Fasting for Peace

Worrying about the way the world's going to be when your children grow up isn't new. Past generations have had legiitmate worries. Parents in the 1930s must have wondered if their children would ever know prosperity. Certainly, the parents of the 1940s had their own worries about whether their children would grow up in a Nazi world. From the 1950s to the late 80s, parents worried about whether there would be a world or just a nuclear wasteland.

And so here were are today. There's a man in Iran who may see nuclear weaponry as the key to the return of the hidden Imam. He has openly questioned the right of a nuclear country to exist. Weapons of mass destruction seem easier to get and disseminate every day. And Russia and China wait in the wings.

Odds are that we will navigate through all this. At least I think they are. Probably. Maybe.

My daughter is starting to think about colleges and her future. A growing part of me has joined the legion of parents through the ages who feel concern about what that future will be. I don't know what it was like to be a parent in the 30s, World War II, or the Cold War. But I know what it is to be a parent now. I see where we sit and wonder what things will be like in 15 years, and for the first time in my adult life, I see significant doubts.

I want my daughter's world to be at least what mine was, preferably more. Increasingly, I don't see that as being possible without some significant prayer.

I know this will sound stupid to some. I know it will sound like self-flagellation or alarmism or any number of other things, but I have felt a growing inclination to fast on Fridays for the world my daughter will inherit. So that's what I'm going to do. If you want to, please join me. If you don't, that's okay, too. There's nothing I can do to change what will happen in the Middle East, short of praying. So I might as well do that.