What the next generation doesn't know

Lately, I have been having some amazing conversations with my almost-89 year old father. He lives in Florida, and so, most of our conversations are over the phone. When I was growing up, he didn't talk much, well, not at all. He was a research chemist. And now, as my husband Bill says, he has been saving up his words for a long time. We have discovered recently that he knew Dwight Eisenhower when Eisenhower was president of Columbia University and contemplating running for President of the United States. And yesterday, when I asked him, yes, he also had met Einstein. What?!?!

Makes me wonder what else I don't know about him...and what kind of trail we are leaving behind for those in the next generation.

I also recently read an article about Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago -- whose infamous father was also mayor when I was growing up. Daley was speaking to a group of students at an inner city school. One of the students asked him, "How do you become the guy?" she asked. "I mean, how did you get to where you're at now?" For a moment, Daley looked stumped. "Well," he said,"my dad was the mayor from 1955 to 1976." Jaws dropped, the kids gasped, and for an instant Mayor Daley savored the fact that nobody around him had ever heard of anyone else named Mayor Daley.

What does the next generation know? Make no assumptions. They won't know if we don't tell them. About this world, about ourselves, but most importantly about God Himself.

"Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet unborn may praise the LORD."
Psalm 102.18