Here's a short piece that was in my email basket this morning  http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/note-to-malthus-life-is-good

I read frequently about the dramatic decline in birth rates in Japan, Russia, across Europe and many other parts of the world. Even in places in the Middle East like Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

This doesn't mean population growth worldwide is declining, it isn't. But in many countries the decline in birth rates amounts to a kind of demographic suicide. Will there be Italians, Spaniards, Japanese and Swedes in the future? Not if present birth-rates prevail.

The US is a country with a falling birth rate but as a nation of immigrants our population continues to grow. I loved watching a recent swearing-in ceremony where over a hundred souls vowed their allegiance to the U.S.A. and became American citizens. Wonderful. It tugs at your heart strings. (Go see the movie Sully, about the pilot that landed a passenger plane on the Hudson River in New York and all 155 crew and passengers survived. A terrific feel-good movie. Makes you proud.)

Judy and I love sitting in a section of our church where on Sunday we are surrounded by big families, moms and dads with three, four, five or more children. They are often rackety and ever curious, never still, but usually asleep by the time Fr. James is preaching. Gotta love families.

I remember our friend Bishop John McCarthy (retired) telling me not too long ago–at age 86 and in declining health–“this is the absolutely best time of my life. I love it!”  He has a keen sense of the value of human life of all sorts and at all stages–which is exactly what we try to embody in our work here at Down Home Ranch. We're not perfect, no family is, but we're having a great time living life one day at a time.