A New Life at Yale: Eluding the Mold
We started waiting for things that really count. Enter the flower children, and enter “luv”. Each day, each minute should burst forth full of wonder. Flowers, people and clouds became things to be experienced. We were waiting for a visitation by that ethereal freedom that would release us from routine and change our lives into a series of unfolding delights.
Things were going to change and a whole new age would soon be ushered in. Some thought drugs would get them where they wanted to go. Others were more pragmatic and joined the SDS or Weathermen. Hundreds of student movements waxed and waned. Students marched and protested, and sometimes got shot at.
But somehow the whole thing soured. And the heralded golden age of the Aquarius generation never dawned, and the “disestablishmentized” society never materialized. Now, what has happened to the revolutionaries, and where have all the flower children gone?
They’ve turned another bend in the road, every one. They’re settling down, retreating from the responsibility they took upon themselves to change the world. Now they want to be left alone. You live your life and I’ll live mine. You’re OK and I’m OK.
Expectations are no longer as lofty as they were three years ago. Today students have become deadly serious about their studies. It’s important to get ahead, to go on to become a lawyer, or a doctor, or to get a good job, and find security and settle down.
But even this trend, like former ones will run its course, and then there will be a new generation that longs for something else, and feels that it has been endued with a singular wisdom because it realizes that what the previous generation waited for and expected wasn’t worth the wait.
Is anything? Yes.
Fruitful Expectations
“My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him” (Psalm 62:5).
The world, of course, has never yet seen an entire generation that has singleheartedly and determinedly placed all its expectations in God. But there have been glimpses of what this would mean.
J.R. Green said that John Wesley’s outdoor preaching occasioned the conversion of such a large part of his generation in England that in a few years the whole temper of English society was changed.
Public executions served as popular entertainment, and robbery was so common that Horace Walpole wrote that: “People are almost afraid of stirring after dark.”
The 19th century historian Lecky credits this vibrant evangelical outburst with saving England from her own version of the bloody French Revolution. Harry Emerson Fosdick said that: “Without the evangelical revival there is no explaining John Howard’s prison reforms or William Wilberforce’s anti-slavery campaign.”
Such reforms were real, not just visionary, and they left a mark on their time and projected benefits into the future.
Previous generations, like our own, have never lacked problems, nor schemes to solve those problems, nor expectations of a better society. What they have often lacked however, is the moral strength and divine assistance which are necessary to effect permanent and just solutions to these problems. These come only from the living God, and cannot be substituted by anything else, no matter how noble in concept, that finds its origins in man alone. That is why the hopes of most generations never become anything more than ephemeral expectations.
Expectations which spring from faith in God are fruitful, not frustrating.
The generation that saw the dawn of this century believed that the happiness of mankind would flourish in an era of continuing peace—but its hopes were dashed by the outbreak of the First World War. The generation of the 20’s trusted in the continuance of booming prosperity, but its dreams were crushed by the Great Depression.
Then came the Second World War, then the Korean War, then the long war in Vietnam, and now we hear delusive talk of “a generation of peace” again.
Who sets the style for a generation anyway, who determines its dominant mood and hope?
When it is not God, then it is ultimately Satan, the counterfeit “angel of light” who deceives the whole world.
Who lifts a generation up in false expectation, and then suddenly betrays it with an unexpected turn of events?
It is the one the Bible calls “the father of lies.” He never delivers what he promises. When he says “peace,” he means war. When he offers the pleasures of sin, he intends anguish, guilt, emptiness and sorrow.
The flood tides of expectation which sweep across each generation place overwhelming emphasis on some supposed good, while ignoring truths that have the power to lead to great good in this life, and to everlasting life when it is over.
The claims of the Gospel—“I am the way, the truth and the life”—the claims of the Savior, and the love of God for men—those issues that should have first place in a generation’s heart are labeled with some pejorative epithet and then consigned to a forgotten and unlit corner.
But when they are rediscovered and brought forward again, as they have been from time to time in American history, especially from the founding of the Colonies until early in this century, they bring love, joy, peace of mind and soul, and high purpose to many men and women.
When [the claims of the Gospel] are rediscovered, they bring love, joy, peace of mind and soul, and high purpose to many men and women.
Otherwise, there are few individuals who face things as they really are, refusing to be caught up in the euphoria or despair, the over-excitation or the indifference, that rules their time.
When the liberating truths of the Scriptures are mocked or ignored the be-all and end-all of earthly existence becomes not much more than survival with a style, and the particular style is decided for you by your generation.
There is something much better for you than to be shaped by the moods, and the mode, and the drift of the day. There is a great work yet to be done in this generation. Our country is languishing because it has forgotten God. It has cast the Bible aside. The soul of our society is slowly being corrupted and few take notice. There is an important work to be done, and those who will do it must come from this generation.
Why not pause for a minute, and think of eternity, and ponder this simple, mighty truth: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
Jesus said: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will hear my voice, and will open the door and let me in, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.” He is one man Who is always true to his promise.
Larry M. Senger, ’74
From King Solomon
The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem:
What profit has a man of all his
labor and his toil under the sun?Generations come and generations go,
while the earth continues forever.The sun also rises and the sun goes
down, and hastens to his place
where he rose.All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full: to the
place where the rivers began,
they return again.The thing that has been, it is that
which shall be; and there is no
new thing under the sun.The living know that they shall
die, and have no more portion
forever in anything that is
done under the sun.Remember now your Creator in the
days of your youth, before the
time of trouble comes and the
years draw near when you shall
say, I see no purpose in them.Let us hear the conclusion of the
whole matter: Fear God, and
keep His commandments: for this
is the whole duty of man. For
God shall bring every work into
judgment with every secret thing,
whether it be good, or whether
it be evil.Ecclesiastes