A Thumbnail Sketch

Yesterday I watched the Democratic debate on the interweb, because on Tuesday night I chose to spend time with friends drinking Guiness and playing trivia at a bar rather than yelling at the TV.  So I'm a little late on my analysis, and quite frankly since I had already seen some reaction tweets before I saw the thing itself, I already had some things to look for, but here goes.
The Democratic nomination is being contested by a mere five (possibly six if Biden jumps in) candidates.  Hilary Clinton, current front runner and the object of passionately divided voter feelings, Bernie Sanders, your crazy uncle who has some really good ideas but may just be a little too unhinged to actually get elected, Martin O'Malley, the Ken Doll of politics (seriously, if you were going to invent a fictional politician it would look like that guy), Lincoln Chafee, New England switcheroo politician who claims to be a block of granite, and Jim Webb, who I think is sort of the Dem's answer to Trump, at least in the red, angry guy sense.
This is the first debate, and the issues are sort of still in the introductory phase.  In addition to that the debate format wasn't your standard equal time sort of arrangement.  The talk moved based on who was asked the question, and then gave anyone whose positions/records were attacked time to respond.  Webb was apparently not a fan of this format because it decidedly favored Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley over he and Chafee, who were positioned on the ends of the row and for most of the debate were a non-factor.  Unfortunately this caused Webb's most memorable contribution to be complaining about not getting a chance to talk and sounding like a particularly grumpy teenager trying to get the teacher's attention.
Webb and Chafee being present on the Democrat's slate is a testament to the fact that the Republican Party has migrated towards extreme and dogmatic positions.  Chafee actually used to be a Republican, fiscally conservative but with some socially liberal tendencies that put him out of the good graces of the GOP, he became an independent and now a Democrat.  Webb seemed hawkish enough to belong up there with Trump, he's a military guy and had some blustery things to say about Putin and China and how he would set stuff in order, but I don't think there's too many Democrats in the "kick-butt and take names" school of foreign policy these days.
The optics are bad for both the marginal candidates, and let's face it, in American politics, as much as we wish it wasn't so, optics are important. They both just sort of look wrong for this part.  Bernie does too, but I'll get back to him.
Clinton and O'Malley are the polished stones of this bunch.  O'Malley has worked his way up through the executive offices of Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland.  Not long after I moved here I saw O'Malley in Panera Bread over in Waldorf, and to tell you the truth he totally sort of blends with the business/political crowd that you often see around the DC area.  In fact, if it hadn't been for the person I was eating with saying, "Hey, there's Martin O'Malley," I probably wouldn't have noticed him.  Outside of Maryland O'Malley has the advantage of a pretty blank slate and the disadvantage of the fact that no one knows who he is and what he's about.  Which is why, if I had to pick a winner of Tuesday's debate, it would be him, because he showed up and didn't humiliate himself or make any Biden-esque gaffs.  He adequately introduced his record and his platform and he didn't look totally outshined by Clinton or Sanders.  First debate down, and you're not being laughed off the stage, that's success in politics these days (sorry Chafee, the interweb is taking you down for that whole "block of granite" comment).
Clinton, likewise came across as polished and confident, which should surprise absolutely zero people at this point.  If anything, Hilary suffers from over-exposure.  We have been watching her since Bill was in office and she was the first lady.  It has come to seem like a fait-accompli that she will be our first woman president, even after Barack Obama snuck up on her in 2004.  Benghazi and emails aside (and for everyone but Fox News they really are passe) she has only made her case stronger by serving as Secretary of State.  You can absolutely see her becoming POTUS, which makes some happy and gives others howling fits of angst.  She is a politician to the core.  She has compromised, changed and "evolved" her positions about many things, and of course the political sensibilities of the age call that waffling or being duplicitous (thus Chafee's block of granite statement). But as Clinton very shrewdly pointed out: changing your mind is a sign of wrestling with issues and being open to new information, and sometimes, gulp, compromise.
