When my husband and I married fifty years ago, I went into that relationship as a card-carrying heathen with an attitude, short skirts, and a Dolly Parton wig! No, I’m not kidding!
When I first met his mother, I prepared myself for the anticipated rejection I was used to. To my surprise, that isn’t what happened. She accepted me with all my obvious failings and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
Her faith, kindness, and care for others helped me see what was missing in my life. She blessed me more than she ever knew.
When I reflect on that experience and compare it to the young people today, I recognize some profound realities:
First, this from the CDC: From 2013 to 2023, there were increases in students’ experiences of violence, signs of poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Secondly, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the above statistics coincide with the fact that young people have been fleeing churches in huge numbers for years, feeling they have nothing to offer but “religion” without substance.
Theologian Jennifer Bailey tells us, “Indeed, millennials and Generation Z successors to the throne of youth are turning away from institutional religion faster than any other age group, raising a palpable sense of panic in religious communities concerned about their future.”
But God’s love can reach into that emptiness with a new and vibrant excitement for hope and promise.
I remember that moment so many years ago as I questioned what had drawn me to my mother-in-law. When I finally recognized it, there was no turning back. Yes, I will admit, it was a path to God that was full of fits and starts. It often still is, and I’ve walked along the edges much of the time.
This was also a powerful message for me in my chaplaincy at the Juvenile Detention Center. Recently, the kids witnessed the incredible story of Darren Seals. He lived the life many of the kids there are also living. He challenged them to think about their actions and showed them such love as he spoke!
He is a man who should never have survived his gang experiences and being shot 13 times. As he was speaking, his mother lay dying in the hospital. Tears welled up as he recounted the grief he caused her over the years. Yet when he left her side to go to speak to the kids, she told him to continue his work and how proud she was of him!
So, I would like to focus on Darren’s mother now. As the grandmother of 14 and great-grandmother of 18, I can’t imagine the heartache and fear she felt all those years as he lost his way. But I can imagine her joy in seeing him use his gifts and life experiences to give kids hope in what they often feel is a life wrought with hopelessness.
We, the privileged, have no idea how much so many of our youth are suffering. Do we even care? And, how many of us “elder” folks have also been made to feel they have no further purpose in life? We should just rock away whatever time we have left. No one really wants to listen to advice from old people. Right? Wrong!
Choctaw elder and retired Episcopal bishop Steven Charleston explains how Indigenous elders carry the wisdom of the past in service of the present and future:
Elders are a people of the future. My culture respects the elders not only because of their wisdom, but because of their determination. The elders are tough. They have survived many struggles and many losses. Now, as they look ahead to another generation, they are determined that their sacrifices will not have been in vain, that their children’s children will not grow up in a world more broken than the one they sought to repair. The elders are voices of justice. They are champions for the earth. They defend the conscience of the community. We follow the elders because they have a passion for tomorrow. They are people of the future, not the past.”
Theologian Jennifer Bailey:
All around us, things are shifting, systems are collapsing, and institutions are failing. This should not surprise us. It is clear to me that the actions we take now will have deep and irreversible consequences for the generations to come….
The enormity of the plight we face can be solved only by harnessing the ingenuity and creativity of the communities to which we belong and are accountable. This season will require us to recover ancestral wisdom and practices that we lost or undervalued, repair the deep breaches in our interpersonal and communal relationships that replicate patterns of harm and destruction, and reimagine the possible by stretching ourselves to see beyond the realities of our current circumstances and daring to dream something different into being.”
Alrighty then. I believe God has given us a purpose and calling to get off our rockers! There’s work to do. I’m not sure what that means for you, but God knows. As he watches his beloved children suffer and die, he longs for us to take his love to them. We all have a stake in this.
There are so many opportunities to serve. For example, several people go to our Detention Centers to shoot hoops with the boys, do crafts, tutor, and attend the Sunday services.
If your heart is open, God will guide you.
PASSION, PURPOSE & POOPYHEADS 