Talking 'Bout My Generation

     I was born at the tail end of the generation known as the "baby boomers."  We're the largest and probably the best studied segment of American society ever born.  I've been thinking a lot lately about certain elements of my generation because of a statement made by my husband recently.  A financial planner, he's worked with many people at different stages of life both young and old.  He recently made an observation after spending many frustrating hours working with a retiring baby-boomer whom he described as an "old hippie."  In his work, he's seen every imaginable variety of the "old hippie" stereotype:  the affluent academic, the wealthy artists, the entrepreneur who stumbles upon a profitable idea, the social misfit who finally inherits a fortune from his hard-working "greatest generation" parents, and many others.  He's just about concluded that you can't help an "old hippie."    They are stubborn risk-takers who refuse to listen to sound advice.  They are distrustful and paranoid, often to the point of being delusional.  They tirelessly defend bad judgement and refuse to take any corrective measure that might imply they made a bad financial decisions earlier.  Not all "boomers" are "old hippies," mind you; we certainly are not.

Grandpa Woodstock shows a peace sign 

as he walks with his wife Queen Estar. 

Published: 08/28/2009 02:55:32 

Credits: Chernin/AP

     After discussing this topic at length one evening, we arrived at the idea that maybe it was a collective hardening of the heart.  The sort that God sends as a judgement on stubbornly unrepentant people.  I thought about King David's instruction to his son Solomon regarding an old enemy, "...do not let his gray hair go down to the grave in peace." There seems, at least for the "hippie" segment of our culture, to be a determination to go out in the chaotic manner in which they lived; wasteful, ungrateful, and rebellious to the last breath.
    
     God has lavished his goodness on this generation despite our unprecedented wickedness.  He's given many "old hippies" long life, wealth, and many more examples of His common grace; but, in the words of Bob Dylan, it may well be that "the times, they are a changing."