The quality of times can be measured by the willingness of their denizens to procreate. Hope for the future emerges out of the textured experience of the present. So does despair.
On his way to be crucified, Jesus takes in the laments of bystanders:
A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.”‘
Somehow able to look beyond his own trauma, Jesus anticipates days when the logic of hopeful human regeneration will fail. It will be blessing not to engender sons or bear daughters. The curse will fall upon those who bring other creatures into this dark misery.
Solitude and childlessness will prove themselves the better condition. One wonders what day Jesus had in mind, whether the near-term catastrophe of Roman ruination of his people or some more distant, bleak horizon. Not to overlooked is the connection of his declaration with his own impending judicial murder, a fate that lay just hour into his own bleeding future.
Yet Jesus could speak as well to a thief crucified beside him, promising that ‘today you will be with me in paradise’.
In the fog of unbearable physical pain and emotional affliction, he could see two paths. We see them with less clarity, yet still they are two.
Canter Bridge 
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