The first “looking back” thought that comes to
mind is moments with my own family. I
would like to relive memorable family scenes growing up or like in Our Town return to when my daddy and mama first
met. I can imagine that I sure would be
hoping that their romance would develop favorably so that I could have a
future. I think of how others would
address this question. Surely people in
prison with serious time would like to return to the day when they transgressed
the law and would much prefer staying within the law by doing something else that
day and hour. If I step outside my
immediate family and time, looking back I would like to be an average citizen in
Galilee when Jesus began his ministry there.
Would I have seen him in a positive light? Would I have found him special? Would I have been a follower or a
detractor? Even though I am a Christian,
I don’t think the answers to these questions are obvious.
As far as visiting the future, I would like to
jump 200 years ahead, then 2000 years ahead.
In two hundred years, I would like to visit the town I live in now,
Saint Petersburg, FL. I would be very
interested in seeing how the challenges of an exhaustible energy supply were
met. I will assume that technology in
all fields continues apace and would like to see if cancer and obesity, for example,
are continuing afflictions. Finally I
would like to jump 2000 years ahead. I
especially would like to see how governments have developed. Was in fact democracy the wave of the
future? Are bills of rights now a common
feature of all government(s)? How does
the persistence of human nature impact life at the time? Of course, I would like to see how 21st
century America fares in the evaluation of history? Looking way back, is it seen as a golden age
of human relations or a primitive example of things to come? Is it even memorable; or, a more troubling thought,
is it an example of what not to do? What
common things that we take for granted as doable may be illegal then— and
vice-versa? Finally would I even want to
continue living under the conditions of the time or would I be wildly nostalgic
for good ol’ Saint Petersburg in 2012?
Sometimes I must admit that I take after Pangloss, the optimistic tutor
in Voltaire's Candide, singing
“This is the best of all possible worlds.”
