Dr. Mai

Chancey Mai opened the large iron door to his room. He flipped a tiny switch on the wall covered in dry, cracking paint. The room lit up with a sharp white light, exposing a square metal desk and chair and a low, wire-framed bed, made up with a few black sheets and no pillow. At the foot of the bed was a metal closet. The room, scarcely bigger than its three articles of furniture, had no windows and was sparsely decorated.

On the far wall hung a painting of a shepherd boy wearing a dark blue robe and sandals, and reaching down off the edge of a precipice with a wooden staff to a tiny brown lamb stuck on a ledge. Above his bed was a stitched hanging with the twenty-third psalm written on it, and on the closet was a medical diagram of a cross-sectioned human body.

Chancey glanced at the painting of the shepherd boy and smiled briefly. He adjusted the switch on the wall to halfway between up and down, and the lights dimmed. Draping his labcoat on the chair at his desk, he yawned and then stretched. He sat down.

On his desk were pencils and several tattered books: the Holy Bible, a strategy guide to a game called Territory, a few small, hard-bound works with Chinese writing on them, and a stapled packet of papers riddled with medical terms and jargon. A five-gallon bowl covered in a see-through plastic lid with little air holes sat at the back of the table.

Chancey leaned forward and peered into it. Two lively green frogs were swimming around a seaweed-like plant in several inches of water. Grabbing a cylindrical container of flakes, the doctor sprinkled a pinch in the bowl. He then grabbed the packet of papers and a pencil and began scanning the documents rapidly, periodically circling or underlining sentences and phrases. A distinct electric buzz came from the door.

"Yes?" called Dr. Mai.

"Hey Chance," called a friendly male voice.

"Hi," he replied.

A lanky man with graying hair walked into the room. "You up for a trip to the gameroom?" inquired the man. "Maybe some table tennis or cards?"

"I don't think right now, Jesse. I've got to edit this report for the staff guys by tomorrow," answered Chancey.

"Okay, okay. I'll let you demolish my self-esteem and play you a game of Territory," said Jesse.

"Ooh. Man. I'd love to...but..." the doctor struggled. Territory was his favorite strategy game. He'd been playing it a lot for the past year and had just won the annual championship. "I just can't."

"Oh, come on. Doesn't this room drive you insane? You're the only freak I know who's left the

original paint on the walls. It makes me wanna vomit."

Doctor Mai had had more than one complaint about his sense of aesthetics, but he found simple things soothing. The wallpaper was calming, even if it was slowly eroding and cracking away. "Maybe tomorrow, Jesse. Thanks anyway," said the doctor.

The New Pestilence

June 17, 2499
Living Hope Medical and Psychiatric Facility,
Australia

Dr. Chancey Mai was worried. Racing down the narrow, institutionally-painted corridor, he hoped to God it wasn't too late. He burst through an iron door and emerged in a small observation room stinking of chemicals and medicine, with a one way mirror on the opposite wall. Peering into the adjacent room, he looked upon a person clad completely in white, save for a badly scarred and apparently burnt, hairless head. The patient lay listless in the corner of the featureless, padded room and slowly lifted his head.

Dr. Mai gave a little smile. He was happy to see the poor man respond. He reached for the wall and pressed a small red button, which clicked, followed by a short static hiss. "Gabe?" he spoke gently. "I've got some news for you."

The man seemed to growl towards the window on his side of the wall. "Let me see you," he muttered.

Dr. Mai flipped a switch on the sill of the one way mirror, which illuminated his side of the room. "I talked to the theologians and scientists today. They were working with one of the others. They've found out something that they think could be very important in figuring out what's wrong with you."

"Why don't they ever wo- work with me?" stammered Gabe.

"They think your case is too severe to disrupt your rest, buddy," answered the doctor. "Don't you wanna hear about their studies?"

"BLOW their studies," he bellowed. "I'm scr- screwed..." Gabe began to cough uncontrollably. He looked to the ground and blood slowly trickled from his lips, staining his bleached garments and the padded floor.

