Where will you be on Saturday May 21 when ‘the end’ comes? What will you be doing? Will you be musing over monotonous tasks at your desk, or at home, only to be jolted from your slumber, as windows, walls and roof rattle at the force of a 10.0 quake? Or will you be driving somewhere, perhaps on a highway -say, Highway 2000 – Portmore leg? Then to have your journey transformed into the car chase of the century – except that this chase will look like a scene from the movie, 2012. So, you floor the accelerator desperately speeding to outrun the disintegrating asphalt, collapsing inches behind the rear tires of your sedan, for which you just made your last monthly payment; the pavement behind you disappears - swallowed by cracks and craters in the after-shock of that 10.0.
Will you be glancing in the rear view mirror while deceptively assuring your six year old daughter that everything is going to be OK - as you frantically negotiate the causeway into Kingston, watching Portmore disappearing into the Kingston Harbour, like Port Royal in 1692? Or, would you by then, have sold your car, cattle and clothes and are earnestly praying with great anticipation – or much consternation like the panic stricken, seeking emergency baptism? Or will you, like me, on Saturday May 21, be giving thanks, as usual for another day – the only day and moment that we know about, without fear or anxiety whether it will be the last? I have no guarantees that there will be a tomorrow – neither do I entertain fear of its uncertainty.
Indeed, for sure, May 21 will be the end, or the beginning of the end of something – one way or another. Yes, it will either be the end according to Harold Camping and his followers, or on the other hand, it will be the end of that speculation, for now - perhaps to be revisited or revised for an amended time in the future, or to be later resurrected by some other proponent of doomsday date forecasting. Be advised, that Camping previously predicted September 6, 1994 as that expected doomsday.
I am reminded of a line from Samuel Beckett’s first mime, "Act without words 1", (You will also remember his text ‘Waiting for Godot’) that reads, 'They give birth astride of a grave.' This not only speaks to what can be interpreted as the futility or brevity of life, but poignantly points to the certainty of death. Whether death is the end, a transition or a new beginning, I do not know. At a previous period of my life, faith would, as a matter of course, have me embrace hopes of a blissful ever after or seek to avoid an unpleasant eternity – but I have never met, neither interviewed a soul that have traveled the yonder dimensions of death and has returned hither with tidings to bear. Therefore, that realm is not my obsession. But I know that I have a duty and responsibility to be the best human being I can be; to be better today than I was yesterday; to be a responsible and responsive citizen in this manifestation; to be my brother’s keeper everyday - come what may.
To be continued.... read Part 3
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