When the World Was Orange

I don't begin to keep up with this enough - apologies if there are any out there who think this is something regular to follow.

Over the past several weeks, I have been working to help my mother readjust to a new life.  She, at least for the moment, has lost the ability to walk, and will no longer be living on her own.  While cleaning out her house a couple of weeks ago, I found the family pictures: an old boot box full of 35mm slides.  

I've been after Mom to get these for years, because film deteriorates, and I wanted to get them scanned an archived - not only for the sake of preserving them, but also to get comments on who might be in some of the older ones.  There are some pictures there that date back prior to WWII, and I think only my grandmother may be able to speak about some of them.

I've tried to make the boys part of the scanning process too.  It's a long and boring process, so we look at and talk about some of the family pictures as we go along.  But all that being said, I was caught off guard by a question from my youngest boy the other day - 

"Dad, were you alive when the world was orange?"

I guess faded photos might give that impression, huh?

Teaching about War

My youngest son, 6 years, has developed a fascination with war and terrorism.  We are constantly bombarded with questions about why we can't kill the terrorists this way, and why don't we just drop a bomb on the terrorist's mountain, or use all of our tanks, or send in the Navy Seals.  You get the idea. 

So what to do?  Tonight, I sat him down after a particularly callous comment about war and showed him pictures of its victims.  We looked at soldiers and children, we looked at Hiroshima before and after.  And I asked him if he still thought it better that people kill each other rather than U.S. Soldiers (as opposed to learning to hate death of any kind).  

At prayer time, I asked him to pray for the Iraqi people and for the terrorists.

I wonder if I did right - or is he too young and I'm just showing him stuff that will make him more callous?

What to do?  God, give us the grace and wisdom.