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Understanding 9/11A little more resources gen z. generation
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A little more resources gen z. generation: You got to go back to your calendar and figure out where you're going to squeeze out a little more time a little more energy and a little more resources we are on one fundamental level all one generation we are the generation that is alive right now.
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- Welcome to the live oak unitarian universalist church podcast. For november 11th 2018. This week service is. What now. I rev joanna fontaine proper. Good morning. I'd like to invite the young young at heart. Come down here and join me if they like to. Once upon a time a long long time ago. Or maybe it was just yesterday. There was a rather large henyard. We're alive chickens live together laying eggs scratching in the dirt eating scraps. And dozing and their nests. And at the center of our story today is the little. Blue. Hen. Now little blue wasn't the oldest hen in the flock. And she wasn't a spring chicken. She was somewhere in the middle. She was in her prime land days. And she was busy raising her chicken family. Just busy. Minyard was a pretty good. Pretty good. Deal right. They were all living together in and it was pretty good but she wanted to be better. She wanted to be better for her. Baby chickens. She wanted to be better for all her friends she just wanted a better community. One day. Little boy was thinking and she decided that. Feeding everybody in the hen yard was the best way. The best way to make the community better she bring everybody together in the community. And they could eat. The rewards of their work. Now. She decided she was going to do that by baking some bread but little blue had never made bread before. Rarely even tasted it. But she knew there were some old hens in. Spaniard. Who invented bread before. So she thought. She would ask them for some help. Been there. Done that. Hi josh. want to sleep on my neck. I can't help you i have an appointment to get my feathers fluffed and blued. And what's the use nothing ever changes. Will you think that little blue would be discouraged but she wasn't. She was sad because there was a lot of wisdom there that wasn't being shared. In the community. But she was committed to her cause. So she went to her closest friends to ask for help. Omg i'm way too busy laying eggs and raising chickens. Booty gluten-free bread i only eat gluten free and vegan. I got work and goat yoga and happy hour with the gals this week otherwise i'd be happy to help. Admire what you're trying to do you go girl go and i'll definitely eat whatever you bake. Still no helpers. Little blue fox amore and she thought she'd ask. Young chickens but she went off to talk to the pullets. And the bullets they were pretty cool they were all down with the idea to make some bread. They wanted to do something meaningful. But they didn't have a clue how to do it. Nobody never taught them how to bake bread. And even if they had i'm not sure they would have listened you see they weren't terribly interested in the bread that their grandmother's made. They had their own ideas and their own way of doing things. And they wanted to share that with the world. Little blue with getting a little discouraged but she thought some more she was a really really wise hand. And she had an idea. She went back to the old hands and she asked for a recipe. And they were very very proud and happy to share. Their recipe. They pulled him out of their nests and dusted them off. Anthem tour. And then she went to her friend's her close circle of friends and said. Would you please organize a big gala for me i mean you'll be great at it cuz you're good at socializing and you know how to utilize that chicken network. And finally she went back to the poets recipes in hand. And invited them to experiment together and bake some bread for the party. And they did. Now. I'm not saying it was a perfect party. And maybe you would have done things a little differently but little blue. She was content. And the henyard came together for a big celebration of community where everybody play depart. And they feasted on fresh baked cornbread roti. And even a good old-fashioned sandwich. Are reading this morning. Comes from one of the dominant. Unitarian universalist theologians of the 20th century james luther adams and he wrote this. Somewhere towards the end of the forties and start of the 50s. So kind of put that in context. And this is from guiding principles for a free faith. Liberalism holds. That the resources divine and human that are available for the achievement of meaningful change. Justify an attitude of ultimate. Optimism. This view does not necessarily involve immediate optimism. In our century we have seen the rebarber ization of the masses we have witnessed a widespread disillusion of values and we have seen the appearance of great collective demon reader. Progress is now seem not to take place through inheritance. Each generation must a new when insight into the ambiguous nature of human exist. And must give new relevance to moral and spiritual values. A realistic appraisal of our behavior personal and institutional. And a life of continuing humility and renewal are demanded. For there are ever-present forces in us working for perversion and destruction. So. Some week huh. All the feelings. Anyone feel after tuesday some some joy. Some celebration. Anyone feel some disappointment. Anger. And we're still waiting for some clarity on several races still waiting to hear what's going to happen. One thing. But i do have clarity on. Is that at times like this. The power to come together in an intergenerational community. You need this. We all need this. Because we come into this community with different experiences and we have people who can help us. Put things into certain context. And we have other people younger people who can also give us hope. For what happens next. This is a deliberately intergenerational community. And that isn't something that you can just take for granted with a church i assure you i