Honestly, compromise seems to be a totally lost cause in politics at the moment, and if there is one thing that makes me think Clinton would be a better POTUS than Bernie, it is precisely that part of her nature that can play both sides of an issue, and follow the course of expediency.  If politicians are wolves, she is the Alpha female, and maybe that means she's the right one for the job.  She is certainly no stooge.
Which brings me to Bernie.  Bernie is no wolf.  Bernie is an Israelite in whom there is no guile. Bernie is not trying to be cool, he is not trying to project an image.  He is a man of demonstrable integrity concerning his convictions. Other people have lamented Super PACs, but formed them anyway.  Other people have bemoaned the use of personal attacks and mudslinging in political discourse, but then crafted their own attack ads and got in the dirt. Bernie proudly announces that he has done none of that.  Sanders insists on treating his fellow candidates with respect, which actually looks weird when you see it (that's how far we have fallen). I heard him say positive things about the people sharing the stage with him and saw him refuse to take the bait when given the opportunity to take a clear shot.
I started by liking Bernie's policy angle (I guess I'm a bit of a socialist), I like his ideas about education, campaign finance, healthcare and I like the fact that he is committed to using military force as a last resort (as he proudly states in the 99-1 vote about the Iraq war, he was the 1).  Honestly, until Bernie came along, I had almost no hope that politics was going to get any better, ever.  What I saw in this debate, the general civility and reasonableness of the whole thing is, I think, a product of his influence.  He refuses to play certain games. He will always volunteer to be the adult in the room.  He will argue loudly and passionately about his positions, and he can seem a bit bombastic in certain moments (especially when he talks about the corrupting influence of money in politics), but when it comes to addressing the lady to his left, he was kind and gentlemanly.  When he talked to Webb on his right, he was respectful and honored his service. It's not about the people being bad people, it's about his belief that his ideas are better.
This election is, as many elections have been, a referendum on the soul of our nation. Can we dare to go to battle with a man like Bernie Sanders?  He's such an idealist.  He's willing to be the voice in the wilderness, and I suspect he would be utterly ineffective as POTUS. He would have to change a whole system that has been broken for a very long time, and I'm not sure one guy, even the Commander in Chief has that sort of stroke.
I suspect that none of his amazing ideas would ever make it into practice, because they would require to great a move from where we are now and the direction we're going.  I hope we stop the insanity of perpetual war, and the crushing expense of healthcare and education, and Bernie has pushed us in that direction.  I hope the disastrous decision of Citizen's United is reversed somehow some way, and Bernie will shout that from the rooftops. I just don't know if the American people are ready and willing to get on the bandwagon of putting the good of all over self interest of the few.  I sort of hope that the middle class is ready to realize the place they're in and who put them there.  I sort of hope they're ready to rise up and reject the narrative that we just can't do any better and vote in their own best interest.
The cynic in me says that dollars are going to rule the day, and that the ideas Bernie is cooking would just be too expensive and involve too much pain to too many rich and powerful people.  After the first debate, my head says that Clinton or O'Malley would probably be fine, but my heart still says Bernie.

