Thursday: Youth and Old Age Both Lean toward the New
WEEK 9
THURSDAY
YOUTH AND OLD AGE BOTH LEAN TOWARD THE NEW
1 Timothy 4:12; Psalms 92:14
If there.is a conflict going on in every age between youth and old age, just how does the coming of the Holy Spirit resolve that conflict? It resolves it in a very simple way; it tips both youth and old age in the direction of change: “Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams.”
Both shall look in the direction of change, youth seeing visions of coming possibilities and old age dreaming dreams of a better order. That the dreaming of dreams on the part of the old is not dreaming of the past and sighing over its departed glories is to be seen in the fact that it is the Holy Spirit who makes them dream dreams, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Creation—the Creative Spirit. It was the Spirit who brooded over chaos, and out of that chaos came cosmos. So when the Spirit comes upon us, we feel the stirrings of creation within us; we want to think things, feel things, do things, and be things. The hardened crusts of our thinking are broken up by the stirrings of new life within.
The Christian faith leans toward the radical, for it belongs to the Great Change—the kingdom of God on earth. It is the ought-to-be standing over against the is, demanding change. This is vividly seen in this passage: “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt 13:52 RSV). Note “what is new and what is old”—the radical and the conservative. But note the new—the radical is first. Change is first in the Christian faith—conserving is secondary.
Note further it says that the “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven” brings forth the new. But the scribe was a copyist who created nothing; the scribe copied what had been created. But when the dry-as-dust copyist gets in touch with and is trained in the kingdom of heaven outlook and spirit, he brings forth the new. The noncreative becomes the creative. Old age dreams.
O Creative Spirit, create within me this day new life, new pulses, new concerns, new projects. For I am made for creation and am happy only as I create. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I lean toward the new and gather up from the old all that fits the new.