Dr. Mai grimaced in frustration. He waited for Gabriel's episode to ebb. "Just...just listen to me, Gabe? Please." The patient looked up again. Taking a deep breath, Dr. Mai began in his most sensitive tone of voice, attempting to hide any traces of fear or excitement, "Anyway, the team has been toying with a theory for years. One about phased matter and interdimensional physics and how they relate to and interact with biological life and well, it's complicated really... Well anyway, to make a long story short, they know what part of you is causing your sickness."

Gabe straightened up a bit and leaned forward, trembling with anticipation.

The doctor said flatly, "It's your soul."

________________________________________________________________
June 18, 2499
Testament Research Labs,
Australia

A dozen or so men, several in long white lab coats, and the remainder wearing the plain black garb of traditional clergymen or casual dress, gathered around a table in a small, undecorated room, illuminated by a single fluorescent light in its center. Rustles of paper filled the tiny space as the men took their plain metal seats. A mustached fellow stood up at the head of the table.

"Good evening, gentlemen," resounded his confident baritone voice. "I'm sure you have all heard about our latest discovery. I'm here to elaborate a little bit so you can do your best to answer the questions of the citizens of our community. I'll try to keep this in layman's terms, so please try to bear with me."

The man slowly paced the front of the room, twirling a pencil in his right hand. "First of all, I must remind you of Clay's Theory of Inner Matter. This was the doctrine that stated that the human soul was made of matter, very similar to that of the human body. However, we have known that this matter exists as phased matter. That is, it cannot interact with the matter of this world...or so we thought. Due to reasons yet unknown, we know that there now exists a disease which is contracted through the human soul and is capable of eventually spreading into the body's physical matter via the cerebral cortex, causing severe physical and psychological handicaps."

He stopped pacing and planted the palms of his hands at the end of the desk. He continued, "As of now, all known cases of this 'disease' have been right here in our very small, very isolated, very controlled colony...and unfortunately, it does appear to be spreading somehow. Although we know that the viral energy originates in the soul, we have no idea of how this disease is initially contracted. And if the world outside our tiny communes should somehow become infected, there could be an international pandemic within weeks."

Everyone bowed their heads and was still. "Therefore, we must declare our entire colony under quarantine until further notice."

____________________________________________________________
June 20, 2499
The Eastern Megalopolis
North America

"So what the hell is it?" shrieked Jodi as she clawed at her pinkened, mottled arms. She stared down onto the sparkling city below her through the wide, spotless windows of her penthouse.

"You've gone psycho!" returned Nadya from the elegant living room. Sprawled out on the sofa, her posture revealed her lack of concern. Her dark skin contrasted with the sparkles on the goblet of wine she had been sipping. She sighed. "What in the name of Madonna ya want me to do about it?"

"I don't know! But I've got a corpse in my lovin' kitchen and my body's falling apart!" She began to cry, streaking black mascara lines down her sickly pale face. She looked into her kitchen and vomited. There lay the body of her lover, shirtless, a knife standing erect from his spine and streaks of crimson trickling across his side.

Jodi burst through the door and stumbled into the elevator across the plush hall. Like an angel plummeting from the heavens, she dropped to the lobby and ran across the grand floor, tripping on the soft purple carpet as she went. She pushed through the double glass doors and barreled into the streets, tangling herself in the forest of human limbs.

My Thoughts on Peter the Roman, the Prophecy of St. Malachy, and Revelation 17

All Christians know it will happen: Jesus Christ will return someday and the world will end as we know it. He'll reign for 1,000 years before one last battle with the enemy, and then a new Heaven and new Earth will appear. But there are many things which must come to pass before these final events can unfold: the Antichrist, the Rapture, and Armageddon, to name a few. There is heated debate over the specific order these events will happen in. And people have been declaring "The End Is Near!" for centuries.

However, there is evidence that we are finally seeing events happen as described in the book of Revelation. An Endtime scholar named Irvin Baxter makes an excellent argument that 5 of the 7 trumpets in Revelation chapters 8-9 have already sounded, and that we are waiting for the dreaded 6th trumpet, in which 33% of humanity will perish in a world war, presumably via the use of nuclear weapons.

