As many people know, today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day.  For those who lived through it, D-Day was the day on which the Allies made their decisive assault on the Third Reich, a day of immense carnage and pain that led, after many more months of deadly and sustained warfare, to the fall and collapse of Adolf's Hitler's ambitions of a 1,000 year Aryan empire.  It is a day that the West will never forget.  We honor and remember those who gave their lives:  they died without knowing the outcome.

     While we could go on for some time debating the idea of a "just war" and whether we can rightly apply it to the West's response to Hitler, we would be hard pressed to argue that we are anything but thankful that things turned out the way they did.  It's exceedingly difficult to measure the net worth and effect of our actions; it is equally taxing to determine what we do today means in the counsel of God.  We see, we act; we act, we review; and we go on.
     What can we say about the many thousands of people who died in this terrible conflict?  Moreover, what can we say about the thousands of people who, unlike my siblings and me, were, because of these deaths, were never born?  Though my parents served in the War, they survived.  Why?  It's far too facile to say that it's the will of God, yet it is decidedly tenuous to attribute it to pure chance.  In the end, we are left with mystery, mystery rooted in the vexing tension between human will and the vision of God.

     It's our burden, yes, but it's also our greatest calling and challenge.