I Read it For the Articles

I heard a BBC News report on the radio this morning: Playboy Magazine will no longer include pictures of nude women.  The BBC had an interview with a prominent feminist who was asked how she felt about this, and with a real sense of irony, she had to admit that it probably was not a total victory.  Removing the aspect of the magazine that objectified women, and reduced them to airbrushed and impossible things for men to covet and lust after, who were defined by their turn-ons and turn-offs, well that has to be good.
Except for the fact that, in addition to your Grandma would call smut, Playboy also, at one point was a cultural bell cow.  They did interviews with important people and they let them use bad words, which apparently is something many important people do a bit.  The feminist in question had to admit that Playboy probably did more to improve relations of all sorts between men and women, because it essentially taught men about what women like, and encouraged them to care, because if you want to have any chance with one of the girls that look like Miss September, you probably should do more than just grunt and stammer.
Lamentably, the reason why Playboy is making this move is not because they suddenly decided that they had objectified enough women and were changing their ways, it's because they can't (or maybe wont) try to out-porn the internet.  Yes, essentially they're just throwing in the towel.  Playboy has held on to what I suppose is the high ground when it comes to porn, meaning that they tried really hard not to be disgusting.  The silliness, contrived poses and obvious manipulation of women as sex objects, all well and good, but let's keep it "tasteful," within the bounds of what we do.  Let's try to sort of make it just a shade racier than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, and not go much further.
The internet is a cesspool that probably makes even Larry Flynt, not to mention Hugh Hefner, a little uneasy.  This decision is a capitulation to that reality.  It also, I suppose, takes a certain restraint off of Playboy as a journalistic enterprise.  Playboy has actually had some relevant things to say over the years.  But if you wanted to read an interview or an article they published, you had to get over the sort of awkward moment of buying a Playboy Magazine at the Seven-Eleven.  "I read it for the articles," has been a punchline for years, well now that's the only reason to read it, so let's see if that flies.
This whole scenario interests me on a couple of levels, the first of which is the cultural slide that has led the company that pretty much introduced us to porn to throw up their arms and say, "Y'all are disgusting perverts, we are not going there."  I'm not one of those who says we are on the verge of complete destruction, or one who really even believes that we are becoming worse as time goes by.  What I believe is that evil and sin are pretty much constant factors in human behavior, sometimes they erupt and sometimes they just sort of simmer, but they are always there.  I have read the Bible extensively, and what I find there is pretty much of a type with the sort of twisted depravity that we live with today, and in certain cases (like the end of Judges) it actually turns the stomach of someone who has watched Eli Roth movies.
I believe we are making some progress on some fronts, and we're getting worse on others, nothing's shocking.  Playboy quitting the nekkid lady business does not solve our dysfunctional sexuality problem, or mean that women are no longer going to be objectified, it does demonstrate something that is even more interesting to me: adaptation.
My vocation is facing a similar challenge when relating to the changing culture.  In fact, we have many of the same problems as Playboy Magazine.  To state it as simply as I can, no one wants what we're selling anymore.  Is it a stretch to compare the church to Playboy?  Maybe, but bear with me a second.  Both of us were once a cultural force, and both of us are not any more (or at least not as much of one).  The church's cultural hegemony has been around a lot longer than Hugh Heffner (I know, that's hard to believe), but that probably just means the habits we picked up as a result are going to be tougher to kick.  We both have to deal rather directly with sin.  They picked a couple of  sins (lust and gluttony) and decided to roll with them, while we decided to try to take on and conquer all of them.  They tried to help people "get over hangups about sex," while we were busy trying to keep people hung up about sex, but somehow or other neither approach to healthy human sexuality really seemed to work out so hot.
Because sin.
Because sin is a force of nature, and it is utterly beyond our capability to control it.
That is why we must forgive and be forgiven.
That is why grace must be a thing.
What I admire about this whole shift is the guts that it takes to change the thing that you are famous for, because you won't capitulate to the demands of "the market."  How is it that Playboy has figured this out so much faster than the church?  We scurry about trying give people what they want.  We capitulate to a consumerist culture, we fight with the world and with each other in the name of the Prince of Peace.  We try to make like we are cool, entertaining, spiritual and all kinds of things that we think are going to be attractive to the world, and we are continually surprised when it doesn't work out. We sometimes have a hard time marking out those lines that we just should not cross, even in order to "reach more people."
The way I see it, we really only have one thing to offer this broken, sinful world: the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  That is, or should be, our content.
Everything else is vanity and chasing after the wind.

