Yesterday I met with a friend for breakfast to discuss a grant proposal for an art project. As we talked, she lamented our generation’s passivity to the crises around us. She said she can distinctly remember sitting in front of the television watching the protesters of the late 60s making demands on our country’s government for change. “Unfortunately,” she said, “we learned to sit and watch.” Our well-meaning parents, products of The Great War (WWII) and its legacy of unquestioning patriotism, cautioned us not to get involved with “those drug-crazed hippies,” which we somehow equated in our minds with a caution not to involve ourselves directly in championing causes. In his 1961 ballad Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Pete Seeger asked us, “When will they ever learn?”
Tags: Peace, Spirituality
