Continuing from yesterdays post “Musings” Neal A. Maxwell wrote:
“It is true—as critics have suggested—that the young will assail adults on precisely those issues or problems with which adults have had the least success or about which they have displayed the least interest (even though their achievements in other areas have been significant), perhaps there is subtle purpose in giving some advance attention to those sectors of our society which are most vulnerable—since the young must meet their own Goliaths by appointment of time. In any event, in such a situation, it does us little good to take the young on tours of the “Maginot Lines” (see * below) we have built, if they sense that we do not see the massing forces that may sweep down upon us through a political or moral Belgium.
There is a real risk, however, in assuming that either the young or the old—per se—see things with total clarity. C.S. Lewis warned us of how history shows both individuals falling into the ironical trap of running around anxiously with fire extinguishers in times of flood.
The only safety lies in the beautiful blend of concepts found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for in these we see: a concern for the poor and a stress on the corrosiveness of envy and duty and dignity of work; both a certitude about the need for authority and extensive warnings against exercising “unrighteous dominion.” We see both persuasive teachings on the need for tolerance, love and forgiveness and the need to assert the truth articulately, to stand by it rather than to compromise the truth merely to make others feel good or comfortable (for Jesus had only to “put on” Pilot to go free, had only to “modify” his message to be accepted by Jerusalem’s power structure). And we see that the goal “that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land” and that rights are accompanied by corresponding responsibilities, since social and political burdens “should come upon all people that everyone might bear their part.” ~Neal A. Maxwell, For the Power is in them, (Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City 1973) 15-16
