138-Ropes, Gear, Scaffolding, And Podcasts...

Looking down to verify that my Alpine Bod harness was double-backed and secure, my eyes traced the length of the 11mm rope that ran its course from my harness and terminated with a bowline knot around a live, rooted cedar.  I stepped out onto the narrow pass, gear clinging to my belt and ready for being put into use like a competitive diver crouched on their block waiting for the bell to sound.  Only, instead of a bell ringing in my ears, it was the computer modulated voice of a young woman, hosting a podcast in my head at 1.25 speed.  My gear for this project included a DeWalt impact driver, hammer, nails, screws, five-n-one tool, and a paint brush.  Leaving behind the rock faces where my gear list includes a host of carabiners, slings, prussiks, and belay devices; I’ve ventured onto the scaffold and out onto the 2x10 that bridged the gap between the scaffold and peak over my front porch.  As it turns out, comfort off the ground does translate from cliffs to the homestead.

“Research is reporting that forty percent of today’s gen z’s and alpha generation are ghosting,” the voice quickly spit out as I held a nail firmly between my thumb and first finger, my wrist ready to swing the weight of the hammer forward, exactly like it would an ice axe into a fresh wall of ice clinging to the sandstone cliffs over Lake Superior.  “It’s easier for this generation to ignore someone than to have a hard conversation; break-ups, terminating employment ties, or even the curtesy of cancelling a job interview when hired in somewhere else,” she continued making me realize how much easier it was to hammer nails than navigating complex, lasting relationships.  How the heck do you have a relationship with them, then? I wondered, now only half listening as I imagined my own personal situations.

It’s a funny thing, intergenerational relationships.  There are so many factors to each individual situation and there’s no magic formula to follow that prevents things like ghosting.  For those who have not had the honor of being ghosted, allow me to explain.  Have you had a friend who, for whatever reason, just quit communicating with you all together?  No explanation, no response, no closure, just gone-zo?  That’s ghosting, and I am a 46-year-old man who just can’t wrap his head around the idea of it!  But here’s the rub… I’m not right all the time. Surprised?  This is just one of the many differences between my gen x brain and those of the z’s and alpha’s.  They say that learning from our differences can take a lot of work and even more patience and willingness to understand each other.  I say sometimes it’s easier to walk the 2x10 over the peak of my house! 

I write to share with you my experiences with teens and young adults and to encourage all of us to consider our own spiritual life and daily impact on our communities.  I recently caught a glimpse of a meme stating a popular phrase that Jesus spoke, recorded in the book of Mark: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Turns out that Jesus was quoting Moses from the even older book of Leviticus, who was very close to God and writing down what the Creator of the Universe was directly instructing him… Love your neighbor as yourself.  The meme went on to express that God knew that our neighbors would not be like us because He created us all to be different.  So, in the end it doesn’t matter what our differences are, and we are certainly not asked to simply agree with our neighbor and lay aside what the truth of scripture has to say; but we are called to love. 

Up and down the steel bars that hold the scaffolding together—not a single bolt in place, but rather simple pins and sliding locks—I climbed gingerly because I trusted the system to hold my weight and tools.  The system works because each piece has a proper function, and in unity the cross members give strength to the upright sections, the pins bind those sections together and so forth.  If it weren’t for the grace that I receive as an old gen x’er from my younger friends our entire intergenerational connection would be lost.  I too am different, and require the love from them when I say or do something completely ignorant, and together we spur one another on in our life journeys.  Turns out that I wasn’t just embracing the scaffold system that day, I was learning to embrace the connective system that will keep every generation moving forward together—love.

-Matt