have. Colleagues. Who are very envious about what we have here at live oak and they say well how do you especially young people how do you get more young people coming into the church. I didn't just happen accidentally discharged before i ever even got here this church was making decisions both about their children and about the young adults and saying okay we are going to. Get the young adults to go into leadership and that doesn't always happen i assure you because you know the thing about young folks and when i say young folks like in the church contacts that's like anyone under 50. Like i'm considered to be a young minister. But the but the church. Was deliberate about that and they were willing for those young folks to do things different ways they weren't just looking to replicate themselves and so now we have a board that has people in their 30s in their 40s. I think that these if not after june i'll represent 60s and 70s. I'm looking forward to the years when we not only have people in their 20s. But even teenagers cuz let me tell you. We are raising some amazing kids here and i am looking forward to following their leadership. Now all that being said that does not mean that this is easy. We come from different generations. We have had different experiences that have shaped and formed how we view the world. And so occasionally can but up against some of those those differences. And we have to be more intentional about listening to each other and not assuming that what is the view for our age cohort is simply the view for everyone else. We are different. Because different. Things. Shaped us. Let's start at the top start with. The silent generation. So the silent generation came in after. The gi or generation or the generation tom brokaw has now named the greatest generation. Which had high population. Then you have the silent generation which was a baby bus. Lower population when they were kids the great depression was on they saw that and they saw wwii. And i often have been called the silent generation because there was sort of a generational ethos about just kind of. Head down and do the work like you don't have to go you don't have to be a show-off you don't have to go for glory as they probably thought that their parents had been right cuz we always do that with our parents. It was it was very much get the work done and just put in the time do what you need to do. They grew up in a world of significant hierarchy. They grew up being having a commitment to following the rules because for the most part. The rules. Worked for them. I want to pause just a second. And define who is them. Because we always have to do this the one. Problem with generational theory and i hope that we will begin having people who can who can do more work around this. Is that with generational theory. We format. Around the dominant voices in a particular culture. So when we talk about the different generations we usually are talkin about white. And middle-class. So be aware of that caveat. But there are certain things that affect the generations that you then she played out. In lacrosse. The view of that generation not perfectly. We paint with very broad. Strokes. So the silent generation not only were they silent because they were just focused on getting the job done. But the lesson that they continue to learn. Was that the wisest thing to do. What's to fly under the radar. To not attract attention to yourself and assert certainly if you were in any marginalized community at that time if you work day if you were transgender if you were a person of color. Of course you were trying to just. Be quiet. And get the job done. This is the generation that didn't watched mccarthyism happen. And so. that message was reiterated. Because if you drew attention to yourself you could lose your job. If you were a person of color and you drew attention to yourself. You can lose. Your life. For the silent generation. Duty has always been one of their significant value. They believe that they have a duty to helping those who came after them. And. Loyalty. Silent generation is loyal to institution. Including. Their jobs their employer. Usually what would happen if you would get a job and when i say you for the most part i didn't mean male. Women at this time we're giving the message that they could be secretary teacher or nurse right. But you got it you took a job and then you were with that company for life. And the whole idea of being loyal to a company was lifted up. As of value. After the silent generation came of course. The baby boomers. Who were never silent who were never caught. The baby boomers were then as they are named a baby boom there were so many of them in some. From a very early age the baby boomers learned that they had power they were getting a lot of attention. Until wednesday became teenagers they began exploring will what can i do with this power. And sometimes wheaties boomers about well y'all thought that y'all could change the world but they often did. Now they were doing it with other with the people who have gone before and then later some of the people who would come after but their whole thing was they were looking at the world. And they knew that the world needed to be broken. That there were hierarchies and patterns and rules in place that did not benefit everyone and that in fact made some things harder. And so they came in. Powerful to try and break those down. Are we had other societal things that were happening at the same time one of the biggest being the invention of the pill the birth control pill had so now you had all of these with these women who wanted to go into other professions than what had been offered to them before. And. What does smith. What you already had a high population and now you had all of these other people in the workplace. And so all of that passion and that drive that had serve so many social causes. When we got to about the 80s began being pushed. Into professional work. Because boomers had been taught that you were supposed to win you were supposed to be the best right. But now they had all of these other people who were competing with them their own age cohort. And believe me computer