I have a confession to make. This is difficult for me, but there is no other way to say it other than to say it.
I am a prepper.
Yup. I am Catholic and I am a prepper or maybe I should say, I am a prepper because I am Catholic.
In the minds of many, a prepper can be anyone from the guy who lives behind 10-foot-thick concrete walls under a former missile silo to somebody who has a few weeks of rations in his pantry.
I am more toward the latter than the former. I believe we should be prepared for foreseeable and even predictable events. As a husband and a father, I think it prudent to make provisions for short-term interruptions (few days to a few months) to the global logistical supply chain that brings me my food, water, power, medicine, clothing, and information. I also believe it is prudent to make provisions to supplement, when possible, for longer term interruptions to the essentials of food, water, and shelter.
But Patrick, some may say, as a Catholic you should trust in God to provide. Being a prepper means that you do not trust in God. Does not scripture say, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
h/t Hermit Sister
Regardless of your ‘religious persuasion’, prepping just makes sense. Until the last 40 years, you would have been considered quite crazy for not having any food or supplies laid in at your home.
Whether you contemplate prepping under the impetus of “Test not the Lord your God”, or the more generic “why take risks you don’t have to?”, prepping just makes sense. Does believing that you should “always keep your gas tank at least half full” make you crazy? Of course not, and that is a form of prepping. There are many others -- keeping some money in your glove box so that you can pay for gas/food/etc in case your wallet ever got lost or stolen is another simple thing that many folks do. Anyone who carries a firearm by choice is plainly making a choice to prepare for the unanticipated.
The deadly alternatives to prepping are all… quite avoidable… assuming you act now.
And if this is all paranoia, and there is no cataclysm in the next year or two, then you can save your receipts and donate the food and supplies, winning both a moment of recognition in your community, and a break on your ~2016 taxes.