Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost its Mind

by Jamie Wheal

“We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.”

Coming Alive is timeless, optimistic, and focused on maximizing choices—savoring the world. Staying Alive is time-bound, pessimistic, and focused on dwindling choices—saving the world. Right now, we seem to be caught smack-dab at their intersection. And that can make it hard to plan our days.

That’s the challenge in front of us: to engineer Ecstasis without the Crave (of addiction to altered states), prompt Catharsis without the Cringe (of indulgent self-help), and create Communitas without the Cult (of unreliable leaders and followers).

“speak when spoken through.”

But that’s just pride talking. Not the obvious posturing of “too cool for school” pride—but another more insidious sort. The pride of our suffering, our uniquely and Especially Important Difference. “Proud people,” Emily Brontë observed, “breed sad sorrows for themselves.”