Dr. McCracken Sermon, "The Dilemmas of Youth", 1965-05-09

it's b fb as both the subject of the sermon is the

demos of the oath it is a favorite subject those of us who are middle east and oh and when we deal with it as a rule it isn't long before we begin tomorrow lives and often the moralizing leagues aren't too are decrying of the virtues of the rising generation somehow as we get on in years memory plays tricks with us costs are golden haze although the past and we develop a nostalgia for the good old

days we adapt to speak of young people nowadays in atonement which inspires that they are not what we once where we complain of their lives we lament the increase in juvenile delinquents a an adolescent crime we ask what use is coming to but when has it ever been otherwise listen to this lemon patient the world is passing through troubles times leon of today think of nothing but themselves they have no reverence for adults are quote ad they are

impatient of restraint they talked as if they only knew everything and what crosses for wisdom for us is so nice nice for them as they are in monday's at speeds this year and the arrests that has a modern ring it sounds like something said by somebody last week about american teenagers it was said by peter them up as long ago as two year twelve hundred and seventy four and listen to this stern made our youths know loves

larger or bad manners and content for authority they showed disrespect for their elders and love it in chapter in place of exercise children and no tyrants not the savants of the hosts who they no longer her eyes when elders entered the room they contradict their parents shattered before company gobble up that seemed an tonight is that teachers know when do you suppose there was written it was written by socrates of all the people in the year four hundred and fifty eight the sea there is probably never been a time when there has not been what's shaking all seniors ages although the way won't miss all the rising

generation and shaking accomplishes little or nothing moralizing and fall finding only white and the balance between the teen generations to bridge the dallas what is called for is a much more positive attitude and a good place to begin is the recognition that this thing that this company now that is the lamented in she initially after security affect the us is in revolt is not in its sails are all new and even though it is natural it is normal it is an essential part of the process of growing into a majority it has been

said that nature deliberately makes the young rebellious to insure that way we'll leave the family in it and that would be something in their development if they didn't in their teens question established are thought of teens and traditional beliefs if they took them all all hung on hearsay and that secondhand rebellion against parents teachers upset society is mostly of fees a passing phase looking back on his youth mark twain said when i was fifteen i was surprised to find out how many things my dad did not

know by the time i was twenty i was amazed to discover how much your body had land in five years there's thousands more about the son them about the father question a number of aid in the young are not indications of capacity they have the evidence of the search for independence and this is where for parents teachers are doubts patients imagination on this is so that accepts a stage to a set though mexican no explanation no interpretation know conversation to assess what the young actor do what the young actor believe

may make them want to do and believe the exact opposite and at forty one barron's magazine carries the pollen from which i quote one stanza one will be sufficient i must not to ease my mother and when she likes to read or has an ad i will stay quite silently in the eye i will soon as i know easy plea not rifling trouble stale but sit down quiet my aunt sally and tried to make a well what ideas to instill into my mind a much i'll want la doug brannon operates saddle no recognition of and here i drove self expression

no freedom to take any kind of initiatives no fostering all the natural instinct a desire for independence by the consequences in later life of an upbringing of such a sort of almost certain to put it mildly to be unfortunate either a personality subdued submissive grazing grass or auto sometimes you see it and sons of the man's such is the power of reaction uptick in all the races and out of all that is not a passing phase but a lifelong at it you know it's in this context that we should think about the thing the news that doesn't always talking about juvenile delinquency to fulminate about juvenile delinquency by a snow globe

rise about these kids not to be taught the difference between right and wrong is just to fall back on that it is the first thing to do is to try to appreciate what is going on inside many of the state the mixed up emotions that impale a bionic to antisocial behavior the anxiety that terrible frustration that come from being rejected and the resentment the very drop or resentment often about their lot in life the extent of what's their antisocial behavior is a protest a gesture of defiance against a society in which they feel is not treating them just me and family and a great numbers

of adults the only solution all the problem of juvenile delinquency is that stuff that's little beasts policy and it is a policy that doesn't reject the roots of the problem we get close to other owners when we attempt sympathetically to enter into the difficulties that that was caused by the gap between physical and social majority and one of the most helpful services and about and brenda lee yong is to be the guy that kind of person with whom they can open up is to listen without embarrassment our show to what they have to say is to give them their share their food chef of the

