We’re coming to the end of my favorite week of the year. The week before Thanksgiving is full of promise. The crust on the pumpkin pie is not yet burnt; the silver platter might still get a polish; and the weather may actually cooperate with everyone’s Christmas plans.
No one is yelling: “What happened to the gravy ladle?” Or fuming that “those marshmallows were for the sweet-potato casserole, not for you to eat!” Nobody yet is glaring across the dinner table due to a cousin’s snippy comment. In short, we get to enjoy a vision of perfection as we anticipate cherished traditions that have defined not just our holidays, but our whole lives.
Yet, as we get ready to lean back, fold our arms, and bask in the fruits of our lives, let me send up a red alert. A big, red alert.
None of us gets to be “done.” None of us still walking this earth is finished with the job of passing on the good that we have received. No matter our age or circumstance, we are not exempt from the duty to protect and extend the pillars of tradition that have sustained us throughout our lives.
The world suffers from so much darkness. Natural disaster and wars flash across screens wherever we stand, from restaurants to gas pumps. But far worse is the fact that our society is buried in self-imposed waves of ignorance. This ignorance needed time to fester, but it is fully unleashed now. It takes a frightening array of forms. It is loudly boasted about by certain figures in the pop culture—people who often lack the vocabulary clearly to express the negative ideas they espouse. Yet the influence of their words reaches young ears with little contradiction and is soaked up with alacrity.
But the causes of ignorance are local, too. Gone are books from far too many homes. Fading, as well, are the skills and experiences that once were the basis of a child’s development. Who is teaching today’s children how to measure a table, separate an egg, tie a bow, or iron a collar? Who is guiding them in reading a compass or drawing maps? Who is taking them to formal concerts and teaching them how to listen and when to applaud? Who helps them climb trees or gives them opportunities to wade through creeks and race through meadows?
One of the answers needs to be us—and here I mean especially people from my generation, the seniors in today’s culture. We Baby Boomers once grew shaggy hair, donned mini-skirts, and thought we were changing the world; now we discuss Medicare Supplements and knee replacements with the same passion. And we think we are done. Released from responsibility.
But we cannot be done. We have got to get back into the trenches. Even if we are no longer able to execute the skills taught at out grandparent’s knees, we are still the guardians of these skills. We know how to draw a map. We know what Veterans Day means. We retain at least some of the passages we memorized in grammar school, back when schools really taught classic literature, civics, and government. We had respect and duty drilled into us, if not by our parents, then by our teachers, pastors, and rabbis.
These are the very things desperately needed by today’s children. Furthermore, in a world where the answer to a child’s curiosity too often takes the form of an adult handing over a sleek tablet, who else is willing to protest the tethering of that child’s imagination to a cold piece of technology?
If you’re not a senior, you are definitely not done. Even if your children enjoy all the benefits of a real education and a solid cultural foundation, you cannot ignore what is happening around you.
So, no, we are not done. During these precious days before Thanksgiving, I ask you to renew your commitment to our youngest citizens. Our grandparents could rest more easily in this respect. The transmitting of skills and the cultural heritage was a given. We may have protested as kids, selectively rejecting traditions we found inconvenient, but we were not cut adrift to float in a cesspool of ignorance and lost values.
Today’s children are adrift. We cannot be done.
