What's Next for Harold Camping's Rapturists? Heaven's Wait List

Followers of Harold Camping were disappointed Saturday when God failed to make his earthly appointment. Camping's daughter Sue Espinoza talked to her 89-year-old father after the appointed Rapture hour ticked by in New Zealand on Saturday. According to Espinoza, Camping said, 'I'm a little bewildered that it didn't happen."

His followers are more angry than bewildered, especially those who so banked on the Rapture that they emptied their bank accounts to promote it.

Maybe Camping missed the memo on heaven's entrance procedures. I suspect getting into heaven is a little bit like getting into college. Some people are shoe-ins, some get wait-listed, and others don't stand a chance. If you didn't get swept up Saturday, you -- along with the rest of us here on Earth -- didn't make Heaven's first cut. We're on the celestial wait list.

Savvy seekers of admission to heaven need to think strategy. Why spend precious time analyzing weather and wars over the next 5 months for evidence of a secretive Rapture revealed through a stream of unabated disasters?

Earth has suffered enough recent disasters for our celestial prospects snapshot:

* New Orleans. Katrina nearly wiped out the city. We pulled out our checkbooks. Six years later, the suffering in New Orleans continues.

* Haiti. A year and a half ago, an earthquake leveled the capital. Money didn't solve the problem. Despite record-shattering donations, Haiti is still in shambles.

* Japan. Japan got hit with a triple-shock earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster a little more than a month ago. The nuclear threat is ongoing and all the money in the world isn't going to fix it.

If there's enlightenment in Camping's doomsday prediction, maybe it's this. We're all on heaven's wait list and our chances of snagging a coveted afterlife in the clouds aren't looking good. Throwing money at problems doesn't absolve us of responsibility for saving our fellow Earth dwellers. Sharing our bounty is a daily obligation, not merely a one-time disaster relief project.

For Camping's believers determined to move up from the wait list, I suggest they toss the posters, liquidate whatever meager assets remain, and go out in the world and do good. Step right up where there's war, famine and disaster or even a homeless guy outside the grocery.

No need to send God a follow-up memo on changes since original application for Heaven spot filed. Unlike college admissions reps, God is omniscient, according to various Biblical reports.