Eric Auton
Why is a community like a cake?
Collect the ingredients, mix them carefully, warm ’em up and most of those at the table will enjoy and benefit from the treat of sharing . Most of those at the table? Kiwis love their tuck.
We all need sustenance to survive and strive; not all of us even turn up to the table because not all of us know where is that sharing table and when the warm cake is laid before us.
My wife teaches further north than Te Awamutu and we were chatting on the phone about a conversation she had with some of her senior pupils: a casual and very relaxed type of community sharing. The topic of fear was warmed up.
These are young people from multiple ingredients (ethnicities and nationalities), from pretty healthy mixing (parenting) who were about to be popped into the oven of their futures (leaving school).
Their choice of anxieties and fears for their futures include the usual suspects.
However, more often than not, top of their list was not having hope: not being able to compete with AI, not getting a decent job, not making friends, never being able to own a house.
In other words – not being full of hope about their futures. Are you surprised at their anxieties and fears? They are not a selection of wimps without backbones, I can assure of that. They are a representative fraction of a present generation unlike many of their predecessors.
It seems that never before has it been so challenging for young people to sit with friends at the table of healthy choices and benefit from being fed optimistic nutrition.
I believe that, as their elders, there is at least one positive, concrete contribution we can make as a commitment to building a beacon of hope in a darkening world: the next time we go past a place of worship enquire if a modest contribution would make a difference to the future, concrete maintenance of the building.
Without churches we have no spires. Without spires, we have no inspiration. Without inspiration, we have no aspirations. We owe it to our youngsters to maintain our places of healthy choices and worship in good condition for them.
How else will they know where to search for a community table of hope and support?
The red light of warning is blinking in our eyes.