Three Things

Outrage is in no short supply.  Honestly, just on the ride into work today I heard a story on the radio about ethnic cleansing in Iraq that made me want to cry tears of rage and cry out to God to just wipe our miserable species off the face of the earth, yep it is that bad sometimes. I don't have anything to do about that stuff other than weep for the fact that we are still a savage race of (relatively) hairless, upright walking apes, who happen to be armed to the teeth.  But I have three things that I would like to remove from our list of outrageous outrages.  I'm trying to do you a favor, because I have heard people I know get at least semi-incensed about all of these.  So here are things you can cross off of your list:
1. Obama/ Hilary Clinton / the Illuminati / the smoking man from the X-files, are not coming to take your guns.  I know this is a bit of hot button at the moment, but let's be clear, even the most pro-gun control folks are not prescribing the removal of any and all firearms from the hands of responsible, law abiding people.  There is no need to get all riled up about that, really the best case scenario for gun regulation in the future is to simply make it harder to buy them and to certify in some manner the people that own and use them.  Your deer rifle and bird gun are not in jeopardy, and people who tell you that's the case are preying on your fear so that you will give them money to fight against things that, if you really stop to think about it, make sense for ALL of us.
2. Transgender people using "your" public bathroom.  Why is it that this is even a thing to worry about?  Is it that we find the whole issue of transgender people so odd that we search for something to be outraged about?  Three things about this, first of all, and this applies mostly to the ladies because y'all seem to be more wound up about who gets to go potty in your presence: how do you know?  The thing about transgender people is that they sort of try to live as the gender they identify with, ergo a transgender man who believes he is a she will look and act like a woman, including, I'm guessing, sitting down to pee, in a stall that is designed to give you some privacy while you do your super secret bathroom stuff.  Which leads me to the second thing, what are y'all doing in there that is so needful of privacy?  (tangentially, why is this argument making me sound so much more southern).
Thirdly, having just done some travelling in Europe, I have experienced unisex bathroom facilities, including shower facilities.  After the initial shock to my 'Merican sensibilities it's really not that big of a deal, it is in no way sexy, and honestly I think it would probably make everyone feel a little more connected to our common humanity if we all peed together (okay, maybe I'm going too far on that last one).
3. Finally, I would like to ask, nay implore, the American people, citizens of this immigrant nation, the great melting pot, this social experiment forged out of diverse people who come together to form one nation, E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one: can you stop being so angry when you are asked to press one for English?  Why does a Spanish translation on the menu at McDonalds give you case of the mads?  I get it, I no longer speak Gaelic, or even with an Irish accent, those people who are stubbornly refusing to learn English make for some troublesome moments here and there, but is it really that bad?  Again, having recently spent over a month in a country where I did not speak the primary language, I am aware of how it feels on the other end of that stick.  I was keenly aware of the difference between people who accepted my very poor spanglish and sometimes frespanol (french and spanish mixed up) as valid forms of human interaction, and those who got sort of indignant if I didn't know the right word to use for what I was obviously asking for. Being a stranger and an alien is not easy, and bilingual communication when possible is a simple matter of hospitality, so chill.
None of this is going to solve the real problems of the world, but if it helps you be just a little bit calmer as you work your way through the day, then I have accomplished something.  If it helps you to be a little bit more civil to people around you, then I will be very glad. If it actually leads you to treat people with more kindness because you're not so hopping mad, hooray.

Long Term Side Effects

Fall is finally coming.  For the past four months we have shut ourselves up in air conditioning and tried to deal with the murky humidity of mid Atlantic summer.  For most of that time I have been incubating the seeds that were planted on my pilgrimage, but the cool weather seems to be causing them to grow.  This is, of course, a bit out of place given the seed metaphor, but it actually makes complete sense in my world.  Heat and I do not get along.  I find going outside in face-hurting cold to be more desirable than going out into 90 degree summer heat.  Honestly though my favorite seasons are the transitions: spring and fall.  I like 60 degrees, and that crisp feeling in the air.  In the fall, I just want to be outside, even this fall.
During my last few weeks on the Camino, I began to say, "I am done with this."  Obligatory outdoor activity was getting a bit worn, but it was even more than that.  I was done with the whole experience, the pilgrims, the churches, the albergues, the mud and dust of the way, having to say, "Buen Camino" every freaking thirty seconds, especially on the final stretch where we ran into a boom of tourist pilgrims.  I was cranky, I wanted to be home more than anything.
I came home with a new appreciation of home and family and comfort.
And I'm writing this, in part, to remind myself of that fact.
The feet get itchy.  I'm actually feeling the urge to walk for six or eight hours straight.  On one of my routine walks around the lake the other day, I started to consider what I would put in my pack if I were to go for a 30 km walk one day.
I don't so much want to go back to Spain, quite frankly when I'm honest, I still think I'm done with "Buen Camino," but I do want there to be another thing like it, and there really isn't.  Michele will be happy to know that I'm not honestly planning to go anywhere.  I'm just observing what's going on in my head.  I'm sort of looking for new journeys, new walks, new ways to "go."
I sort of wish I had been a little more patient with the end of my Camino, but you can't usually control your own feelings about things.  In the final analysis, I think that impatience and crankiness was part of the journey.  I don't feel like I did the time we just went from Sarria to Santiago, there is no unfinished business with the Camino.  But there is unfinished business in me.
I think I'm going to have to walk more.
I think I'm going to have to put on that cursed pack again.
I think I'm going to have to do more than take a pleasant stroll.
I knew it wasn't about the destination.  I knew that Cathedral wasn't going to finish it.  I knew that even if I walked to Finisterre and Muxia, it wasn't going to stop, even at the very end of the world.
I came home.
I'm glad to be home.
But I keep looking around for the next yellow arrow.

