The MountainSky Journal

Whether you think the doomsday predictions for Y2K are plausible or not (for myself, I think not), preparing for the possibility of difficult times can have an important ancillary benefit. Indeed, it may be the greatest benefit of all: When parents have a Be Prepared mentality, their children stand a good chance of picking that up for themselves, especially if the parents' Be Prepared example is complemented with teaching -- explanations and clear reasoning. Our children may have much greater need to be prepared for disaster in 30 years than we will have in the next three months.

Teach your children to be prepared. Teach them that the easy life we enjoy is not a natural right or required compensation for citizens of the United States -- it is a blessing from a gracious and patient God. Teach them that there's a fragility about much of what we depend upon -- sources of food, water, light, heat, security, etc. -- and that things we take for granted could be removed from us suddenly, with little or no warning, by an ice storm or a blizzard, by war or pestilence. Teach them that it is nothing more than good sense to have a jack in the car, and a spare tire with air in it. Teach them that it's sensible to have a plan and necessary equipment to cope with a loss of electric power: candles, flashlights, batteries, maybe a generator. Teach them, by example, to keep enough food on hand that it's not absolutely necessary to go to the grocery store every five days. Teach them to be orderly. A flashlight or a tool you know you have somewhere but can't find when you need it isn't much good, is it?

Do not teach your children to be frantic or gullible. When there's a cry of "Doom is upon us," study it with a probing, calculating attitude. Demonstrate plainly that you're not buffeted about by fads and scares, and your children may learn to have the kind of studied wariness that will keep them from falling prey to hucksters and panicked panic mongers. This is one of the challenges of teaching children to be prepared. At present, the challenge is greater, because you don't want your children to think, in the midst of the ongoing Y2K hype, that you're preparing for a Y2K meltdown. Rather, you are maintaining a sensible level of preparedness for anything, anytime -- this year, next year or a decade from now. Because things can happen. If the Y2K hype has caused you to critically examine your preparedness level, and in the light of that examination you've decided to make some needed improvements, that's good. But if after January 3, you breath a sigh of relief, drop your Be Prepared attitude, and forget where you are, then your Be Prepared teaching of the last few months will be of little or no value to your children.

Forget where I am? What does that mean?

You are living in the United States of America at the dawn of the third millennium after the coming of our Lord. It is a land which enjoys abundance beyond anything known in ages past. It is also a land which scorns justice, which looks with callous eye on the shedding of innocent blood -- a land where children are murdered by the hundreds of thousands, year after year, a land where even Christian churches have been coopted or reduced to silent collaboration with the bloody work of the abortionists. It is a land growing increasingly witless and arrogant, infatuated with violence and immorality, diverted by stupid, licentious entertainments, led by manipulators and liars...

The point is, don't forget where you are, or why your children and grandchildren may need to be ready for things you and I have never faced. Don't neglect to teach by word and example the simple wisdom of the Boy Scouts' motto: Be Prepared! You can safely ignore Y2K and similar over-hyped warnings of disaster if you keep your eye fixed on the bigger picture. The fate of this republic will not be determined by two-digit date codes embedded in COBOL programs. It will be determined by a principle which the Lord has woven into the fabric of creation: "What you sow, that you will reap."

We haven't been excused from participation in the way the universe works. We cannot sow violence against the innocent and hope to reap peace and prosperity. Because of how we are sowing as a nation it is prudent for us to prepare -- methodically, without anxiety -- for difficult times which must come sooner or later, perhaps for us, perhaps for our children.

Peter Barry 11/22/1999

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