these kids today!

These Kids Today!

 

  I will say right off the bat:  There are some exceptional young people today.  Against the backdrop of the “normal”, they are nothing short of heroic.  If you are one, please know that I recognize, value, and salute your existence.  You have more “grit” than I.

 

  Solomon observed;     Prov 22:15  Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. 

  By “children” I am speaking of teen to early twenties.  A certain amount of “foolishness” is unavoidably bound in their hearts but I chalk that up to childish irresponsibility, not malevolence.  Wisdom takes time.   However, the environment in which today’s kids live allows them to take that foolishness to depths unprecedented since perhaps the days of Noah.

  Now humor me as I tell you what it was like “when I was your age”.  The rod of correction was used on me.  Mom and Dad stayed together.  I was the first to an “old time” church each time the doors were opened and the last to leave.  I was kept very busy.  I had a paper route, mowed yards, was in Boy Scouts, 4H, dug ditches for the city, milked cows, helped my grandpa with farm work, and handled tens of thousands of hay bales over a 7 year stretch.  When night fell, I was in bed because I was tired.  I went straight from High School into a Bible College with strict rules, and straight from there into the ministry.  So was I a paragon of virtue?  Maybe not.  Foolishness was in my heart also, but providence didn’t give me a chance to explore it.  I have always said that I would have had to work as hard to get into trouble as today’s kids have to work to stay out of it. 

  Current youth have no more propensity toward foolish behavior than my childrens’ generation, nor my generation, nor any preceding;  but again, several factors in our modern culture have enabled them to take the propensity they do have to extremes.  Some of these factors are as follows:    Access to media that exploits foolishness//  Technologies to access evil//   God free school environments//  Fragmented families// Churches that go shallow on Biblical teaching and pander to narcissism//  A relativist culture//  Tarnished “role models”//  Less parental sacrifice, vigilance, intervention//  Laws prohibiting kids from laying block or working concrete all day.  No more yards to mow or ditches to dig.  Too much fear of liability by potential employers.  Farmers don’t make many small bales of hay anymore and have the youngsters buck them and wrestle them under a tin roof at 140 degrees.  You can probably name others.  A lot of those “juices” that make the young vulnerable can be “sweat out”. 

  Were I to say about today’s youth, “Aw, they’re just being kids!” or something like “Well, we were all young once.” I would be in denial.  The majority of them are just plain bottom feeders.  Hyperbolic?  If you think I am, then what percentage of 15+ year olds would you say haven’t been gassed on Bud Light or huffed or puffed or snorted or popped or shot up?  What percentage do you think are still virgins??   If they are, what percentage would you say are ashamed of it??  In any case, you dare not spank them.  You may cause a brain injury. 

  Their language is a bellwether because:  Matt 12:34  for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.  I have noticed a shift from profanity to obscenity.  I think this has been led by most forms of media.  I am curious about this shift.   I define profanity as blasphemy, a violation of the 3rd commandment.  I define obscenity as that warned against in Ephesians 5:4 Neither filthiness (aischroitees), nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.   “Aischrotees”  in the Greek denotes offensive or filthy language, not necessarily a taking of the Lord’s name in vain.  Aischrotees may vary from culture to culture, but it is designed to be offensive to other people. My generation was into projecting a “devil may care” personae by poking God in the eye with profanity.  It was God Who took the brunt.  Today’s obscenities are aimed specifically at  other people.  To rankle them.  To show not only a lack of respect, but an attitude of hostility toward others.  The young need to be careful of their belligerence, for some elderly are growing hostile toward the young.  Our “system” is reducing old folks to the point that they have nothing to lose, and that makes them dangerous.  Very dangerous.  Many have lost their faith.  There is nothing left to intimidate them.  Prison or the Nursing home makes no diff.  They have nothing left but an M1 semi automatic and plenty of ammo.  They may decide to go out in a blaze of glory by wasting an obstreperous young person.   Remember:   2 Kings 2:23-24  And he (Elisha) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.  And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

 

   Despite all this juvenile decadence, I am not ready to hang my harp on the willows yet as the Israelis did when they finally knuckled under to the Babylonian captivity.  Let me offer some reasons why.

