A New Baby is God's Opinion that the World Should Go On!

I'm not a carbon footprint, I'm a gift from God!

I recently had a brief exchange with the cashier at the dollar bill store, a young man who was probably 20 something. The conversation came about because I was buying anniversary cards. He volunteered that he never intended to get married or have children. I said I had friends who decided never to have children who were now old and lonely and bitter. On the other hand, I was playing and laughing with my grandchildren.

How does a young man come to such a sad state in life? Perhaps he was reared in an unhappy home. Maybe his parents ended up in a bitter divorce. Or maybe his teachers filled him Malthusian nonsense about the world coming to an end if we didn't stop reproducing.

At any rate, I thought of that conversation as I read this article. Note to Malthus: Life is Good.  Indeed it is and, as Dickens wrote, "It is no small wonder that these who are so fresh from God love us."

And with that I am happy to say that number 25 grandchild, the tie-breaker among our grandchildren who is due in late January, is a little girl. How I look forward to welcoming her! Let us never believe the doom and gloomers who look at a new life, not as a new soul for God, but as a curse to Mother Earth. They are sad and sorry folks who see despair as a virtue and death as a sacrament instead of the punishment for sin.

When you hear about a new life, when you see a pregnant woman, when you meet young families at church with many children give thanks and rejoice and don't forget to offer a smile and friendly word -- especially if the children are acting up and the mom looks harassed. Those little ones are our future and, as long as we haven't sterilized ourselves out of existence, God is still smiling on us through the eyes of those little bundles of grace in their mothers' arms.