The images from John's vision echo in all sorts of contexts: from the enigmatic preacher/gun-slinger in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider - 'And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death' (Revelation 6:8) to the rather less mysterious appearance of Death and the other Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pollution (Pestilence having retired in 1936 following the discovery of penicillin) in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's novel Good Omens.
David Miles' Apocalyptic Images* draw on the present and everyday - including images of people he knows, such as in the picture 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' - to create representations of John's vision. Heaven is found, or represented, in ordinary things. As David Miles' writes:
Whether the reader of the Book of Revelation has, or has not, a specific understanding of this enigmatic book is, to some extent, of little importance. What is compelling is that all believers who, through subsequent generations, have encountered the book, have discovered that that which John ‘saw’ has a resonance with the times in which they themselves live.* Further brought to life with music and words in the presentation Approaching Apocalypse.
Love this post and the Blog. Compelling stuff. Blake's poem of "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright" is equally awful yet beautiful like much of the imagery in Revelations. Perhaps it is like the fear of confronting one's own end, one's own death, the abyss, the unknown. Perhaps the second coming is like "enlightenment", or the recognition of Christ in one's own life. I think Paul said, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you" in Galatians 4:19. Perhaps Revelations is less about the death of humanity and more about the death of an old way of being.
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