I looked out the window. Two men in long coats were standing on my doorstep. I laid the baby down and went outside.

"Isn't the world a terrible place?" the older man said. "Some terrible things have been happening. Aren't you concerned about the way things are going?"

I didn't know quite what to say. Upon inquiring, I learned the men represented a religious organization. I thanked them for stopping by and promised to take a look at the pamphlets they were distributing.

Later, I found myself thinking about the two men and their tactics. Were they expecting to find fear or cynicism? If so, they came to the wrong house.

It is hard to believe the world is a terrible place when you have a baby in your arms.

When you have a newborn, you are wrapped up in a world of innocence, hope, mystery. That's not to say you never think about the future, because you do. You wonder daily: What will she be like when she's older? When will she say her first word, or roll over, or walk? What is she thinking about, if she can think without words? What is she feeling? What does she want? And the all-important question: Will she sleep through the night this time?

When you have a newborn, you don't go out as much, or listen to the news as much. This is partly because you can't stay awake until 10 p.m., after getting up to feed the baby at 5 a.m., but also because you have other, more-pressing concerns. You are insulated from the outside world, busy inside a cocoon where your biggest problems center on teeth and tummy aches; where a tiny human being depends solely on you for survival. It is your own little matter of life and death.

In this world, you have fears, but they are immediate. (What if I trip and drop the baby?) You are too busy tiptoeing into the baby's room to listen (again) for that tiny, rhythmic wisp of breath to think deeply about terrorism or war or AIDS.

But sometimes, the outside world bursts in.

A few days after the two men stopped by, news of the terrorist attack in Spain punctured my cocoon, reaching into my world of bubble talk and tiny toes and slapping me in the face.

I lived in Madrid for four months as a college exchange student. I took many trains from Atocha, one of three stations where bombs exploded during rush hour on March 11, killing more than 200 people and wounding 1,600.

Reading about the attack, I had the same kind of feeling I experienced after 9/11, studying a photograph of five high school friends smiling and leaning casually on the railing of the World Trade Center's observation deck, their hair blowing in the wind, blocks and blocks of tiny streets and buildings behind them, endless possibilities ahead of them.

I was angry and sad.

The truth is, there are many terrible things happening in the world, and we are lucky to be insulated from most of them. We are blessed not to have been born in a place where civil war is the national pastime; where food is scarce and disease is plentiful; where violence is part of the daily routine.

I admit that sometimes, I am afraid. Sometimes, I do feel cynical.

But mostly, I live as I must, moment to moment, from one diaper change or toothless grin to the next.

Perhaps this is self-centered, but I believe this is how it should be. For if we paid more attention to the chaos in the world, we'd not have time to create order. If we let the bad news of the world turn us into cynics, then how can we show our children, who are our hope, how to be hopeful? If we focus on the hate, how will we teach our children to love?

For that, in the end, is the view from the hole in my cocoon: As long as there are parents teaching their children not to hate, the world will never be a terrible place.

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Lisa Miller is a freelance writer who lives in Oneonta. She can be reached at lisamiller44@hotmail.com.