“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers tan example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12, English Standard Version)

I appreciate young people.  I really do!  I appreciated them before this covid-19 crisis, and that appreciation has deepened during this siege.

I work with young people at a restaurant.  (Or, at least, I used to work with them.)  Sometimes, customers would criticize the young people with whom I worked, thinking that I would be a natural ally to such criticism.  I’m afraid that I disappointed a lot of my fellow boomers at this point.

“Actually, most of them work really hard, and are very helpful to me and patient with my slowness,” I said to the complainer.

Also, until fairly recently, I was an adjunct at a university.  I enjoyed working with the young people, even though I didn’t speak their language.  I think most of them could tell that I loved the material I was trying to teach, and that I really cared about them.  They forgave me for my weaknesses a lot more than I needed to forgive them for theirs.

So, when this plague made itself known, I was already prepared to appreciate young people.  My appreciation was not misplaced.

Yesterday, I went through the drive-thru at Rally’s.  Who was risking their lives to feed me?  Young people!

One of our young nephews went to the grocery store for us yesterday.  He didn’t have to do that.  He volunteered.

And frankly, while this social distancing thing is hard on all of us, it has to be even worse on young people who want to be with their friends, or are dating, or want to get married.  I am amazed that as many of them are practicing social distance as are doing it.

I heard an interview with a young lady on NPR the other day.  She was fresh out of nursing school and heading to New York city to serve.  I cried when I heard the interview, thinking of the courage and kindness of such a young person.

It is easy to be critical, to see the worst in people, rather than the best.  What is right, however, is rarely easy.

Years ago, I heard a story of a couple of old guys in my home town who were having trouble mowing the yard on a very hot summer’s day.  Their mower had stopped, and they couldn’t get it started again.  So, after cussing out the mower, they sat in the shade and began talking about various things.  The conversation soon turned to how lazy and feckless young people were.  And the way they dressed and colored their hair!  Oh my!  “They don’t know anything, and they don’t want to do anything,” one man said to the other.

Just as they were saying this, a young man came into view, walking down their street.  Sure enough, his hair was long and purple on one side, and short and orange on the other.  He was probably about fifteen years old.  The two old guys looked at one another and rolled their eyes.

As the young man was walking by, he noticed that the mower was sitting idle in the middle of the yard, and that the two men were sitting under the shade tree.  He hesitated, and said, “Are you having trouble with the mower?”

“Yep, ‘fraid so,” one of the men acknowledged.

“Mind if I have a look at it?” asked the purple and orange man.  “I used to mow lawns, and I had this kind of mower.  It was hard to keep it running, until I discovered a little trick.”

He showed them the trick and started the mower right up, and the mower kept running.

One of the old guys offered the young fellow five dollars for helping them fix the mower, but he turned it down.

“No,” he said with a smile, “glad to help.”

As he walked away, the one old geezer said to the other, “Maybe we should reconsider!”

Yes, we should all reconsider.