“Amy” is the nom de plume of a millennial whose family attended our same church in Baton Rouge. Amy was close friends with one of my children and her parents are good friends of ours. She has been married for nearly a decade to a brilliant young man, who I will call “Cy”, whose parents came to America as refugees. Amy and Cy are raising two beautiful children. Amy is a devout Christian who has sought diligently to understand and live out the principles of Christianity and the teachings of Jesus Christ as she has learned them from her Christian teachers as well as from her own independent study.
As we all do, Amy and Cy find the world we are living in to be very confusing. And so, they are looking to their elders, as they should, to advise them and provide guidance and wisdom.
Providing a forum for Amy to ask questions and get wise advice from her Elders.
From my Facebook page, I have attempted to provide a forum where Amy can ask questions that are concerning her and my fellow Boomers, the elders of today, can share their thoughts on various topics, not with me, but direct their writings and advice to Amy and Cy and other Millennials like them who are hungry for wisdom and wisdom primarily based on the teachings of Christ. I have taken selections from my Facebook page and posted them here on this Blog to make it easier for readers to follow the discussions.
My role as guide and facilitator.
My role is to guide and facilitate the discussion. I have provided background and context in an effort to get us all roughly on the same page for thoughtful and wise discussions. My primary objectives are to reduce the vitriol and increase objectivity and a willingness to change one’s perspective. In one posting I asked (3 times) that anyone who did not think they were capable of changing their mind on a currently held perspective to unfriend me.
Question #1. Does Character Matter/Why Scream?
I think my biggest confusion is the message I internalized as a child that “Character Matters”. I see people at best bending the rules so to speak and worst shedding their own character by being so ugly. To me it is not Trump vs Biden. Republican vs Liberal Its Christians, adults, people— who taught me that personal kindness and human respect matters—project a message/attitude that “I’m right” and “those who voted/think differently are wrong”. The rhetoric that the other side leading our country to “hell in a hand-basket” is so off-putting to our generation.
I struggle to understand how others see how you sharing your opinion is threatening theirs. I think as a young person I would like the older generation to know: we (young people) want to have conversations that doesn’t involve “you” defending your side. Our desire to talk is not to decide who is right, rather we want to connect. I have no desire to defend my side. I just need someone willing to step into my confusions, my questions about both the ugliness and beauty that exists in our world. The same ugliness and beauty that is seen on both sides of the aisle. Because we are all a part of this humanity thing! We are all still on “this Side of Heaven”.
Defending your opinion every time I share my perspective or questions shuts the conversation down. Blasting your opinion on social media especially (if negative) makes me feel I have no place at your table. No conversation can be had because my desire to connect the dots would be incompatible with your connected picture. Please don’t scream. We won’t hear you if you do. We also won’t feel you would want to listen to us.
Love you Mr. David. Thank you for fighting for us to have a place at the table. Thank you for fighting for civil conversations at an actual table—face to face—to not become a lost art. That’s what we millennials seek, and we desperately need the wisdom of the older generation to come alongside us. I fear what our world will become if young people don’t seek out the wisdom. Yet I do acknowledge the opportunities seem rare when not many seem willing to have the needed conversations not confrontations.
Walter Oliveaux
Amy and Cy, I’m in my early 50s. I have two kids 19 and 22. The world and the USA have changed so much since I was their ages. I have changed and you will change as you both grow older. What I see is a lack of respect between people and a victim mentality among everyone. They all seem to be believe that either they have been wronged or they have wronged someone just by their existence. I think part of it is so many things have been forced upon people who don’t believe in it or don’t accept it. It’s not that I have issues with anyone person or their beliefs. I think everyone has the right to be wrong. I think it’s none of my business who they love, who they sleep with or who they marry. I have issues when people tell me I have to believe there are more than two sexes of humans. I have issues when someone wants to make laws that tell us something that has been proven and unquestioned for all of history. I have an issue when someone tells me I can’t do something when the Constitution guarantees me that right. People can do things that I don’t agree with and I wouldn’t do. I’m sure I have plenty of things on someone’s list. But, you are going to find people in the world that believe you have to believe what they do or you are a terrible person. There are others who get so wrapped up in a cause or a movement that they think everyone should accept their way of thinking or they evil and should be shamed or worse. When my grandparents were growing up they learned the concept of if you wanted something you had go out and work to get it. Nothing was “free”. I think we have lost that in this country. Don’t get me wrong I believe in charity, I don’t believe in forced charity via taxation. I don’t want you to pay for me or my family anymore than I want to be forced to pay for yours. If you need help, I’m willing to help you, but if you don’t want to help yourself I think shame on you and you haven’t earned my help. Envy is a sin. Many try to hide Envy under the color of fairness. