Life: A Commentary (standard:other, 3278 words)
Author: Sare	Added: Nov 22 2001	Views/Reads: 3413/2498	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A perspective and commentary on life.

It's obvious from various posts in the forum that many of us are very
unhappy with the way the world is. We lament the racism, the violence, 
the hatred. Some of you criticize the way children are being brought 
up, some of you criticize the way "adults" treat young people. No one 
seems happy with the way the world is moving. So here's my question: 
Feeling this way about the world, why do we bring new people into it? 

This is a big issue for me. When my parents were my age they were
idealistic and happy. The world is a beautiful place, man, and all we 
need is love. They had a baby, me, as a symbol of their love for each 
other and the terrific place the world was. 

Seven years later they weren't in love any more. They had another baby
as a desperate attempt to hold it together. They brought my brother 
into a world of argument, of anger, of door-slamming and shouting. No 
wonder the kid's so messed up. 

They divorced. That's fine by me. They're both married to decent people
who love them and make them happy. I have four reasonably happy parents 
instead of two angry ones. 

My mother and her husband had another baby. They couldn't afford one,
really, they were constantly strapped for cash due to their odd little 
habits. But my sister came into the world loved and wanted, especially 
by me. 

One of my best friends had a baby this summer, and I was privileged
enough to be there. I held Catie just a few minutes after she was born, 
and like so many people I found myself saying to her, "Hello," and 
"Welcome to the world." They're traditional baby-welcoming things. It 
didn't hit me then. 

The other night I was looking after her again. She was snuggled tight
against my breast and sound asleep. (She's three months old). I 
remembered that before she was born, I bought a book for her (Robert 
Munsch's Love You Forever), and had never gotten around to writing the 
inscription. So I went over to her bookshelf, pulled out the book, read 
it to her, and then sat down to write. 

Still without realizing, I wrote, "To Caitlin, with lots of love forever
from Auntie Sarah. Welcome to the world, little one." 

Then. Then it hit me. The world I live in is full of anger and cruelty,
of hatred and racism, of violence and war. How can I be welcoming this 
tiny, helpless, defenseless creature into THIS world? I LOVE her! Why 
should anyone want to be here, and what right have we to bring children 
into it? 

I've been wanting a baby for quite some time. Holding Catie in my arms
always brings a surge of maternal desire. I want one. I feel myself 
whining. But my philosophical problem with it is this: feeling as I do 
about the way the world is, how can I ever justify bringing a baby into 
it? The responsibility of sheltering and protecting it from the world 
is one I would gladly take, but I know that I couldn't do it nearly as 
well as I need to. No-one can. 

Children grow up and become adults surrounded and bombarded by violence.
They see their mothers being beaten, they see their older sisters being 
violated, they see their brothers shot by gang members or heading off 
to war. On television they watch these things dispassionately but in 
life they are hurt, angry, confused. "Why is the world like this? Why 
does God let it happen?" 

Some would argue that there is no God. That we are left here to fend for
ourselves and do the best we can. That's how evil can exist, they say, 
because there is no God. 

Others argue that there is indeed a God. That God doesn't care about
human beings and so allows suffering. 

Still others say that God does exist. That evil and suffering are the
result of human beings' free will. The counter-question, of course, is 
why God would allow human beings free will knowing what would result. 

In the movie "Oh, God!" George Burns, as God, responds to John Denver's


Click here to read the rest of this story (274 more lines)