The Chosen

Last week, I was sitting in a waiting room when an older woman walked in and immediately began speaking, very loudly, to another woman across from me.

I’m not normally one to eavesdrop. But this wasn’t subtle. It felt intentional. Volume calibrated. Tone rehearsed. The kind of loud that says: please overhear me.

She was talking about the rapture. About being chosen. About how the end was near and how the Lord had revealed it to her personally.

She nodded confidently as she shared her “facts.” About collapse. About salvation. About her role in the plan.

And the woman across from her fed it. Little prompts. Encouraging questions. Nods.

A performance needs an audience. And I refused to participate. Not because I object to faith. Not because I object to God. Not because I object to mystery. But because something in her delivery felt off.

There was no humility in it. No trembling. No reverence. No tears.

Just certainty.

And I’ve learned to pay attention to that.

I’ve stood close to death. Three times. Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally. And what I experienced wasn’t theatrical. It wasn’t exclusive. It wasn’t an invitation-only club of the spiritually superior. It wasn’t a badge. It wasn’t loud.

It was vast. It was humbling. It was so far beyond ego that ego didn’t survive the encounter.

So when someone speaks as if the end of the world was personally delivered to them like a VIP invitation, I don’t feel threatened. I feel… cautious.

Because there’s a difference between faith and performance. Between belief and attention-seeking. Between reverence and relevance-hunting.

Part of me wanted to ask her when she died. Wanted to compare notes. Wanted to gently point out that what I saw wasn’t hierarchical. It wasn’t selective. It wasn’t about chosen status.

But I didn’t. Because that conversation wouldn’t have been about truth. It would have been about validation. And that’s a different hunger.

So I stayed quiet.

I let her have the room she was trying to command. And I made a quiet note to myself: The loudest spiritual claims are often the most fragile. Real encounters with something larger than you don’t inflate you. They shrink you. They humble you.

And if the end ever does come? I doubt it will need a publicist.