Rickety Absolutes

So we are talking about a populace in which nearly everybody is needy, greedy, envious, angry and alone. We are talking therefore about a politics of estrangement, in which the two sides go at each other with the fervor of extreme righteousness in defense of rickety absolutes that are indefensible and therefore cannot be compromised.

-Wendell Berry, Caught in the Middle (2013), from Our Only World: Ten Essays

I read Wendell Berry for the sake of my sanity.  I read him because he is sternly and sometimes crankily on the side of humanity, being a human, being connected to land and community.  I read him because I think he is a prophet of common sense, of living within limits, but of living full and rich lives.  I read him because he cares about the things that I care about: stewardship of creation, the community of human people, sober and clear headed (some might say bracing) criticism of the violent, greedy darkness that surrounds us every day.

I read him, because more often than not, he hits the nail on the head.  I had a friend once who introduced me to the common grammatical error of modifying an absolute.  The most common one he felt was saying something was "very unique."  Unique means one of a kind, without peer, entirely differentiated from other things. Something is either unique or not, using the modifier "very" is therefore redundant, and from a grammar perspective, wrong.  This is not earth shaking information, in fact, whenever I have passed this on to others, they usually give me a little smile and look that implies I may not be getting an invite to their next cocktail party.

Absolute positions, like absolute words tend to resist modification or compromise.  As I discussed yesterday, if the right to bear arms is, in your mind, an absolute god-given right, if that absolute belief can survive the random killing of children, then you are probably not going to be able to work with anyone who suggests limitations on that right.

Likewise with abortion, if you believe either that a woman should always have the right to terminate a pregnancy for any reason, or if you believe that abortion amounts to murder, you are probably not going to be willing to modify or compromise those absolute positions.

The problem is that the world is not made of or for absolutes, everything is more complicated than we allow it to be, down to the most basic structures of matter, there are high degrees of variation and even a seeming randomness to everything.  If we are to take Scripture seriously, even God changes his mind, when confronted with a valid argument (sometimes even when confronted with a silly argument).  In Exodus we read about God and Moses getting frustrated with the Israelites on several occasions.  In Exodus 32, God is ready to be done with them and consume them in wrath and Moses says, "Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth?'"(v. 12)  He then proceeds to remind God of the covenant with Abraham and the promise, and it says, "The Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people."

God was holding an absolute position: the people are wicked and idolatrous, this is not what I want, I'm going to be done with them.  It's true, by the way, they were pretty wicked and idolatrous, and we remain so to this day.  If there's anyone who is justified in holding an absolute position, it would be God.  But Moses changes God's mind, even though, as we find out, Moses is pretty cheesed off as well.  What happens at the end of the chapter is a compromise, a plague, a punishment for idolatry.

Eventually what happens in the course of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God starts to realize that there is only one defensible absolute position, and that position is love.  Out of that absolute flow justice, mercy and grace, absolute love allows for faith and freedom, and is utterly unassailable: Love is stronger than death.  Any absolute position short of that, is flawed and rickety.  If you can define your position as truly and honestly loving, you stand a chance of defending it, but beware you will also be willing to compromise, forbear and forgive, because those are things that love does.

