The Mayan Calendar, the End of the World, and Lottery Tickets


If it pleases you to worry about a coming apocalypse on December 21, 2012, I can’t stop you.  Personally, I think there are better emotional choices.   The word, “apocalypse” doesn’t literally mean a cataclysmic devastation, of course.  It comes from the Greek and means to, “reveal.”   So if you want to hoard, pray and hope for some familial exemption from the December 21st revelation, feel free.  But, trust me; if things are going to stop spinning on the 21st, it is way out of our hands.  Lutherans don’t worry about the end times; we worry about whether or not there is coffee in Heaven, and do we want to go if the answer is, “no.”

  I did, however, have a revelation of my own the other day when the papers and news shows were in a dither about the multi-million dollar Powerball possibilities.  It occurred to me that buying a lottery ticket and doomsday fascinations have a great deal in common.  And, in a strange way they both deal with optimism.  Either way, things are going to be better. 

The Maya (whose calendar started this tizzy) were a Mesoamerica culture in their classic period from around 250-900 A.D.  They occupied much of what is now the Yucatan Peninsula.  The Mayan calendar combined two different set of dates, one 365 days long, the other 260.  This gave each day two names, like December 7, 2012 being a date, a Friday, or Pearl Harbor Day.  They all mean something slightly different while still being accurate.   Because of the meshing of these two systems, the Mayan calendar resets itself every 52 years.  Where you were in the cycle was shown by a, “long count” numeral attached to the end of the dates, just like, “2013” gives us a count from the arbitrarily chosen birth of Christ. 

This, “long count” is how we extend the Mayan calendar up to 2012 when several of their calendars would reset themselves.  Happy New Year!

Except as an excuse for theatrical drama, why the breathless fascination with doomsday?  I think it is the same reason people buy lottery tickets.

 It gives us a chance to hope for something better.  For a brief period of time your lottery ticket lets you imagine everything turning out all right.  You think how generous you could be to friends and family.  You entertain that one indulgence you would give yourself.  People like to think about doomsday for the same reason.  No more worry about the nuts and bolts of this life.  A quick surrender to fate and then all our problems and responsibilities are behind us.  It isn’t realistic, but it is a temporary and safe respite from care.  It is safe because, just as most of us know that we are not going to win the lottery, most of us don’t really want the world to end.  Both the lottery and the apocalypse become a cheap fantasy.

There are problems with this kind of wool gathering.  The lottery is a regressive tax on the mathematically challenged.  The poorer you are the more you spend.  Households making $12,400 spend 5% (!!!) of their income on lottery tickets instead of saving that $600.  Likewise, there are some people who spend too much emotional capital on catastrophic predictions.  These people get so wrapped up in the, “end” that they ignore living a good life now.

Instead of worrying about doomsday, why not quiet your fears by doing good for those around you.  Live well, love much, and laugh often.  Leave the music of the spheres to God. 

Live a caring life, and keep the faith. 

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