Did I ask you for a son, my lord?’ she said. ‘Didn’t I tell you, “Don’t raise my hopes”’” (2 Kings 4:28, NIV)?* The words of that desperate mother to the prophet Elisha touch my heart - strings. Her vexation rattles my mind as I think of both the blessing of children and the landscape of threat surrounding them.

“Dystopian,” and “post apocalyptic” are two words I’ve come to use more often lately. And let’s be honest, I never used them before, but now I find they apply to so many of the movies, shows, and books I’ve noticed lately.

“Post apocalyptic” is what follows an event that spells the total destruction of life as we know it. “Dystopian,” unlike utopian society, is drear, dark, unpromising, and “characterized by human misery . . .”

The Hunger Games and similar works explore that dark side of our imaginative future. I remember listening to a critic berate Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins for not adequately—in her opinion—addressing the ethical considerations of having children fight to the death for their survival. It was too dark, she said. It is dark, I thought. In the weeks following, I watched as the Hunger Games signature mocking jay pins showed upon kid’s lapels and backpacks after they saw the movie or read the book. Why such a dark fascination with life like this? Then I remembered my children’s frame of reference.

I had swayed with my baby girl on my hip when in 1999, as we rang in the new year with friends and family, I wondered if the fateful stroke of midnight would mean global calamity because of the feared “millennium bug.” Massive computer systems could have crashed at Y2K they told us.

Later I clutched my infant son while I stood transfixed in front of the television. First there was smoke, then fire, massive collapse, and then dusty ruins. Where would I run with a baby in tow? I wondered that Tuesday morning in September.

Then, just as life seemed safer, and with my youngest child resting peacefully on my lap, I watched a young father holding a tiny baby dressed in pink. He stood stranded in the humid sky, atop the Danziger Bridge. Cradling her in both hands, he raised her high above his head for the news helicopters, and screamed. “We need formula! We need diapers!” She was only a few days old, born on the eve of Hurricane Katrina.

Things can get a little dark around here. Young and old alike recognize that. Crisis dumbs down for no one. There’s no happy meal version of the horrors so many around the world experience in childhood: slavery, abandonment, decimating disease, poverty, rape, incest, and genocide.

I don’t care how well your senses are tuned, instincts activated, and your protective nature enabled; there is only so much a parent can do in a time of crisis. What you can ensure is that as the young people you know wrap their minds around the times, they do so with the knowledge that God has a purpose for them that transcends this life.

What you can do is teach them that your fierce protection and dogged pursuit of their well-being is you trying to act on God’s love for them.

What you can teach them is that while other people may imagine—and some may try to bring about—human annihilation, the future God has for them is actually bright. It’s not dark.

Carmela Monk-Crawford, Esq
Editor Message Magazine

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