This lady, or someone like her, has been in the Union Square train station fairly regularly over the last week or so. When I first tried to take her picture, she was leaning against the side of the pole to the right. She moved, so I moved too. I wonder if it’s because she has some doubts about what she’s promoting and is concerned about potential embarrassment when she wakes up on the morning of the 22nd to see clear skies and just another Sunday?
I say clear skies because the reasoning behind this theory that the world will end on May 21st, 2011 is that God said that “Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made” (Genesis 7:4) and He also said “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). Apparently, May 21st, 2011 is the day God was talking about, and never mind that whole story that follows Genesis 7:4 about Noah in the ark. That was just a prequel for the real event. Or so they would have us believe, I guess. There’s also some special numerology that they’re using to explain why they fixed on exactly May 21st that involves numbers with traditional symbolism and the number of days between the Crucifixion and that day.
I’m not going to hold my breath. Like every other end-of-the-world theory that’s come before this one, this will end in disappointment and tears, and maybe even some embarrassment. But, on the off chance that the world actually is flooded on the 21st, at least I won’t have to do finals for this semester.
Bradley Farless 