Random thoughts on generations....

I think a lot! Some times I start with the same thought & it takes me one direction and another time I go in a different direction, sometimes I go round in circles.
When I'm thinking my ideas flow quicker than my grammar and good sentence construction; so what you get is what's on my mind not something that would pass an English exam. It's also a flow so sometimes it goes in crooked paths or leaves out  other things which have informed me but as you don't know what they are I may seem pretty scattered, inconsistent or random.  Just warning you....
So I woke this morning thinking about how many people  in the west, especially of my generation and before have struggled with ambiguity. We have wanted facts, cut and dried; black and white; true or false; right or wrong; good or bad. We have loved dualisms, we have made dichotomy our measuring stick.  The post-modern generation deal with ambiguity a bit better, they see there is more than two sides, but sometimes it leads to non acceptance of anything they don't like. I find myself firmly planted with a foot in each camp. My age means I grew up in the flux between modernity and post-modernity. I love this. I feel like I got the best of both. I got to be a child and a teenager in the sixties. The previous binding restrictions were shattered. Of course the problem was some of us drifted around like little sail-less, anchor-less boats out on a rough sea. We loved the freedom but could sometimes put into any port in a storm.
I am sad that science had a period of falling into the dichotomy I just spoke of. Science is amazing, it is curious. It asks How? Why? When? Which? etc. When it was least beneficial it thought everything could be measured, explained, treated empirically. This of course meant anything outside of that was invalid, not real or hocus-pocus. It had no way to hold ambiguity, randomness, immeasurable unless it could label it i.e. 'variable'. I am glad that so many scientists are expanding their horizons, returning to curiosity. The problem is too often they are not the ones who get funding, are not the ones who get their work published or who influence the places that hold the money.
I see a similar pattern in religion; well Christianity in particular, but I suspect it is true in many religions. I don't know enough about other religions to say for sure. My foray into other religions and forms of expressing my innate spirituality were Buddhism and new age. They both have a lot to offer when it comes to being able to hold ambiguity. Christianity on the other hand started with a Jewish guy called Jesus. He was born in the flux too. He was the best model of a human holding up ambiguity as a positive thing. He could see the not only but also; the now and not yet. He was the most radical person that ever lived! The problem was a lot of his followers over the centuries have wandered off his way, forsaken or forgotten how radical he was and fallen for the false security of thinking they knew all the answers, could explain everything and put their idea God into some box they constructed. Don't think I'm a pot calling the kettle black here - I count myself in there. But I'm on the road to recovery. I am starting to be OK with my unknowing, I am growing in appreciation of how others see things even when at first it appears opposite to how I see. I am learning I don't have to fix everything, everyone. I am beginning to see that what I thought was chaos is sometimes just a different order. What I thought was a negative, painful hard experience is actually what I needed to grow to be healed to find some softness. I am learning that I don't have to understand everything, explain everything; of course I still try to because that is part of me. I am in some senses a scientist; I am curious. But in other ways I am more a social scientist loving the diversity of people, loving the variations in cultures, the abundance in expressions of community, spirituality, love, art, and any human quality; which to me are all expressions of who God made us.
I love that our society is multi-generational; each bringing wisdom, each bringing questions, each having experiences. I love that if these wisdoms and experiences are heard they can help the hearer. For me my biggest problem is with those who see people in therms of "them and us", creating separation, hostility and inequality, for they do not appreciate the wisdom or experience of the other. Again I have been there. It was killing me and damaging to others; it was a dark, cold place with little hope other that getting people to "join us".  When we begin to see that the real us is every human being, the place we live is open, light and spacious.
My prayer is that we will begin to see that every human being is made in God's image - unique, beautiful, diverse, creative, being innately a spiritual being with untapped wisdom, vision and potential; which if we love and accept one another can be released to the benefit of all creation. Can you imagine what an amazing life  we would create if we truly cared for each other, for our environment, our planet, our universe. That is part of what we were created to be. Love, care, create, steward the earth and all creation and all that is in it and in doing so be blessed, be loved, be cared for.