If you go beyond American media sources and look at international news, you'll notice that we're basically on the verge of WWIII. There's tension between China and Japan over territories in the South Pacific and South China Sea. Taiwan wants out of China. North Korea wants to invade South Korea and launch nuclear missiles at the U.S. There is massive civil unrest in numerous African nations, the likes of which have never been seen before. The U.S. and Israel are poised to invade an already tumultuous Syria, and Russia and Iran will defend the standing Syrian government if we do. The U.S. and Israel want to invade Iran, as they get closer and closer to nuclear power. Russia and China will both see an invasion of Iran as a threat to their own security. The U.K., France, and other western European powers will support the U.S. and its actions, while the Muslim world will side with Syria, Iran, Russia, and China.

So let's look beyond the fact that Harold Camping predicted the end of the world in 2011. Let's look beyond the fact that the Mayan calendar ended in 2012. Those events may have been a smokescreen to blind us to the truth. How easy is it now for someone to say, "See, every time someone predicts the end of the world, it doesn't happen."? And it is true, according to scripture, that no one will know the day or the hour of Christ's return. But we can know the season. And maybe somehow the ancient Maya did see 2012 as the beginning of the end. It does seem like we've entered into a new era involving "rumors of wars" and natural disasters and "signs in the heavens" in the form of asteroid fly-by's, meteorite explosions, and solar flares.

And on top of it all, there's the 12th century Prophecy of St. Malachy. By itself, I'd never put my faith in an extra-Biblical prophecy, but because it has been highly accurate thus far, and because it does seem to line up with the Word of God as described in Revelation 17, it's worth paying some attention to.

According to this "Prophecy of the Popes," there's only one pope left: Peter the Roman, or Petrus Romanus. And the aforementioned Irvin Baxter makes a Biblical case that the next pope might be the False Prophet. Furthermore, the fact that Pope Benedict XVI resigned should raise a few eyebrows because it's the first time this has happened in 598 years, and it may imply that there are other "forces" at work coercing Benedict to adhere to a predetermined timetable. True, he did hint at a possible resignation almost a year ago, but this may have been simply lessen the shock of his actual resignation announcement. But more importantly, both the biblical book of Revelation and the final piece of this Prophecy of St. Malachy blatantly state that Rome, "The City of Seven Hills," will be destroyed—and Malachy predicts it will be during the reign of Peter the Roman.

In addition to all of these red flags, there are other papal prophecies hinting at the same kind of events, most notably the vision of Pope Pius X. And again, by itself, you can't take any extra-Biblical prophecy at face value—but when it lines up with and corroborates the Word of God, there might be something to it.

I am not a Catholic. I am a Christian. I believe Jesus Christ is Lord. And I believe there are many Catholics who can say that and mean it, too. But it seems pretty obvious to me that the woman wearing purple and scarlet and sitting on The City of Seven Hills in Revelation 17 is the Roman Catholic Church. And God is apparently not pleased with this chick. With good reason. So everybody, get right with God. Ask Jesus to forgive you for your sins, repent, and be baptized. Believe that He is the Son of God, Savior of Mankind, and Lord of all. I know, it's easier said than done to just change your beliefs. But maybe if you're unable to do it now, when you see the city of Rome destroyed in the coming months or years, you will be able to make that leap of faith. The end is coming. Get ready. May the peace of God be with you all.

In closing, I'd also like to say:  if aliens show up in the next couple years, DON'T TRUST THEM!

Why I Believe In Life On Other Planets

Well, to begin, I'll just ask the question: "Why not believe in life on other planets?"

From Christians, the most common answer you'll get is that the Bible doesn't tell us about the existence of aliens, therefore, there are no aliens.

True, the Bible doesn't explicitly tell us that there is life on other planets. But my rebuttal to this argument would begin by stating the obvious fact that the Bible doesn't explicitly tell us that there is not life on other planets, either. The argument that "The Bible doesn't say it, therefore it isn't true" is like making the argument that "Since the Bible doesn't give us detailed instructions on how to boil pasta in water on a gas stove, it simply cannot be done." Or, "Because the Bible didn't tell us about DNA, it does not exist."

