“Building Bridges Across the Generations” Religion in Daily Life By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints’ Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 (215) 637-5225 Written 10 September 2000

Once there was a family that had a treasure. This treasure had been handed down through several generations. It was a genuine antique vase. The family kept the vase on the mantel in the living room so everyone could enjoy it. One day the lady of the house came home. Her daughter greeted her, saying, “Mom, you know that vase you told us has been passed down from generation to generation?” The mother replied, “Yes, I know.” The daughter then said, “Mom, this generation just dropped it.”

If our generation is to avoid dropping the religious and democratic treasure passed down to us, then we have to build bridges across the span of years. Grandparents can build such bridges. In 1954, reporters in Washington, DC interviewed a woman who has been leading the Jewish resistance to Communism in Hungary. Her name was Bela Fabian. She told the press: “The biggest heroes of the resistance are the grandmothers in Hungary. They are talking to the children about the old times, before the Communists, when there was enough to eat and they could get a new dress.”

Technology, too, can build bridges across the valley between grandparents and grandchildren. Folks over the age of 65 are one of the fasting growing groups who are buying computers and learning to use e-mail (electronic mail). With their grandchildren away at school, these grandparents have learned to build electronic bridges to the young. In the church where I serve, we are also using technology to build bridges to children by employing television sets to pass on the Bible’s messages. “Repeat them again and again to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Ultimately, it is our religious faith that builds bridges across the generations. In the first century, there was a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth. This man was a fellow-Jew named Saul from the university city of Tarsus. Saul observed how faith does build bridges. He wrote to a young friend named Timothy: “I remember your true faith. That faith first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I know you now have that same faith” (2 Timothy 1:5, NCV). In Saul’s Jewish scriptures were these words: “Good people leave their wealth to their grandchildren” (Proverbs 13:22).

Will Allen Dromgoole wrote a poem about an old man who crossed a stream, then built a bridge there. The old man explained that a youth followed him. One day that youth would have to cross the chasm, too.

“He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.”

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