companies could use that. They could make you compete. And you were given a message that you whoever was the person who overworked the money. That was the person who was going to get the promotion. This is been considered the baby boomers have been considered to be the first generation. Of the of the over workers of the ones who are addicted to their job. Because at that time it wasn't just about results. It was also being the first person that the boss saw when he came into work and the last person that he saw. Right. I could go into the boomers y'all have had so many so many different things that have pushed. And pulled you. And and now you're going into boomers are now going into this new phase and they are treating it as they always have very different than the generations who came before again painting with broadstripe strokes. The silent generation their idea of retirement was like. You could rest right you can sit in your rocking chair and rest and the boomers idea of retirement is out now i get time to go hang gliding. Talk to the minister who when i started up a seniors coffee had to deal with all the people going i don't think i'm a senior. I'm middle-aged you know because a lot of people into b150m anyway. You can tell that i am a gen-xer gen-xers. We are snarky and we are cynical. We came along and and you have to realize that that's in. Cynicism. Pain from someplace one of my first memories of when you're starting to learn about like government and stuff like that was hearing the grown-up talk about nixon and something called watergate. For many of us are parents were divorced many of us were latchkey kid. Which put a a streak of being self-reliant. Into us. We saw as we were young adults we saw the whole y2k thing which just reinforced our cynicism because it was like oh this terrible thing is going to happen now it's okay. Go back to what you're doing. Gen-xers were another baby bus in fact there's a lot of parallels between silent generation and gen x we just like they were we were squeezed between two big and loud generations for us at being the boomers and the millennials. We were the middle kid and and we were all marsha marsha marsha boomers boomers boomers. If you don't understand that reference. Talk to a gen x er. And sulfur gen-xers to two dominant things in the way that we operate one was this is the generation that really started talking about balance. Because they had been those latchkey kid. They had seen their parents. Pour out their life into a job and often. Not be rewarded for it often get get fired right before retirement age. Again decides to the sinister. But we had the spirit of self-reliance. And individualism often rugged individualism this is why you find so many entrepreneurs who are in this generational cohort. Then of course came the millennials. First of all for all of the gen xers and up if your thought about millennials is like that they're all teenagers. Adjust your thinking by the way the nighties were not 10 years ago. Ann and all of the dates the dates that you're seeing up here like born between 1982 and 1999 like. Any of it there's no consensus there's no agreed-upon starting in dates these are kind of rough numbers. Based on the experiences that a generation went through. The millennials for the most part. They had they had a significant thing where they all remember where they were right we all have those kind of things boomers what was yours where were you when. Genex where were you win. Challenger. Gen x gen x challenger and she went to the next one millennials. Current columbine and 911 right and especially 911 because actually the two of them both of those columbine in 9/11. They sent a message to our society of your children aren't. States. I'm so the parents of millennials. Effectively tried to wrap them in bubble wrap right you can't no you can't go to the park by yourself i'm going to drive you everywhere. I thought that has had its effect on them. They were a little cynical of the generation that came before as we all were they look at our cynicism and snark and kind of rolled their eyes but especially the individualism. They and the generation that came after them. Have seen that in this world. Like you can't do it alone. And the late millennials. And ginsey which i'll talk about in a second. Also look at all of us from the older generation. Like we always look at the older generation and feel that we're out of touch. But they're out of touch. But the thing we're like we really are out of touch. Is the whole issue of. College education. They cannot. Imagine. A world where you can just plan on going to college and you most likely aren't going to to graduate with any debt. I said that has been another. Force. On all of them. It makes a big it's a big force in terms of how much money they have because so many are still paying. Death. And i think that we can all understand them being a little bitter. At the generations who went before who didn't have this kind of burden. Stop the millennials came. Gen z. And that's what they're calling it right now the thing is it's still so young that we really don't know what it'll be there will be some formative events. That it will come out later and that's where we'll kind of understand okay well here's more of gen z there are certain things one of the things being the issue of privacy. And this is where you can see a difference between the generation. The silent generation remember. They were really committed to flying under the radar. This is why your parents or your grandparents. Cannot understand why you are posting what you had for dinner on the internet. And going all the way to the other extreme jinsy thinks that all of you who are so worried about your privacy are really adorable because there's no such thing as privacy anymore. Gen z. Right now there's already one name for that generation. That's already being put out as an alternative to jency and it's being put out by. The kids themselves. The kids from marjorie douglas. High school. I've been going around and speaking. Have been sadly. Claiming the name of. We are the school shooting. Generation. Because whereas for the millennials. Columbine. It's something