Comment to 'prepping question'
  • I live in the Seattle area where we are subject to earthquakes. We are also the closest U.S. mainland target to North Korea as the crow (or missile) flies. We have food and water to last us for a little while. This includes our kids and grandkids.

    I am not, however, a prepper. I have no fortified bunker. Neither do I have a large stockpile of ammo. I decided long ago that I could not kill another human in defense of my supplies. Stealth is my only option. And even then I am at a disadvantage. If I saw a mother roaming the streets in search of food for her child, would I really be capable of not feeding that child (and probably the mom too) at the expense of my own family? I can't say for sure because I've never had to make that decision, but it's likely that if things got that bad that we'd long have crossed the threshold where recovery was even possible so what's another day of this misery for my family?

    There's an old joke that says, "My emergency plan is to know where my closest Mormon neighbor lives." All kidding aside, making long-term plans is really hard. I chuckle when I see people ordering pallets of supplies to last them for a year. In a real emergency, most of those people will be dead within a few weeks. It may be an easy button click on the Costco website to get food enough to last a long time, but what about potable water? And how long before that one-year food supply becomes a one-day supply for the entire neighborhood?

    From a theological perspective, I see a huge difference between preparing for a local disaster versus preparing for the end of the world. You are correct about not living in a spirit of fear. I don't think that it's fearful to prepare for something that happens regularly in our world. Snowstorms, hurricanes, disease, and earthquakes are all natural occurrences and fit well within my planning. As for civil disruption, I just don't worry about it too much. 9/11 and COVID have proven that no matter how hard you try to change society that it's extremely difficult to do. If the word "zombie" appears in your planning considerations then I believe that you're way off base. :-)

    If I could summarize this all into one sentence it would be "Give us this day our daily bread". I honestly think that the "forgive us our debts" part of the Lord's Prayer merits much more of our attention