 

  I am not evolutionist to the point that I preclude the necessity of God as the original cause and present sustainer;  but I do believe that the world He has made tends to “cull” the herd.  I believe it because I have seen it.  Humans do not want to be “culled”.  Not wanting to be culled is called “survival instinct”, and wanton behavior will put a man in touch with his survival instinct.  Witness the prodigal.

  Part of the “foolishness” bound up in the heart of a child is that he believes the avenue to freedom is through anarchy.  He entertains fantasies that he would survive and thrive under such an economy, and achieve the greatest amount of fulfillment from life.

  In 1979 an Australian movie called “Mad Max” was made.  The plot is about how the world would be when oil supplies were depleted.  Governments collapse.  There is no law.  Only the strongest survived, until someone stronger came along.  The herd was culled until there was no one left except the most deviant and violent and they were battling down to the last man standing.  This movie spawned a genre of movies called “dystopian” (characterized by human misery brought on by overcrowding).  Many video games built on this concept have also proliferated.    The hero is the survivor and that survivor is the most ruthless.

 

  Children are foolish enough to believe that they would be that survivor.

 

  My generation was the 60’s and early 70’s.  “We” (comprehensively speaking) tried “it” (anarchy).  Free drugs, free sex, “free” food (usually stolen).  “Woodstock” became the signature microcosm.  Several other microcosms called “communes” were attempted;  but evolution ensued. One person was full and the other one hungry.  All the women only wanted to sleep with the handsome guys and all the men only wanted to sleep with the pretty women.  Humans just cannot tolerate injustices like these.  One worked blisters on his hands while the other sat in the shade stoned on his drug of choice.  The communes were short lived because sooner or later, there had to be “rules”;  the very things “we” detested.  “Who will make these rules?”  “Who will interpret these rules case by case?”  “Who will enforce these rules?”   “Let’s take a vote.” “Oh oh!  Oh oh!”  Sounds like a democracy to me.  A self appointed tyrant said “We ain’t votin’!  I’m the biggest guy here and I’ll make the rules!  Any objections?”  “Oh oh!  Oh oh!”  Sounds like a dictatorship to me.

  Then one day “we” looked into a mirror and saw our first grey hair (or lack of hair where there used to be some.)  “We” got to counting the Winters we had weathered, and there had been 30 some.  The commune had long since dissolved.  Billy decided he didn’t want to play anymore and took his VW van home.  And “we” found ourselves alone. We looked down and our ribs were sticking out like those of a P.O.W.  The drugs didn’t make us feel good any more, but “we” had to do them just to keep from feeling like we had been stripped and dragged through prickly pear behind a scared horse.  “We” were going to have to knock off another liquor store.  “We” decided to make one more score, and swallow the whole bag, and that would be it.

 

  But some of “us” decided that breathing is nice.  “We” took the cure.  “We” took that job cleaning toilets and windshields at the truck stop.  “We” saw the truckers get out on hot Summer days with sweat on the back of their shirts.  “We” got an idea.  “We” thought of a wicker seat cover that had thin nylon tubing woven through it.  A tiny circulating pump could be plugged into the power point.  A little reservoir of water could be mounted in front of an air conditioning vent.   “We” would call them “Cool Backs”.   We set up a hand made sign with a slogan:  “No cool front ahead? Put a ‘Cool Back’ behind”.  “We” thought that we could make them and set a few up in the truck stop for sale.   “We” kept cleaning toilets and lived in a tent and soaked pinto beans until we had saved enough to have a grub stake. We made a down payment on a little shop and we started a business.  “We” worked all day there and slept a few hrs. there.  Word got around that our seat covers helped. “We” started turning a profit.  We plowed the money back into R&D and refined our product.  A big truck stop chain called and ordered a thousand to display in their stores.  “We” found some of our old friends who decided breathing is good.  “We” hired them. 

  Time passed and one day “we” met this other person that we liked so much that we wanted to be with them alone and they wanted the same, so we saw the Justice of the Peace.  And “we” wanted to give another person life.  And another.   And “we” put on some weight.  And “we” got more grey hairs.  And “we” got wrinkles beside our eyes from smiling often.  And “we” became what “we” used to curse;  all because breathing is better than not breathing.

 

  If no one else will take the responsibility of whipping you, life itself has a way of whipping the foolishness out of you;  and that’s why I haven’t hung my harp on the willows.

 

  If you are a teen or twenty something, “we” were the people you are.  “We” are the people you swear you will “never turn into.”            Oh oh!