I Want to be Left Behind

Brenda Peterson is a nature writer primarily, but this is a memoir of her life being raised by devout Southern Baptists who are part of the 47% of Americans ( according to her with no source cited for the figure) who believe in the Rapture. Her father worked for the US Forest Service and she was raised largely in and around national forests and grew to have a deep and abiding love for nature and the flora and fauna and waters and mountains that comprise it. She was the only one in her family who simply couldn't accept the idea of leaving the earth behind as an end goal, and her family always thought her ideas were definitely weird. This is her collection of memories of family get togethers and conversations that dealt with these conflicting philosophies.
Ms Peterson lives in Seattle, one of the most "unchurched" major cities in the US...no wonder I felt so at home there! For the remainder of us who don't believe in this version of the end of our days, and for myself who doesn't buy into organized religion of any stripe, this was a fairly painless way to learn a bit more about the devoutly religious. I know I should read the bible, but not sure I ever will, even though each chapter of this book opens with a scripture citation which made me wonder what I would find there. I finished the book because I wanted to understand how she reconciled these divergent forces in her life. I guess I would say that she accepts her family and values them for what is good in them, without buying into their beliefs. She is encouraged by the fact that the generation that comes after her (nieces and nephews) seem more attached to this earth and to trying to do good things here, rather than ignoring the problems as she fears many "true believers" do. The subtitle of the book is "Finding the Rapture Here on Earth" and that is the predominant thread in her personal belief system--that this earth and everything on it, is part of any divine spirit, and deserves our full attention to preserve it as best we can. A quote I loved that she included went something like this..."Extinction is not good stewardship." Indeed.