The Good Old Days

Job 30:1 KJV

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

It seems like it's the nature of man to always dream of how it was in the past. Job is no exception to this. In the midst of his affliction, he cries for days gone by. Of course, he wishes for the health he once knew and pines for those days when his children sat about him; what man doesn't look back with fondness it those times when he possessed the strength if youthfulness and owned the joy of his children laughing and playing about his feet?

Now in my Middle Ages, with children grown and with families of their own, I can only watch them and reflect when it was me in their place. I do not look at my sons without seeing in them the little boys they once were.

But Job's circumstance was much more extreme than mine. His children were taken from him in violent death. His case was worse than simply struggling with the pains of advancing years. Job also recognized a difference in society; in culture in general. Young men did not possess the same respect that they once had. He saw more than a test upon his own person; he saw his society as a whole being tested.

I am old enough now that I think I see these same tests on the society and culture in which I have lived.

The morals George Washington lived his life around, the code of manners that in no small part made him the great leader he was, are mocked and laughed at today. Few care to practice good manners of any sort, let alone manners kept with the strict discipline of a man like Washington. The strength if youth today is elevated above the wisdom of age. Young men force their will upon large groups and the groups, it would seem, like it that way. The wisdom of Solomon's counselors is cast aside in favor of the brashness of the inexperienced.

Indeed there is nothing new under the sun.