“My people” is comprised of the American generation broadly known as “The Boomers.” Born between 1946 and 1964, my people grew up at the beginning of all things possible. All things attainable. All wishes can come true. “Be lucky, or good, or both,” we proudly said.
We are the Disney kids. The self-made-person kids. The end of discrimination(s) kids. We are the people of the unlimited future. Oh, yeah, and the ones who nearly caused the second Great Depression with all our wishes being simultaneously granted, without enough elbow grease to back them up.
And if I’ve been watching trends carefully. I studied sociology and social psychology fairly close-up before settling on theology as my passion, I think I have an idea about my people.
Our national religious evangelical focus seems to be on attracting teenagers — the outrageously overly-informed and stimulated ones who Twitter, Facebook, text, and navigate with supersonic ease. Churches of all flavors and persuasions scramble to meet this new thing (sloppily termed “postmodern”), panicked they will be irrelevant in missing the train straining against its brakes to leave the station.
Well, given all this agitation, here’s my observation: We are focusing on the wrong end of the train. Our endeavor is not about all the frenetic activity in the engine, full of energy and impatience; the locomotive full of curiosity about what’s ahead, still to be discovered for the first time. And we do need locomotives, believe me; our young people are absolutely amazing!
I’d rather focus our thoughts nearer the caboose where my people are beginning to find their seats. My fellow Boomers, who had the collective jolt of their lives when the engine they were pretending to steer jumped the tracks and sprayed us all over the innocent landscape! They are beginning to slowly but wisely gravitate away from coveting the pace of madness.
As a bunch of romantic, dreamy, take-no-prisoners, “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead,” sorts of folks, we thought we could work hard enough so we’d never need anybody else; would research our way out of mortality; and would discover or build Neverland, where you never have to grow up.
We knew enough about church to understand the basics, and then were dazzled by the New Age, the New Spirituality, the Beatles, and Acid, and nakedness in public, and not staying married, and not staying pregnant, and flipping houses, and maxing-out credit.
We Boomers learned that independence was mature and cool. Self-reliance was utopia. But the problem we finally, collectively faced is: How much stuff is enough to be happy?
Even when researchers said that after $50,000, happiness levels sort of flat line, we dismissed their helpful observations and moved into the stratosphere of buying more and bigger. Until it all exploded. Around the whole world.
And here’s the wonderful thing I think will make all the difference — and if we’re paying attention, will actually fill those churches that pay attention and build the ark before it starts raining, this time.
The Boomers are going to try to find the Beloved community again: the towns and gentle places they vaguely remember living in or visiting when they were younger. After running the locomotive off the track and causing so much noise, my people, becoming 60-somethings and needing their joint medication to get up the stairs, and fiber to do other things, my people are going to notice something vital is missing.
As I read my Bible, Jesus was trying to say just a few things really, really well. And, by the way, he gathered 12 disciples (and their relatives!) to pour himself into; modeling the Beloved Community is huge to God. It’s as if Jesus was saying that we are designed to need each other, even if it’s very messy and impossible to perfectly legislate.
The Boomers are almost ready to admit they will not live forever; they can live well on far less, smaller, and more efficiently, and be much happier. And we’re almost ready to agree that staying home in a community we will stand by, no matter how messy it gets, could be the deepest satisfaction.
Rather than globe-trotting and racing away from much delayed-quiet and deep peace, Boomers could begin staying home and doing things like: volunteering in the local school, caring for the community garden one morning a month, working the food pantry one morning a week, or how about asking the pastor what would be the biggest help to him or her as we all seek together to love the congregation and town?
The operational term here is: “almost ready.” Boomers are almost ready to leave the sexy engine for the community dining car or gentle observation car; to admit their hastily assembled, patchwork, spirituality isn’t coherent after all, and they could use some professional mentoring, even in a more traditional-looking church setting.
And the question I would pointedly offer is: Are we going to be ready when they come looking?
Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, Parker Palmer, and many others, describe the soul as shy, timid, easily chased off. Like a wild animal, they say. And we all know you can’t tell those “wild and crazy” Boomers anything they didn’t think of first. The way we welcome the Boomers back to the Beloved Community is everything. It is form and function. It is thought and word. It is listening much and speaking less. It is hearing the long and painful journey of a life of discovery that leads my people back to the place they vaguely remember as the place their parents took them, and so they had to go. It is a heart and soul welcoming celebration!
Coincidentally, a dear woman is methodically catching a feral cat that recently came into our church and took over the place. She explained her method to me, and I think it’s instructive wisdom for regaining the trust of our Boomers.
To catch a cat that by definition has escaped domestication, you bring the harmless but effective cage to the place your visitor has settled and leave it there for a couple of days. After it learns to trust the cage, you will put food into it and it will eventually go in, too.
Our feral cat is not being properly fed right now. It’s acting like a homeless person who has no restroom or predictable safe place to stay. Our feral cat is lost. But the dear “cat lady” will bring him home with her and see he is cared for. Fed. Safe. Home, perhaps for the first time. Instead of thriving on adventure, barely surviving is all he can claim.
He is not prodigal any more than our Boomers are.
So, by the grace of God, and the awareness and willingness of those of us who love God and all Creation, I pray we will be able to say that our Boomer’s journey will simply have been be a longer way Home.
Sharon Latour is pastor of the Garberville Community Presbyterian Church, Garberville, Calif.
