The End

"I felt the earth move under my feet..." or so an 80's song by Carole King says.

There are only a few things more disquieting than having your walls and floor rock back-and- forth in a swaying motion. It felt for a moment that I was in a hammock. Except that the motion was not soothing at all.

Earlier today our island of Cebu experienced a minor earth tremor. It was minor, thank God. Nothing came loose, got broken or fell down. At least not in our house. To be honest, it was that minor that even our household help, who was so involved in drying her hair, didn't even feel it.

But I did. And so did my father. I was peacefully seated in the living room going through some documents when I felt my chair started boogieing. I thought at first that my dog was under my chair scratching himself. But then my father, who fell asleep in a chair opposite me, suddenly woke up. The funny thing is, he thought the same - that maybe our dog was under his chair. Yeah, poor doggy Prinz.

I noticed the ceiling fan started to move. This triggered thoughts of devastation in my head. With the Tsunami in Indonesia/Thailand a couple of years ago and the recent Peru disaster fresh in my mind, I was trying to feel the tremor. Was it going to last long? Is it getting stronger? I was preparing myself to run out of the house or hide somewhere.

But thankfully the earthquake only lasted for about 4 seconds. We found out later through the news that we had intensity #4 in the Richter scale. The epicenter was in Bohol, another island east of where I am. They had intensity #5 there.

We had a strong earthquake many years ago which caused great devastation and a lot of deaths in our country. But thank God there is no reported major casualty this time around. Damages only went as far as old school buildings getting cracked as a result of the movement of the ground.

As I go to bed tonight, I will be pondering on this verse once more: " ....There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.....(Matt. 24: 6-14).

Indeed, the end is near. We must be ready.