you remember because it was so dramatic. Jenzie has never. Nona time. When there were not school. It's not. Traumatic. I talked to the genzies and my house they come home and i say there was another shooting. Or was it this time. It doesn't mean they're not compassionate. But this is simply. What passes for a normal world. And their reality. We have all of these different generations all of these. Different perspectives and it is. Sort of the the hubris of being human. That whatever our experience is. We think that that somehow applies to everyone. When we share our thoughts specifically within our own generational cohorts. gets reinforced. And so it's really easy for us to think that our opinion and our preferences somehow represent like an objective truth when i'm fact all they represent is opinions and prep. Where you can i think very easily see this. Is the issue of music. We got some different opinions about music right about the music of of our parents about the music of our kids. Music. Is so. Influence. By our experiences. Of when we heard the muse. And our memories of those. Variances that. That we can't separate them out. Here's one example of.. Boomers. If you were a teen in the 1960s. There was all of this great. Powerful music of rebellion write the times they are a-changing blowing in the wind if i had a hammer. And it was when you were beginning to feel your. Power. Until you could hear these songs. I didn't would resonate give gave you commitment. And it howard you up. If you haven't seen peter paul and mary. Sing if i had a hammer. At the newport folk festival. This was a 1960. You can find it on youtube parents like show it to your kid. And look at their faces. They weren't smiling. Peter paul and. They do not smile at all during this song because this was an anthem. This was a song of commitment. This was a song of claiming their power. And they followed through with it. Bright. People put their lives on the line. Because of that love for my brother and my sister my black brother. My black sister. I'm so when a boomer hears if i had a hammer. It evokes in them that feeling of being a youth. Out of the things that you made commitments to. And at the end the power. That you claimed in that moment. And then you had kids. And you raised your kids. On that same music. Right it wasn't just lullabies it was that stuff. I do for me growing up. I was hearing if i had a hammer. Right next to old macdonald had a farm. I was hearing it in preschool i was hearing it at summer camp. I'm so now. For genex and for the millennials who have been exposed to it. When we hear if i had a hammer. It evokes. Childhood. Safety. Summer camp. And so yeah. We often are a little snarky. About feeling that songs like that are. Cheesy. Imaginext. Cheesy. Because the context. Was different. But each of us can learn from each other contexts like i said go go watch the video if i had of if i had a hammer. Mary travers. Shaking that head as she did and belting out that song. And boomers. Realize. That certain songs when you have heard them. In this way. We're going to have a different feeling for it. Just like my kids are probably going to listen to you know red hot chili peppers under the bridge and go a lullaby. My mom used to play it all the time rock me to sleep. Being in a community. With this many generational divides. Is wonderful. This is amazing. Do you know what kind of power this gives us this means that we can take our life-saving world-changing message out into the world and we can meet people where they are and we can speak in their generational language. Not so silent generation silent no longer you can go out and you can talk to those in your age cohort about how it this church we believe that we have a duty to care for and feed our neighbors. Boomers you can go out there and talk about how it discharged we are working to build beloved community both inside our walls and outside them. Gen-xers we can go out and talk about how we are learning how to operate outside of those patriarchal bolt. Bull. Paradigm's. Millennials you can go out there and talk because inclusivity is so important to millennials they are discovering these things in a new way millennials can go out there and talk about how we are working to dismantle white supremacy in ourselves and out in the world and ginsey can go out. And share how they know that we have more power in community. Then we do as rugged idealist. The world is in dire shape right now. Our earth is literally dying. We can't. Get away from.. Objective. True. Because our world is dying people are responding out of. Fear. That's what's so much of this stuff about immigration is that's why we're seeing so many things about stripping away voting rights and stripping away civil rights. The situation is dire. And if we are going to have any hope. At changing this it is going to take all of us. So if you're one of the older generation. Are you kind of feel like man in out like i've done my time it's time for the younger people to step up. Sorry. I genuinely am sorry. Because no one deserves to rest more than you do. But we need you. We have to have we're calling you back into service. I'm for the younger folks the ones who feel like. Y'all made the mess y'all clean it up. Sorry. It's never worked like that. And it's not going to work like that now we need your energy we need your leadership we need your ideas. Time for those of us in the middle generations who feel. So then the sandwich generation trying to take care of the generation ahead of us in the generation after us. There's no time there's no time. Sorry. You got to go back to your calendar and figure out where you're going to squeeze out a little more time a little more energy and a little more resources we are on one fundamental level all one generation we are the generation that is alive right now. We are the only generation. That can try and change this and try and yes cheesy as it sounds save the world. That's john legend wrote where the generation that can't afford to wait. Future started yesterday. And we're already late. If you're out there. Sing along with me.
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