Riding The Wave Of Democracy

The recent events in Lebanon and Egypt have drawn my memory back to a conversation I had in my high school days with Brad’s mom. Brad and I were standing in his family’s kitchen, talking about current events (what the precise events were, I don’t recall). His mom wandered into the room and, upon hearing the subject of our conversation, proceeded to talk about how our generation had been left out in the cold by history, as nothing truly remarkable had happened during our lives.
Immediately, Brad and I started rattling off momentous events that had ocurred during our brief tenure on Earth: the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Lockerbie bombing, the collapse of Soviet Communism, Desert Storm. We listed those events and more in a fairly short time, which took his mom aback. “Wow, I guess you really have been alive to see a lot of history in the making,” she said.
The historical events have continued apace, with September 11^th looming large in my generation’s consciousness. As I look at the incredible changes that have begun in the wake of that tragedy, I hope those old enough to be aware but young enough to be taken for granted fully come to realize what times they are living in. A failed civilization’s single largest act of fury and venom has served as catalyst for the reinvention of that same civilization. I hope and pray for the earnest democrats in Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and beyond. I pray for strength and wisdom in the face of failing tyrranies. I pray for their successes and I pray that their failures and sacrifices are not in vain.
Truly these are historic times. Don’t let them pass you by. Take note and remember the stories to pass on to your children.