A defensible absolute can be compromised, because it has merit and strength and flexibility, in other words it acts less like an absolute idea and more like a living being.  That's why love is the greatest.

Defensive Posture

From what I hear Congress has prevented the Center for Disease Control from studying the root causes of this proliferation of mass shootings.  So I guess it's up to us.  If you're more concerned about losing your guns than losing your children stop reading.

Still going?  Okay, first of all let me just say that I agree with President Obama, that our thoughts and prayers are not enough and that we need common sense gun laws (I assume that means tougher background checks and more restrictions on where you're allowed to take them once you buy them).  But I am not under any illusions that those regulations are going to be enough to stop the mass shootings that have become all too familiar in our nation.  To the extent that rules and regulations can address the problem, we ought to stop at nothing to make those rules and regulations exist and have teeth.  To the extent that we can address this problem with better mental healthcare and intervention programs we should absolutely do that yesterday.
I'm going to stay within my area of expertise though and talk about this.  For those of you who didn't click the link thingy, it's to an article by Garry Wills, in The New York Review of Books from 2012, yep three years ago, after Sandy Hook but before a whole bunch of other mass shootings.  Wills draws the connection between Guns and Moloch, the biggest baddest idol in all of Hebrew Scripture.  For those of you not familiar with the cult of Moloch, here's a thumbnail: Moloch or Molech was an Ammonite deity, who was known to require the sacrifice of children.  "Giving your seed to Molech" was mentioned in Leviticus right in the middle of all the juiciest nasty bits.  It was similarly forbidden in Deuteronomy, but apparently Molech had some staying  power, because he was still hanging around in the time of Ahaz (2 Kings 16), Ahaz was apparently a real first class idolator, it says, "he even made his son pass through the fire," which was most likely a reference to the worship of Molech that was taking place in the Valley of Hinnom, which was later called Gehenna, which is the word Jesus uses for Hell.  So this thing is really persistent and really bad mojo.
You sacrificed children to Molech by burning them alive on the altar to the god, and it is pretty much the most abhorrent and abominable thing anyone ever did according to just about every place in the Bible it gets mentioned.
Why would people do such a thing?
Short answer: fear.
Long answer: the same reason a lot of people own handguns and assault rifles, you know, just in case "stuff" goes down.  I'm not going to say anything about people who who own guns for hunting, or because they collect them, or because they like to go out and shoot at targets.  I have a couple of shotguns from my days of hunting, I enjoy shooting even though I don't hunt anymore, and I understand the powerful feeling of packing heat.  But I am highly suspicious that it is a false feeling of security, because of the simple, and rather unavoidable tendency of violence to escalate and get out of control.  Soldiers and police officers train extensively and perennially to be able to use a gun effectively in conflict.  In my experience, shooting a handgun with any degree of accuracy is a skill that requires a lot of practice, when you are calm and the target is not a threat.  In the case of a threat to my security, honestly, I think I would rather be armed with a baseball bat or something that does not require such precision.  The feeling of security that comes with being armed is an important sign of the idolatry that underlies much of this argument.
An idol is something that offers you a feeling, and really nothing else. You are required to show your devotion to the idol with sacrifice, and the idol gives you the feeling that you will get what you want.
So what do guns as idols give us: the feeling of security.  Not actual security, in fact, they make us less safe for the simple fact that they are what is known as a force multiplier.  An unstable, angry person with a knife is dangerous, but their danger has certain limits, their range has certain limits.  People have been known to go on stabbing sprees, or violent rampages with other weapons, but the impact of those rampages is nothing like what happens when guns are involved.
For a rather vivid illustration of the effect guns might have on people who are unhinged, check this out.  Oh, yeah, do you think the same logic might apply to these mass shootings?  You know, if there was no gun, it wouldn't be quite so easy.  Most of these shooters are, in fact, suicidal, they have devalued their own life probably before they were able to devalue the lives of their victims.
What I'm really trying to dig at here is the idolatry that underlies our approach to violence.  I agree with some of the pro-gun crowd that guns are not the whole problem, but they are a part of it, and they are the part we can most easily take concrete steps to mitigate. At some point we need to understand that the evil behind the idol is the idea that violence can solve all of our problems.  We need to understand that whether you're talking about a revolver or a thermonuclear weapon, the equation remains the same: sacrifice children to us and we will help you feel safe.
That trade is not acceptable.

