This world of ours can only be taken in small doses...

After I woke up this morning and discovered I hadn’t been blasted to cinders or covered in 500 feet of water, I lay for a moment and contemplated my/our new lease on life.

I mean, really, although most of us poo-pooed all the hubbub about the end of the world today, there were some seeds of doubt – weren’t there? To illustrate my point a bit, I took the liberty of going to a news agency’s site (to remain unnamed) and without prejudice plucked the top 10 headlines from it’s entrails. First, the world news:

Iraqi Sunnis accuse Maliki of crackdown, tensions flare

 Why scandal-tinged Berlusconi still beloved of many Italians 

 South Africa’s soothing Ramaphosa leads ANC charm offensive 

 Gunmen in deadly attack on Ivory Coast security targets 

 Tribal violence kills 39 in Kenya

North Korea charges detained American with crime against state 

 Analysis: Allies to lose socialist patron if Venezuela’s Chavez goes

North Korea says it has detained a US citizen 

Syrian rebels attack base near military factories  Islamists, opponents clash in northern Egypt

Pope takes anti-gay marriage stance to new level

And just to show I realize over here in the States, we have our fair share:

6’8″ transgender plays for girls

Stocks set to tumble

Michigan charges suspected highway shooter with “terrorism”

Four men accused of trying to sell weapons of Saddam’s family 

U.S. Marine convicted of urinating on corpses of Taliban insurgents 

Missouri Lawmakers’ Solution: Armed Teachers in Classrooms 

Obama video on gun violence petitions: ‘We hear you’

Apocalyptic Weather Hits Across United Statesx assaults rise at US Military academies

Police: Man torments girlfriend by killing hamsters

Now, any who know me also knows I’m not a doom-and-gloomer. And I might note that there is also – especially at this time of year  - hundreds of heart-warming stories out there that serve to offset the horrifying ones, to some degree. But. The balance is shifted between the two sides like never before.

I remember when I was a child, I experienced the same phenomenon as any kid – hearing my dad lament about the “good old days” when life was simpler, things were cheaper, people didn’t do such crazy things, and so on. And I also recall thinking “what’s he complaining about? It ain’t that bad.” That’s because dad, like any good father, shielded his kids from the atrocities lurking in the world, at least until it was time to educate us a bit on what was waiting. 

Now, as a parent, I fully understand why. Reading the news – or walking down a city street – today is not for the faint of heart. I’m not going to enumerate further the various horrors any one of us can experience at the drop of a hat. All of you are more than aware. What I WILL say, though, is I believe it’s happened because we as a society have swung away from two things that taught us how to be basically decent beings: God and family. The Ten Commandments laid out a basic set of rules by which you couldn’t go wrong as a person. And the parents taught how to live by those rules.

Now, much of life is learned by a child’s peers, or video games. Sad. 

We’ve made a mess of our world, we surely have. And now, as I sit here sipping coffee and breath my own somewhat dramatized sigh of relief that I don’t see a wall of water coming toward my window (although there ARE 15 hours left in the day), I’ll say a bit of a prayer, giving thanks for what I have, and for what years I have left. 

By the way, anyone who has read the bible and perused the part that mentions the Apocalypse realizes that no one – not even the angels – will know when it’s coming. God will simply decide it’s been enough, lean over and hit the BRS (that’s very old computer techno jargon for Big Red Switch), and that will be that.

No, he’s not doing that today – but could anyone blame him if he did?