Friday, October 19, 2012

Giving In to Growth

In honor of a verse from Corinthians: When my children and grandchildren were young, I embraced their youth, what they thought, what they said, that which they read, that which with they played and those with whom they were friends. Now that they are grown or almost adults, I look forward to encountering what they have become. I only hope that we can relate as respectful adults.

Today, as I cleaned our condo in which only one grandchild has slept in our two years here, I realized that it may be time to put away the books I read to them as infants. What a sad time this was for me in realizing that I will never again be surrounded by their innocent awe in all around them. This comes with gratitude that I spent so much time surrounded by my children and their children in the glow of family protection for so many years.

How humbling it is to know that they will now make their own life choices; that they may take our teachings backward or forward a generation or two.  Unless we sequester ourselves and our progeny, there is no way that we can predict what they will be. All of us, and our subsequent generations, are products of so many influences that their futures are impossible to predict.

My faith is in our ability as humans to choose to be reborn and to come to a point where we embrace our own support groups for growth. No more is our ancestral history our destiny. The greatest gifts I've been given are encompassed in my coming of age during the counter-cultural revolutions.

Gone are the artificial boundaries of religion, race, gender, class, and political bias, at least in theory. Women and other vulnerable, minority, and formerly disenfranchised populations are now considered as fully functional and honored members of our voting American populace. My focus, now that my primary motherhood mission is accomplished, is to do whatever I am able to assist in securing the realities of our nation's truly "Democratic society" promises.