At my son's recent graduation from high school, we were honored to have my mother fly out from back East to help us celebrate.  Seeing the various age groups together gave me an opportunity to reflect upon this technological era, and how swiftly things can change.  From my mother's perspective, the operation of a digital camera can be an unending mystery, while my son can pick up any piece of equipment and be up and running on it in a matter of minutes.

My grandmother, who emigrated from Odessa, Ukraine, next to the Black Sea, was born before the age of flight.  What a different world she lived in from today's existence.  What kind of a different world will my own grandchildren live in when they are grown?  Will they be amused by how crude our little cell phones were?  Will they be amazed at the fact that we still used fossil fuels to drive our automobiles? 

Will my grandchildren live in a better world because of all of the technological advances that we witness every year, or will they look back on the beginning of the 21st century and wish, nostalgically for the past of plenty?  Will they praise us for the decisions that we made today which were far-sighted and constructive, or will they curse us because we failed to act, or worse, drove the world in the wrong direction?

These are the kinds of questions I suppose every parent wonders about for their children and grandchildren. For my son, I wish him a bright future, in a time of peace.