THE BEST OF TIME, THE WORST OF TIMES

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Is that not the best first line of a book ever? Of course, it is from A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens and he was talking about nineteenth century England. But could it not be about the time we are living through now?

The best of times, of course we are living in a time of high tech, world communication, anything is possible kind of world. The worst of times, our fear of violence breaking out when and where we least expect it. The age of wisdom, most certainly except we also live in an age of babel where we have so many sure fire opinions that we can't sort through them all and find something that works. We fight amongst ourselves for what purposes I sometimes wonder. How un-wisdomly is that.

Age of foolishness, oh my God, hours and hours, reams and reams of paper, will be needed for this. We have senators and presidents of high magisterial standing who have power enough to make changes for the ages, yet can't figure out how to sort through a money problem caused by such a mundane subject like buying and selling real estate, a problem that bodes possibly to bring a world to it's knees. An epoch of belief when all of a countries hopes go to a figure evoking the mannerisms and plain speaking of the most revered leader in our past Abraham Lincoln. An epoch of incredulity when a mega sized institution comes begging for financing to the government, and succeeds, then gives the money to itself as a bonus for pulling off such an incredible scam and the world sits back with mouths open and gazes at the gall. The seasons of light and darkness perhaps are the perceptions of some that war is becoming declasse, outmoded, stupid even and there must be a better way to arbitrate world class problems. Since the beginning of time this has been the question that has defied solution. It's our turn to grapple with the insoluble question. If the answer is that we are talking and thinking about it, then this may indeed be our spring of hope after our most recent winter of despair for many thousands of homes empty by one or more members thrown into the indescribable folly that is war.