08 January 2013

Thoughts on Ray Bradbury from Sr. Mary Roberta

I heard that Ray Bradbury, a favorite science-fiction writer, died this last year. I especially like his short story entitled, "A Sound of Thunder," about men returning to the age of dinosaurs from the year 2055. His premise (that accidentally changing any tiny detail in the past can make enormous changes to a future time) makes me reflect on how aborting so many babies in our past 30 years+ since Roe vs Wade has inevitably changed our future for the worse: fewer workers and tax payers, not too mention fewer geniuses, lovers, and saints!

In Bradbury's short story the main character/hunter Eckels is told NOT to step off the suspended path over the prehistoric age he's been taken to by the Time Machine and its guides because he might "kill an important animal, (even a mouse) thus destroying an important link in a growing species."

"So what?" says Eckels.

"So what?...Well, what about the foxes that'll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen in the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam's grandchildren."

And that's exactly what we've done and continue to do, Mr. Bradbury. Requiescat in pace! And may God have mercy on us all!

Sr. Mary Roberta Viano, V.H.M.

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