When I Was A Kid....

Hello Emmanuel,

School is closed.  I don’t understand it.  So much is wrong with this picture…

First, I look outside and I barely see any snow.  It isn’t even cold snow.  It’s luke-warm.  A half a degree warmer and it would be all rain.  When I was a kid, snow was cold.  It was rock-hard ice that fell from the sky.  We had to carry band-aids with us when it snowed to cover up the scratches caused by the snowflakes.  This isn’t snow.  It’s really a bit embarrassing.  My kids should be embarrassed. 

Secondly, the automated one-call system is borderline evil.  Not only do the kids get to sleep in, but I have to wake up to answer the 3 phones that ring because the school system wants parents to NOT sleep in.  And when I’m awake, I’m awake.  When I was a kid, I had to get out of bed, walk across a cold floor and turn on a thing called a radio to see what was going on.  My parents didn’t have to wake up to come tell me that school was closed. 

So I sit here at 6:27 AM when I should be sleeping.  Instead, I’m typing this article, taking advantage of the opportunity to vent, but also to reminisce about how my generation is so much tougher.

But isn’t that the way it is supposed to go?  Don’t we always think that kids have it easier than we did?  Unfortunately, what we don’t think about is what kids have to deal with today that we didn’t.  For example, privacy is at a premium.  With social media as it is, your life is much more accessible.  And rumors fly around in a matter of seconds, not hours.  The pressure to perform might be a bit different too.  We want to make our kids the next multi-millionaire football or baseball or basketball player (and I thought that when Pete Rose signed that $100,000 contract, he was rich).  Kids play one sport year around and are pushed more to excel.  And I won’t even begin to talk about the changes in college education.  Spending 25% of your working life to just pay back student loans seems to put into question the validity of many college degrees.

The truth is that life is never easy.  Progress only brings different stressors, not less.  There is, however, a common reality:  God is still God.  This is what we should teach our kids (and many adults too).  The debate on who had it tougher isn’t the right way to spend our energy.  The right way is to communicate the presence of the Divine in our lives…..

 because without Him, life is tougher for everyone.

I’m going back to bed…. (and banging on my kids’ doors along the way)

God is Good,

Pastor Joe