Lord of the Flies

I sat in a small community church a last week back here in Estes Park. CO. It was an architecturally beautiful & aesthetically pleasing structure, with wood beams, sterling silver, and large windows. Honestly, it felt more like a loft than a church. I wanted to live in it, not practice my faith there.

As the service went on I noticed something peculiar. Basically everyone that went to church there looked like they were from California or NYC... basically 'hipsters'. Not that I have anything against that at all, but after I looked around I saw that there was not one old person in the building, then I realized that there was not even one older person there, then I realized that there was not one person over 40 years old!

In the book 'Lord of the Flies' a group of boys get stranded on an island and end up having to fend for themselves, Before long one by one a group of the boys began to kill the other. It is a great read, and short, and is one of my favorite books because it shows the barbaric state we digress to when not held accountable.

In this country, because this is not a global phenomenon, we value youth or the appearance of such. I am not sure why or how we 'digressed' to this state but I feel we are doing ourselves and our communities a disservice by alienating those who have more wisdom, knowledge, and years to share.

Have we so segregated ourselves from those who have time on their side, therefore limiting our knowledge of things to come? In essence, if there is 'nothing new under the sun', then aren't people older than us basically time travelers, how much can we learn from those who can see into our future?

We may all go through different experiences, travel to different locations, have different friends; but in this life there are much more that we share in common than we have different. In the same way I feel that our grandparents, people we may work with that are older, our elders, etc. may have an insight into our lives that the people closest to us our age may not have.

What happen to the word 'mentor'? I feel that it is a lost art and life left to the past. I admit that besides one friend a little older than myself that I do not have one. Its not that I am not open to it, I just feel that this current culture does not extend its hand to such. My challenge is to somehow come up with ideas on how to incorporate people 20 years older than you, or more, into your life.

Now I digress... are we not slowly creating an island of age in our little world? Are we not simply the shipwrecked boys on an island slowly eliminating each other due to our lack of wisdom, knowledge, foresight, and accountability?

To progress we must incorporate all to learn, we must learn so that one day we might teach.