Simple Journey

I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life... --Mike Donehey, 10th Ave. N.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Generations

Generations. Yeah, that's what the man was talking about. But really, was it?

My Human Development Across the Lifespan professor has a way of packaging a neat little sermon into a lecture about the latest read on child and adult development from our textbook. You think you're listening to a lecture on, say, personality types and how they develop. Then all of a sudden you realize you're being hoodwinked, and you are now in a political motivation talk with your fellow hoodwinked students. Personally, it doesn't bother me in the least, considering my professor's views are almost exactly the same as mine. Or it didn't much until yesterday.

Oh, there was the time he laid abuse at the door of single mothers. But I could see that, as it was also in the book, though I still do not agree that they are the largest population of abusers of children. But yesterday was different. The prof began talking about this generation of young adults - MY daughter and son - and the girl next to me and I just looked at each other with skepticism.

I don't think so.

My seat neighbor thought of her younger brother, and his extreme depression. I thought of my daughter and her escaping, and my son who has ideas but not the slightest faith that they will ever do any good, given the bureaucratic shredder they'll be put through.

I thought of the dark music that I see coming out of the young people, the art, the movies they love - Twilight, even Harry Potter - and how these young people are depicted and how they depict themselves, and I thought, "No, they do not look at their future positively."

I think kids and young people these days have a very grim view, and a very good grasp on reality. How can they not? We've shoved it in their faces since before they were born! Starting wtih lessons in kindergarten about how the earth has been beat up by their parents and grandparents, they were taught that they were the saviors of it and that we are counting on them to fix it for us. All through elementary, middle, and high school, the message is pounded into them: "Save us! Save us! Save us!!"

Would you feel positive about your future under those circumstances? I don't think so. And they don't, no matter how much the professors in colleges think the do. Perhaps they have polled college students and come up with a skewed curve or something. College students would be more positive than the average schmo: they're getting themselves out of the situation they were born into, they're making better lives for themselves. They would tend to be looking to a brighter future than the guy on the street, still unable to get a job due to the economy, trying desperately to help his single mother feed his younger siblings. Or the young single mother who went to cosmetology school to get a roof and some food for her children, and now she's stuck. Or the gifted young man working at Fred Meyer who has a plan for the economy that just might work, but will never see the light of day in this society. But our parents and grandparents let them know every day how we count on them, how it's they who have now the responsibility of undoing what we've become

I would run away too. Or develop Tourette's Syndrome out of nerves. Or maybe just end it all, if I weren't such a coward. Or, if I had that supreme chance, I'd make a movies full of the darkness of it all to tell my parents what they've done to us, or write a book about it, or sing songs - or more like rap raps - full of the despair I'd be filled with.

If... I didn't have the absolute knowledge of the love of a God who is Father to me, who holds the world in his hands, who already has the solution for our earth's future all figured out, and who is bringing into being that solution daily, hourly. If I didn't know that the Creator will never abandon the creation, but will one day bring it into health and unity with him through his great redeeming love act in Jesus on the cross and on Easter Day, when he raised him from the dead - then I'd be somewhat tempted to engage in the same self-pity, go nutsy, or even "postal".

But I do know it. I know it with every cell of my physiology. I know it with all my heart. I know it with my entire, puny, human, distracted mind. I've been allowed to live long enough, it seems, to have lived along into the answers Rilke was talking about when he said to "live the questions". Even as my life is shatters to pieces around me, I know most definitely that though all our efforts seem useless, and the world is becoming darker and darker around us, the darkness has no effect on the answer, because it's already been spoken in Jesus from an empty grave, which has no victory anymore. I know it as sure as day follows night, water flows downhill, and the world turns eastward. The Creator still holds the creation and all that is therein, which includes us human beings, even though we messed it up real bad.

And he holds our children. And he has the Final Answer.

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing.
Our helper he amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great,
And armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing,
Were not the right man on our side,
The man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he!
Lord Sabaoth his name,
From age to age the same.
And he must win the battle.

And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim -
We tremble not for him,
His rage we can endure,
For lo, his doom is sure:
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers
No thanks to them abideth.
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill,
God's truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.