Armageddon

I keep a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle from the day each of my children were born. I do this despite the fact the front page banner headline on the day DS#1 was born was about the Marines killed by Islamic suicide bombers in Lebanon.

The Prophecies of Nostradamus were popular, especially the one that seemed to indicate that Armageddon will begin in the Middle East. I still think of that prophecy whenever I hear of trouble in the Middle East and I wonder, "Is this is it?" All it would take is one madman to use a Weapon of Mass Destruction, either nuclear or biological.

Yet I am not comfortable with the "Peace at Any Price" crowd. Some of them remind me of Uriah Heep (or, to use a more modern example, Peter Pettigrew) humbling themselves, humbling themselves, not to serve but to rule.

Is this war in the Middle East something I would be willing to sacrifice my children for? I understand that, ultimately, it is their decision to make. But would I accept their decision as I would the decision they make to become an engineer or a priest or a doctor? Would I accept their decision as long as they were not in harm's way?

Our own Boy Scout troop has lost a member to the war in Iraq fairly early on. His mother is still deeply affected. She has decided to take her faith more seriously; to make a commitment to attending Mass and the religious education of her daughter. A creative person, she no longer makes wedding accessories--she doesn't have the heart for it. She doesn't know if she ever will.

Could I live with that?

I don't know.

Could I live in a world where I couldn't drive, couldn't read, couldn't appear in public without a male in my family? Could I raise my daughters to not think, not question? Could I raise my sons--or allow them to be raised--to think that women are a lower order of human, that it's their right to mistreat them?

Could I raise my children and not share my Faith?

No.

According to Webster's Online, the first definition of Armageddon is "the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil." As I watch television, as I read the newspapers, I wonder, "How close are we going to come this time?"