It's time we proud, preoccupied adults learn from the kids

By Tim Bowling

The events of Sept. 11 surely have changed life in America forever. If for any reason it has not, we are nearly without hope as a nation. Perhaps our children understand what has happened even better than we who are older and have lived so carefree and carelessly for so long, we who have not been too inconvenienced or had to pay too high a price for anything for most all of our years.

Most of us who were born post WWII have no idea or understanding of personal national tragedy. We have lived so many years on a national plateau of security with personal indifference that we don't comprehend our vulnerability anymore.

But kids understand being at the mercy of hands that control far more than they themselves can. Kids know you don't always win; they know that even their very best plans can be thwarted by someone who doesn't want them to have their way and has authority or just plain guts to act against them. Little kids understand parents can "lower the boom," older children understand that parents or law can intervene and peers can exert enough pressure to cause long-lasting effects on a life.

These young people still understand vulnerability. But today's parents and grandparents, those who have had their way paved with too much convenience and cash for so long have forgotten what it is like to be vulnerable.

On Sept. 11, we all became vulnerable once again.

Kids have the tenacity to fight back. They believe in their causes and aren't afraid to take risks to see their way through. There are not many passive kids who will just sit there and "give it up" when they really want something that someone else is trying to take away from them.

Maybe it's time for all of us pompous, proud, preoccupied grown-ups to learn something from our children. If we want this nation to survive, if we want a Christian homeland where there is plenty and freedom is cherished, maybe it is time to become like children.

Maybe when Jesus said "come to me as a child," he was talking about times like this when we are jolted awake to the fact that we are very vulnerable and, short of His Mercy, we too could become a nation manipulated by thugs and forces educated by evil.

It is time to pray! God can heal our land if we will carry it to him like a child with a broken toy and repent of our personal negligence and indifference.

Tim C. Bowling is Youth Director at Newburgh UMC, Evansville District

Last updated on 01/14/2004

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