Hang my head in shame?

Copied this text on 27.07.2012 from the MKP-UK mailing list for Elders.

As a young man I didn’t think much of my elders. We were going to build a whole new world. 

A just world. A fair world. A world free of war, and greed, and famine. 

A world, a society that bonded with nature and honoured our planet.

And what were the messages that I got?

"Get a hair cut!". 

"I remember when boys looked like boys and girls looked like girls". 

"We didn’t have it so easy". 

"When I was a lad…". 

"A good bit of military discipline. That’ll sort you out, boy!"

They thought Vietnam was a good idea, the Russians didn’t love their children, and we certainly shouldn’t waste our time  exploring such things as God, Life and our place in it all. They thought it perfectly acceptable to trash the planet and whole nations in pursuit of their greed. 

And that discipline was about fear, and not about choice.

And we, we were going to build something different. But we didn’t, did we?

As I watch the news, more and more of the movers and shakers, the people with power and responsibility

are YOUNG PEOPLE. My time is gone, it seems, and what did we build?

To me, it seems like the planet is in an even worse state. Wars have increased, and got messier. 

They pollute even more and while military casualties have decreased, the casualty rate amongst non-combatants has multiplied alarmingly.

We have a prominent politician talking openly about ‘our broken society’, and with some validity.

What we have done to nature itself doesn’t bear speaking about. 

And cancers multiply, while it’s now normal for old people to lose their marbles.

I remember Edmund Burke, and his 

"All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing", 

and I hang my head in shame.

And now, everywhere I go, I meet young people that have no doubt that what we have built is being and will be dismantled and that what they are going to create in its place is a just and fair society, a sustainable and nurturing society.And I want to offer them something different to what I received as a young man from my "elders". 

Respect is something to be earned and not demanded. 

What am I going to do to be a man that the ‘Youngers’ in my life respect? 

A man whose vision, wisdom and depth of experience they value? 

And actively seek out? 

Well, my guess is that being a grumpy old man, continually complaining about how the world has changed in ways I didn’t want it to, and asking time and time again "WHY DO THEY wear their trousers round their thighs?" just isn’t going to cut it. 

I need to get off my stuff, deal with my pain, my loss and my shame, and BE THERE FOR THEM. Acknowledge them, encourage them, and BLESS them. And, I think, when things don’t work out for them, tell them my story. Tell it in a way that doesn’t say, "you should, you should have, you shouldn’t have". 

But rather – 

"These are the mistakes I made, this is what I learned, and this is what I did with that learning". And most importantly – "There might be something in this for you – There might not. And I trust you to choose the relevance." 

Trust. Respect. Encouragement. What I might have done had I been given more of that.

So here we are. "The 50’s are the new 40’s", they say. 

I am old enough not to have the energy and the enthusiasm (along with the complete (apparent) lack of fear!) that I used to have. But there's still life in the old dog yet. Still, it’s "them" that are building a new society, not "us". 

I live in a culture that honours youth above all things, that seeks to sideline us, wrap us up and push us off to play with our toys and our free bus passes and then quietly find a way somewhere, out of sight and out of mind, to shuffle off this mortal coil. There is much I don’t have any more. Much that is better done by younger men and women, free from some of the constraints, the thinking, and the wounding I carried. 

But there is much I didn’t have that I now possess in growing abundance. So much still to offer. I want to see the Elders and the Youngers ending their war and joining together in a potent partnership. I believe our planet, our society and our grandchildren deserve it. Need it. Are hungry for it.

But first we need to become respect-able. Become the ones that they will seek out.

THE TIME IS NOW. WE ARE THE ONES

WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.