El Nino's Big Adventure

We just watched this movie over the weekend. For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, the movie is set in 2027 in England and humans have been unable to reproduce for 18 years. Then suddenly an immigrant (and immigrants are being persecuted - um this is the future or the present, hmmm) is pregnant. I found the movie disturbing and thought provoking. Just think for a moment what life would be like without children? No hope, barren and desolate.

The movie's world is chaos and violence. And of course many people have to live that way now. But it is hard to imagine life in England or the United States like that. We have order and precision and clean streets, gun laws, cul-de-sacs, SUVs, trees and grass and all things nice. We don't live in a police state or a Big Brother state. But this movie made me see how lucky we are and how fragile it all is. And it made me think of el nino.

Babies are wonderful. Most of us are drawn to babies in one way or another, at the very least they bring a smile to our faces if we take the time to notice. They are so vulnerable, and they smell really good most of the time. But it is what they promise that is also so important. They represent hope and potential and possibility. And it is our responsibility to nurture that possibility, to seize that hope, and to protect their vulnerability. And then we can dare to dream what they might do, who they might be, how they might live and love. And we can bask in the radiance of their presence, the purity of their smiles, the joy inside their laughter. Oh what a wonderful world!