Light is one thing. Wallowing in “shared” misery out of a sense that my empathy helps is quite another.
I choose to believe that focusing on and celebrating joy and beauty serves me and serves all.
*****
I’m not clearing out my Armageddon closet just yet. I let the orderly ranks of cans and packages sit there. They do no harm. But I don’t feel any need to let them multiply, spread to other shelves, fill the entire cupboard.
When the shelf is empty, I can fill it with something new. Or just leave it empty, allow the peace of emptiness, the holiness of serenity, to exist in my surroundings.
Perhaps those sweet sensations might seep into me as well, welcome as the warmth of Spring.
