The Legacy of Baby Boomers

On Sunday we went to see my father-in-law, Jeff Goodwin (shameless plug here for his photos one of which was recently featured by the Smithsonian magazine's website), deliver a talk at his church.

It's a Unitarian Universalist Church, and for those of you not familiar with UUism, this is not really a Christian Church. It is a very liberal religion that embraces a huge array of different thoughts. There are UU Christians, for instance, and UU Jews, UU Muslims, UU Buddhists, and plenty of UU agnostics and atheists. UUs are not bound by a creed (beliefs), but a covenant (action).

So, while there are certainly Republicans in every UU crowd, it's a pretty liberal bunch. Jeff was talking to people who owned Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin on vinyl.

So it was particularly bold of him to make the following remarks:

As I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, we were so convinced we could bring universal love and justice to the world, that we forgot to build and protect the communities that support us through our lives.

For all of our love, volunteerism declined. For all of our love, church attendance declined. For all of our love, divorce rates soared. And isolationism and materialism grew in the vacuum we left behind.

My father’s generation knew the importance of community because without it they could not have survived the Depression.

I believe my children’s generation understands the importance of community for they have grown up in the detritus of divorced families and rootlessness that we, children of the Summer of Love, created for them.