Spring renewal: Celebrating young folk
Whatever you celebrate this time of year, make sure to notice all the reasons to be optimistic about the renewal young folk are creating already.
Dear friends: This weekend marks the coincidence of three major faith traditions’ rituals: Easter, Passover, and the ongoing month of Ramadan. To our ancestors the spring calendar held deep importance, reflecting symbolic renewal, rejuvenation, and, in four-season climates, time for planting and the return of plant life.
This weekend also holds more seemingly relentless news of violence and war, attacks on our human family even as we try to celebrate the rituals of spring. In the midst of it all, in honor of the spirit of observing the ongoing cycles of life, I thought I would share some hopeful experiences.
If, like me, you are fortunate enough to spend time regularly with younger folk, my guess is you see similar reasons for optimism. In our family, my partner and I host his granddaughter and her best friend, both seventeen years old, for periodic dinners of pizza, movies, art, and conversation. These two young people identify as gay and lesbian and experience those identities in a small community that can reject them, define them as not-normal or other. Yet they claim their space, wear their colors, and stand up for others who might face discrimination, bullying, even hatred. They hold a broad awareness of cultural, political, and social dimensions and their impacts. They educate us beautifully about their view of the world, and the need for action to take care of all humans.
In my work, twice a week I join a group of mostly twenty-somethings in a class I teach on business communication. They consistently connect our topics of clear writing, strong presentations, and knowing your audience to the bigger topics of inclusion, belonging, and compassion. They remind me of the importance of kindness as an element of communication, even in “cold” business exchanges. They cheer one another on. They share openly their struggles with anxiety as we all try to reconnect after two years of mostly virtual interactions, and their apprehensions about the world “out there.” And they share of themselves generously, describing their experiences and world-views and asking deep questions.
How can I not be hopeful, being dosed regularly with reasons to hope?
Last evening, the two seventeen year olds shared one of their favorite shows with us. It depicts an ongoing struggle of ordinary people against a dominating and dictatorial leader, who only seeks conquest. (In this universe, the “ordinary people” are frogs and toads, mostly, and the dictator is a giant newt. The frogs and toads are helped by a trio of human girls who found themselves transported to this alternative world. It’s animated, but you probably guessed that.) One of the human girls in the show stated something like, “we have to be ready when the war begins.”
One seventeen-year old head popped up. “The war is already started. Just because there hasn’t been an actual battle yet, doesn’t mean the war hasn’t started.”
Wow, I thought, he could be describing our own political world. War started in Ukraine, or in Yemen, or in Syria, or in our own regions and histories, as soon as one group decided to dehumanize another. Battles and violence are the result of this decision, not a cause of it.
They get it, these young folk, and they inspire me to clear as much garbage - literal and figurative garbage - out of their way as I can, so they can focus their energies on the big challenges out there.
Whatever you celebrate this time of year, make sure to notice all the reasons to be optimistic about the renewal young folk are creating already.
Sent with love and gratitude, as always.