Avoiding Chaos?

THURS., MAR. 22, 2001, 4:01 PM
FARM, STUDY

You are in the midst of reading an “analysis” of generations of young Americans… and the parents who preceded them. You, of course, don’t fit any of the generational “profiles,” and you’re not yet sure where your sons and their children fit in this “analysis.”

As you think back on your own years in school you conjure the “picture” of a boy who wanted to “succeed.” You don’t feel that your parents, neither of whom had a “college education,” pushed you to try for success. You remember enjoying learning, and doing well “grade-wise,” but you still became a Comus, which wasn’t the “club” for “brains.” You were “balancing,” even then, seeking success in activities that were often seen as “competitors.”

I noted, then, (way before I, Holy Spirit, became an “advisor” to you on life and health) that, while you remained a regular attender of Sunday School and went to Church Camp, you just kept these “activities” separate from your Comus connections. You didn’t feel like a hypocrite. Maybe you were… or were just avoiding uncomfortable comparisons. (I’ll remind you, however, that your Friday nights at the Smith & Benson pool hall were always referred to as “Chapel.”)

You didn’t feel the need to make all portions of your life be in obvious harmony. You had enough success, and you didn’t get into any real trouble, so you judge those teenage years to be “successful.” You appreciated Wally Detrick’s decision to let you play every minute of every game in your senior year as a football player, B team. That, along with the minor success you had in 4 years at UCLA, led you to your short career as a high school coach at Punahou. As a head coach you had track championships, and as you “stepped down” as a football coach you had a championship J.V. team. You got married at just the right time and then went to Stanford, also at the right time.

You earned your doctorate in a short 2 years, and you remember those years as fine ones… including the births of your first two sons. Then came the position at Stanford, and then, “right on schedule” came the invitation to join the faculty here. You feel that you weren’t the best father that you could have been… BUT… you did your best in “avoiding chaos,” and are proud of and happy with your sons as men… and fathers.

You can’t decide whether you were “normative” as a teenager and a young man. You seem to have avoided getting into trouble; instead you had success sufficient to keep you from having the feeling that life, in those years, was one of chaos. Your parents were supportive. You appreciated this, though you don’t recall feeling that they were “comfortable” with all of your “activities.” As I noted, you not only didn’t reject My church, but you were a leader, of sorts. Your boys had to reject that aspect of their lives, but all but Matthew have become active as men. You, thus, were not a “rejector” while your sons were, but 3 of them returned, with some “vigor” as young adult men and fathers. (You wonder, now, how their children shall be, as adults.)

Yes, o son, the culture of which you are a part is one that can and does encourage feelings of “chaos” in some of the young people of today. As you think on the lives of your grandchildren, now 14 in number, you see Rivanna and Nessa as avoiding some of the “chaos” their parents experienced. Megan, with outwardly more “stable” parents, seems to be struggling more with life and her place in it. You can love them and relate to them, as a grandfather, but there’s not much else you can do, with any of this “next generation.”

You know that you had some success as a teacher and as a mentor of “Salukis,” some, like Bonnie, who recall your guidance as helpful. Which “generation” is she? She was a student of yours, but also was a wife and mother… and now is a grandmother of one baby… while you are the great-grandfather of a comparably aged “young un.” It may seem chaotic to distinguish one “generation” from others. Yet cultures change… and perceptions change, in individuals, as they get older.

Should you humans strive to avoid chaos as you live life… OR… is some chaos inevitable, as you move through life… at any age?