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. We all pretty much can see things that are unfair. Recently I saw a man in his 80’s who was sentence to jail for being part of something when he was 16 or so. He didn’t do anything violent, but was present. They just let him out of jail after SCOTUS found that to be unconstitutional. I think that was unfair that he spent all of his life jail for that. A wrong has been made right in the sense that he is no longer in jail, but it can’t be made RIGHT. The people that passed such laws were wrong. The people who imposed such sentences were wrong, and they can’t give this man back his life. I think the death penalty is a fair punishment for more crimes than it’s allowed to be given out for. The times we grew up in are different from those of our grandparents. The work and the work ethic is different. Technology available today is great, but it is destroying our society. We judge who our friends are based on if they responded to our FB post not if we have actually seen or talked face to face with them in a year or a decade, let’s not count last year. I guess my point is as a culture have forgotten where we came from and what it took those people to put us in the place we are today. They were raised a certain way and had to accept changes, Rock and Roll music was the devils work according to their time, what would those same people think about todays Rap and Hip Hop music. Maybe they were right. We haven’t lost that moral compass we have just let people change what North is. So I often stop and think what would my grandparents think about things today. Don’t get me wrong, their time on this Earth wasn’t perfect, just like this nation isn’t perfect and we elect imperfect people to lead it, so we can’t expect perfection from them. Everyone thinks they have the right answers, often though they have no data or experience to base their opinions on. They are given their opinions by talking heads. Until we all get back to place where we don’t just blindly follow and accept everything we are told. Not taking a side, but I watched parts of the last Impeachment proceeding against Trump. I watched one side play a snippet of a statement of Trump’s. Then a day latter I watched the other side play the whole piece of video of a speech, the context was greatly different from the snippet. We live and we function on snippets, on how ever many characters Twitter limits you to. We have to get our heads out of the sand or out of a more smelly place. We have to go back to thinking for ourselves, listening to all sides and respecting the fact that everyone has the right to be wrong. We also have the right to association. So if you think I’m wrong you don’t have to read my post, you don’t have to break bread with me or even speak to me if we pass. But you have to navigate this adventure we call life and the only way you do that reasonably safely is by looking forward and learning from what is behind you. History is a great teacher. Many of those teachers never stood in front of a class room, some wore the titles of mom, dad, grand this or great grand that, Coach, Pastor, etc. The other things are you have to be happy with you first. You are responsible for you and your family. Treat others as you want to be treated. All those things we learned when we were kids. Today, they teach everyone they are a victim. Don’t be a victim. Don’t let the world pass you by and don’t let the world run you over. Take care of you and yours. Teach them right from wrong, as the good book of your choice teaches you. That may have been a little long, but the lessons of life take a while to learn. Some of those lessons come from hard knocks.
John Hashagen
The table is and has been open for discussion, feel free to contact me and I will make time for anyone. The older generation can and will help and the millennial’s need to discuss openly with us any concerns they may have and listen to the concerns from the older generation. I’m 80 and can help. This was an interesting post as I have children in the later twenties and again some in their late fifties and early sixties. The difference between the two groups is amazing. The younger ones have short tempers and for the most part have closed their mind to any change except that which they support, the older group are open to change and will listen to different points of view. Somehow we need to open the minds of the younger ones to at least listen, however when I get into these discussions the younger ones get stiff backs and walk off, thus refusing to even listen to a different point of view. Some of what we see today is fueled by the Media, an example was the take on the Dr. Fauci and Senator Paul yesterday CBS reporting vs Fox, depending upon whom you listened to you position would or could be different. What I’m saying is keep an open mind and listen to both sides prior to taking a position.
Amy’s responses
Walter’s reply was really encouraging. Earlier today I thought to myself “is there any truth about me of what John H. was saying: the younger are short tempered and bristle/walk away at opinions different than theirs…” It made me ask myself: do I do this?” I do want to be introspective and aware of logs in my eye…but then I read Walter O’s response. And I listened; I really wanted to listen because he was sharing and explaining. His viewpoints made a lot of sense and I plan to read and ponder what he had to say. In closing, Walter’s post makes it more clear that if millennials seem to bristle, it’s most likely not at the perspective but the tone or delivery. Walter shared wisdom and a perspective that came across sincerely. I’m thankful. It is interesting that only 9 people responded to this challenge to respond as such. Seems more people respond when they can lash out at one another. Perhaps the voices in this approach will be less loud but heard more clearly to the young and older alike. Hope you are having a good day/evening!
Question #2. How do we start seeing each other as people and not as faceless others?
Thank you for inviting me to a part of an important dialogue. I reached out to you a few weeks ago due to a heaviness on my heart that I could not “shake”; something that I think I’m not supposed to come to terms with on my own. I felt, and still feel, a deep sadness about the state of our country, and more importantly, the way that Americans are responding to “it” –whatever the “it” issue –is at any given moment. Most distressing to me is how Christians, the church, have responded as well. The majority of what I have seen and read is ‘brother lashing out at brother’ and ‘believer in Christ’ ascribing to their “freedom and rights” or political party at all costs–even if it means demeaning another human being ( both ones they know as well as those they assume they have nothing in common). My husband, “Cy”, often describes his own distress about the rhetoric of political parties cursing/attacking as an “us against them mentality…where the person yelling how wrong the opposing side/person is–only sees a black silhouette, the nameless, faceless “other”.
That’s the issue, right? Seeing people as the “other”. This really breaks my heart, especially when the Church is joining in the yelling match. My distress seemed to really begin around the time of the election. I found a Facebook post that I wrote, dated November 7, 2020.
“The one thing that I’ve learned more keenly than any other during the election is how divided Americans are. May we not be deceived that Satan’s work is in or through a party; it’s in the division. May God’s healing come to our nation as each of us humble ourselves before Him. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and all your soul. And Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37).
A lot has happened since November 7, and a lot more is to come. My question is (especially among Christians, but really among all of us who share the name ‘Human’): How do we not just see policy, not just see how right we are or wrong they are, but how do we start seeing one another? Aren’t we all, as Americans and especially as Christians, at the end of the day, on the same team?