Crossing the generational divide can bring change

Old is good. If you’ve ever had a tattered shirt you can’t throw out because of all the good times and happy memories rubbed into it, you’re a fan of the old too. Old friends are irreplaceable even as we open our lives to receive new ones. We may admit it’s time to purchase a new couch yet still look ruefully at the broken-in one we’re about to push to the curb. While old can be a pejorative, folks of a certain age—including me—would gladly argue the case for the occasional utility and unusual beauty of the antique.

Still, many of us are equally attracted to the new. My 93-year-old mother has an understandably deep affection for former days and ways, yet she continues to buy new clothes even though she could probably ride out the rest of her days with the closetful she has. Incoming catalogues proclaim the gospel of fast fashion: delightful new styles, colors, patterns, and textures. How can anyone resist?

It’s unfair to rib Mom about her purchasing habits without confessing my own. There’s a reason my mailbox is likewise crammed with catalogues, while my email inbox overflows with invitations to spend, spend, spend. Newness promises a solution to every problem, improved function or capacity, greater comfort and ease. Fresh possessions delight the eye with their twinkling perfection. Am I the only person who can stain, mar, or break a new purchase within 10 minutes of ownership? New things don’t stay pristine very long, which means the search for the new is relentless.

No wonder, then, that, by means of the prophet Isaiah, God lures us into dreaming of a better future with the promise of a fresh start. Behold, as we say in Bible-speak: Here comes the new! Make room in your hearts, minds, and neighborhoods for what hasn’t been before!

If our present reality is cramped, painful, or just plain boring, we may leap up at such a prophetic message. Like the young fishermen who drop their nets to follow Jesus, something novel sounds pretty darn good when the familiar is a yawning dead end. However, if the present situation happens to be cushy and profitable, any sort of changed perspective may appear as a threat. Keep that new idea at bay! Crush it, kill it, and jail anyone who dares to speak of it!

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