Gifting the Future Now

As a young boy, my teachers and elders often reminded us with these enigmatic words: “You are the hope and the future of our country!” We simply returned this hopeful invitation with a brimming smile that perfectly hid our inability to fully grasp what exactly ‘future’ meant. Back in the 80s, the future was Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and a hoard of other sci-fi films. How exactly were we going to connect with and hope for some so abstract and distant? Were they only referring to some idealistic setting for us to vent our yet unspent adolescent energies upon?

Today, the young generation is clamoring for a future they claim has been destroyed by the older generation. Recently, climate change advocate Greta Thunberg reproached the United Nations saying, “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

But Greta’s vision of the future cannot only be about preserving the planet by protecting animal species, cleaning up air and plastic pollution and maintaining the ozone layer. The longing for a greener and better world is just one part of a broader and more important task: the need to build intergenerational relationships.

There is, Pope Francis reveals, “a tendency to ‘homogenize’ young people, blurring what is distinctive about their origins and backgrounds, and turning them into a new line of malleable goods. This produces a cultural devastation that is just as serious as the disappearance of species of animals and plants. (Christus vivit, no. 186)”

This growing gap between the elder and younger generations embraces the idea that one group is no longer capable of understanding the other. When this is occurs, the young cut themselves off from their historical and cultural roots, and are helplessly blown away by stray ideological winds and trivial trends.

Pope Francis warns that, “the world has never benefited, nor will it ever benefit, from a rupture between generations. (…) When intergenerational relationships exist, a collective memory is present in communities, as each generation takes up the teachings of its predecessors and in turn bequeaths a legacy to its successors. (…) As the old saying goes: ‘If the young had knowledge and the old strength, there would be nothing they could not accomplish’. (Ibid. no. 191)”

The future cannot be reduced to what an older generation simply materially builds or preserves for the young. Structures, new gadgets and tools, and other comforts are useful, but these can never replace the inner longings and aspirations of the young. What do the elderly have to transmit to the young?

The Pope says, “The elderly have dreams built up of memories and images that bear the mark of their long experience. If young people sink roots in those dreams, they can peer into the future; they can have visions that broaden their horizons and show them new paths. But if the elderly do not dream, young people lose clear sight of the horizon. (Ibid. 194)”

Pondering on these words of the Pope, there are four concrete areas where the dreams of the elder generation can be transmitted to the younger ones: family meals, get-togethers/reunions, photos and trips.

Family meals are wonderful forging moments for every generation. Not only is conversation the bonding point, but also the food that everyone shares together. It is here where traditional recipes may be passed on from one generation to another. It is also during meals that prayers are said, concern and interest for others arise. It is a powerful place where the ‘absence’ of one can help the other ‘miss’ the other and pray for him or her.

Family get-togethers are not only big reunions every ten years or so. They can be held on a weekly basis, after an intimate Sunday meal –hopefully not within a noisy fast-food joint– but in the sacred ambience of the living room. These get-togethers are moments to share dreams, tell stories and listen to each one’s adventures.

Here socialization is nurtured and bears fruit to trust and concern. It also allows every member to embrace both what is positive and negative in the other, as each one learns to accept another’s limitations, but growing in a deep concern to help them overcome these obstacles with the family.

Family photos are not only those in a social-media platform. The family can have a simply project to have a real album of developed photos which treasure the more memorable family moments. Old albums are brought out to be a bonding journey to see how relatives were before, compare them with the present and absorb life’s joys and trials as pictures come with their stories and even songs.

Finally, planned family trips help everyone to abandon their ‘comfort zones’ as they are exposed to new settings and surroundings. Trips are a major source of developing responsibility and maturity in every family member as the new circumstances demand more self-giving and solicitude for one another.

These practices, as the natural foundation for the family’s traditions, will already hand down the future to the young. It is not a distant future, but a present one, dreamt about, listened to, embraced and is forever treasured in one’s mind and heart.