Bob Foster likens himself to Noah of Old Testament fame.

It seems Mr. Foster determined back in 1979 that the world was about to end.  So, he high-tailed it out into the Utah wilderness and carved out a dwelling for himself in a huge rock.  He calls his home, and the community that has grown there over the years as the world managed to hang on, Rockland Ranch.

Foster was a polygamist Mormon, excommunicated long ago.  He still has three wives, despite going through a divorce, and almost forty children.  Over the years he has chipped away at the rock enough to fashion 9 more “buildings,” which are naturally cool in the summer, warmed by wood stoves in the winter, and benefit from a nearby reservoir.

Maybe he originally made a miscalculation, but Foster cannot imagine “life as we know it” continuing any longer than ten more years.  Too many factors work against it:  “global warming, war, and all.”

So, he has his escape all arranged, out there among the rocks, along with the seventy-five or so others who have found their way to this refuge.   If the world ends, I’m not sure what those people think they will do, or why they even think they will survive.

Foster sees himself as a “religious” person, blending Christianity and Mormon teachings in his outlook.

He can do what he chooses, I suppose (although he once served 20 days of jail time for a polygamy conviction.  He described it as “hard time” – he had to wash the sheriff’s car.).  But, it occurs to me that people of faith aren’t instructed or encouraged to withdraw from the world, or culture, or society, no matter how depraved it may become.

I thought we were supposed to be witnesses to an alternative – a world, culture, or society imagined by God, reflecting God’s love and inclination to create new life.