I have had a fear for maybe ten years or so that started with an uneasiness and can best be described by something I heard for the first time in church. Birth pains. 

Truthfully, from the moment the first tower was hit on a bright and sunny day, and then the other, as the whole thing was being  broadcast around the world live. And then the unthinkable happened. It fell. They fell, and the clock started. Or did it start in Bosnia? Without the collapse of the Soviet Union,  there would never have been a Bosnia, so maybe the clock started then.  I honestly think we refuse to look outside the generation that we live in and maybe we need to ask how the Middle Eastern boundaries became what they are now. Maybe that’s the beginning. Maybe, but regardless of when, we are now part of a world wide struggle that will eventually come to a head.

It’s not just the Middle East and Northern Africa. Look at China. Look at Korea. And Europe. Powder kegs everywhere and look at us. It’s almost like every hundred years or so, mankind has to blow everything up but this time is different. Or is it different? Maybe every age is marred with unexplainable dread. This time the match could come from anywhere. The explosion could come from almost any region.

Birth pains.

Why do you always talk about these things? …… Why isn’t everyone?

Fear may be the wrong word too, because I am not afraid. maybe sorrow is a better word. When unreasonable people have absolute power, its only a matter of time and the axis of evil, even though it was much maligned, was pretty spot on.

The thing about birth pains is this, they get worse and worse until they give birth to something. So here we are, waiting for those in power to make decisions that will affect us all and shape the future of civilization. Maybe Einstein, even now is pleading with us through his 1949 statement, “I know not with what weapons world war III will be fought, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”