The Bible, as I have learned in church, can give us certain knowledge of God; that is, it can reveal to us many, many truths about God and His will for us and our world that we can be certain of, BUT it does not give us exhaustive knowledge of God; that is to say, it doesn't tell us every single tidbit of knowledge about God. Since God is infinite and omnipresent, if we were to know each and every detail about God, we too, would need to be omnipotent, and the Bible itself would need to be infinitely long.

I would also like to point out that this line of thinking is what led the Catholic church to execute the great astronomer Galileo for insisting that the earth went around the sun, and not the other way around. Church leaders at the time were so convinced that the earth was the center of all creation, that they accused anyone who disagreed with them of heresy. They used the Bible as their grounds for this belief, although the Bible certainly does not make any claim that the earth is the center of the solar system. We now know that the Earth is not the center of the solar system, it is not the center of our galaxy, and it is not the center of the universe. I believe God might be trying to reiterate the fact that "It's NOT about US!" Yes, God loved us so much that He became human and died for us, but it's still not about us. God would get along fine without any of us.

The next major argument against life on other planets that I've heard from fellow Christians is that "Jesus died for our sins on our planet, so how do these extraterrestrials get saved?" My simple answer to this is "I don't know." And then I would add: "But if there is life on other planets, God does know." In other words, if another race of beings needed to be saved from their own sins, God would find a way to do it. Since God is infinitely more creative than I am, I'm sure He has come up with something far more glorious than I could even imagine, but just for fun, here are some of my own hypotheses: 1. Human-being Jesus travels to the aliens' planet and He dies for them there. 2. Human-being Jesus travels to the aliens' planet and tells them that He died for everyone's sins on Earth. 3. God is born as an alien, grows up on their planet, and dies for their sins there. 4. At some point in the future, human beings travel to distant planets as intergalactic missionaries and tell them about Jesus.

I think, however, it is quite likely that many of God's creations might have never chosen to sin in the first place. Imagine that: God creates a planet with sentient beings, and they actually choose to obey Him. The great Christian thinker C.S. Lewis was able to imagine life on other planets, and he wrote a trilogy of space-based adventures describing how extraterrestrials might exist in a Christian universe. In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis chronicles an adventure to a planet full of innocent creatures; creatures that never fell under the curse of sin. The story makes the point that, even though mankind chose to sin and rebel against God, that God was glorified even more greatly on Earth, since God was afforded the chance to become one of us and to heroically save us from ourselves. His purposes for other races on other planets might be very different from His purpose for us.

The second book in the trilogy, Perelandra, takes place on a world with only two indigenous sentient beings, a male and a female. Satan manages to show up to tempt the female character into disobeying God, but God sends a human to tell her about what happened on Earth, and to encourage her to obey God's commands. Hear that? A space-missionary, yo...and you thought I was a heretic for suggesting such a thing. Is C.S. Lewis a heretic, too? And, Joss Whedon...well, I'm pretty sure he's not even a Christian...but he did the whole intergalactic-missionary thing, as well, in Firefly and Serenity.

Furthermore, the very magnitude of the universe suggests that something else is going on somewhere out there. I mean, yes, if it pleased God to create such a ridiculously gigantic-beyond-all-comprehension, immensely, stupifyingly, stupendously, humongously enormous space just to make us humans gasp at how amazing creation is, then yes, He absolutely succeeded at that, and that would be just fine. But, if He chose to create a multitude of worlds and planets and societies just as great or greater than ours, wouldn't that be just as amazing, and perhaps, even more so?

Of course, I'm not saying you have to believe in life on other planets, I'm just making the point that it's not that ridiculous if you do. I personally doubt that any extraterrestrials have ever visited this planet yet. I think we are being isolated in the universe for a specific time for a specific purpose. But of course, this is all conjecture, and I just encourage you all to keep an open mind. But one thing is for certain: Jesus Christ is alive, and He is my Lord and Savior.