You're Giving Me Fear

Sometimes there is one scene in a movie that sort of makes the whole thing worth it.  For The Rum Diary, it was this scene where the two protagonists take a hallucinogenic drug and well, have a not so wonderful time.  Please excuse the blasphemous language:



There are three distinctly brilliant quotes in this one minute long scene (as well as one visual image that will probably haunt you): "it's an accusatory giblet," "your tongue belongs to Satan," and finally, "You're giving me fear, stop it!"
I want to shout that last one a bunch of times a day, at the TV, at my computer and nowadays at my phone. Look don't get me wrong, there are legitimate things to fear, which are in no way hallucinations.  Case in point: hurricane Joaquin, which despite it's sort of trendy sounding name, is actually not a joke.  Hurricanes are serious dangers, but if you watch the weather channel you will witness a level of panic that should honestly be reserved for a thermonuclear detonation.  A fact of life: all you can really do about a hurricane is store some drinking water and make sure your flashlight has batteries.  Watching computer simulations of what might happen on TV is quite frankly, futile and stupid.
In my line of work, I run across people who take a weather channel sort of approach to the end of the world.  Every time there's some sort of unusual heavenly event, like, oh I don't know a Blood Moon or just an ordinary little eclipse, they come out.  Whenever something ominous happens in the Middle East (which is like all the freaking time), they come out.  Whenever there's some odd weather, or a particularly galvanizing public figure (cough, Trump), they come out.
On most days, I find them kind of annoying, on some days, and increasingly so lately, I think they're dangerous.  Here's why:

When he (Jesus) had said this, while they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven will come in the same way you saw him go into heaven." -Acts 1: 9-11 NRSV

As I'm often fond of doing, I would like to point out that the message of this text is not primarily that Jesus is coming back, although that is a promise.  The message of the white robe guys (angels) is: "Alright guys, show's over, get to work."
How do I know this you ask?  Because that's not what they said. I know this because the disciples didn't just keep standing there staring up, they went and did things.  Pentecost happened (which you might say was a sort of return of Jesus), Paul happened, Peter finally got his butt in gear, the church happened.  Jesus comes back all the time, and in more cases than not over-realized eschatology (that means focusing too much on the end of the world) causes people to miss the wonder of that because they're afraid.  They're afraid of the rapture, and yes I know, some people can sort of shrug that one off and say, "well if it happens that way then fine, I'm good," but I think that it brings ridicule at best and actually scares people at worst.  People read Revelation through the eyes of fear, of the tribulation, of the Beast, the Antichrist, the Great Whore of Babylon, ultimately they spend so much time afraid that they end up afraid of God, and all they really want is some magical way out of it all. And no, I'm not talking "fear of the LORD," as in reverence or awe of the holy presence of the divine, I'm talking about fear of God the same way you fear monsters, serial killers and big hairy spiders, childish, unproductive fear. In my opinion that is a tragic, terrible place to be, and not at all where followers of Jesus should be living.
This is getting tragically real as we watch the crisis with the Syrian refugees play out around the globe.  Yes, many of them are Muslims (and a bunch are Christian too BTW), yes some of them might be terrorists, but you know what else they are?  Homeless, vulnerable and hungry, many of them are children, and we are letting our "well founded" fears get in the way of helping them.  You can certainly give to organizations that are helping them, but the reality is that if you allow yourself to shut them out of your heart, fear has already won, compassion has already failed, and we have not come any closer to the kingdom.
I think our hearts need to be changed.  We need to say boldly and consistently: "You're giving me fear. Stop it!"  The message of God and his angels has pretty consistently been: "do not be afraid," even and especially when people had good cause to be, why do we think that would change?