conversation and to show them to be vetted councilman assuring them but their difficulties will be recognized as a really a not the top and then brushed aside you see for many for many adults adolescence and a drop are always talking those of us who are middle aged and older bauer problem children it means that they remember but they had a big question mark to themselves their parents seek the most children want that's driving hard to be accepted as adults they're faced with war the proper time at the present time we talk about as the price itself identity and they are engaged sometimes threatened to quickly see what if we engaged in the

search for identity in the search for status you know what their most pressing questions are who am i and where do i belong no not them damned if there was a song to be nobody they aspire to be someone who is a subtle at the end with a slip in boston vs fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen then increasingly conscious of themselves they they they claim the right of self expression and and they feel they are entitled to make a stop in the forming of their own judgments and do not arrive in the decisions for themselves with the us recently it's beginning to take a place in the most easy one questioning automatic acquiescence they may leave or supposing that their

owners actually their onset gone through just confused about values and standards and beliefs and i don't all saw it and the experience a great deal of frustration over the impulses the desires that the rights and aspirations that they hardly have they have grown up physically sometimes the boy found that but they're aware that they're not being given up being given grownups status by their elders sometimes they're aggressive than that assessment of them writes i am no longer a child i will not be treated as one and yet and yet mark perhaps than older people and realize they take their elders as models manny a

growing lead unknown to his father identifies himself with his father he noticed it's him if which god forbid the father should say it again i'm going to the father and let them go through an agony of disappointment and disillusionment or taking that lying of least resistance he modeled himself on what he sees going on a whole movie the current model himself on his father's failure they're in pain somewhere in sexual promiscuity can only take and ims he too is an adult on the other hand he has helped immense and finding himself

in securing identity and status if he rose up oh really let standards of not conventionally respected but genuinely upset about everything else but that then he can count on the reclamation where you can be sharp all of fiction long relationships within the family integrity within the family mean martin the movies were all aspiring after melodies broad lawns and large rooms with fine furniture and bad bad from two sides or relationships and integrity within the family and threatened us in may to the making of of packed and at the same time unless they're seeking to

find themselves searching for an identity and status the young i'm going out about asking what's flawed leaving asking this about everything about everything else that means the inventions that additional duties christianity and also aspects the church it wasn't in the church what the church is doing in the world asking about patriotism and love and six and manage i'm not impressed by our sanity s a youngster said the other day the law isn't joe fascinating that works at once to denounce instead you should say to himself what made their teenagers say that it had somebody else it had he seen something that made him say

but not impressed by our thought it as satchel for a while and they feel that that's all thought it has to justify itself to be respected and the reality of probing an testing is a part of that whole approach to everything in life of course the questions they raise a date and i resented by older people rain that the rising generation this is a reverent is spectacle is cynical the complaints many at i know why give them up they betray a dismal lack of perception lot of them mostly young they're seeking for seventies it's the middle aged will come to tears with life will become half believe lives in a casual

lead i should suppose that describes the majority of the little bay its people here this morning the yom want to believe in something and that cable elected and generously and disinterested often that ever ever because they can't find anything to reverence often they're skeptical and cynical because they can't find anything to believe in no default may say they have a long enough they have a deep enough the point to remember is that they want to see the significance of anything that they asked to think that they had asked to do when it makes sense most of them recognize it as worth while and when that happens when a

thing as a recognized to be worth while the spot no generosity although unselfish idealism leads into mommy's lights and then rapidly becomes a fleeting as they go about asking top story the young see people you and me and they see situations more objectively then although forgive them credit for doing one thing that response to factor two and dad doesn't say that their response to that is swift and the end state is a student writing after he wound down from prep school about his hit much stir when he was a dogged the pulpit a small slight

figure tremendously intelligent noble hearted actor leon so it one pedophile ring failed to recognize the sincerity of that shaun throw this or thought it we sensed in him a model a problem no less than an intellectual range which we weren't but i don't respect and not taken in you know theyre looking closely not only and when they see what his golden recognize it but equally or was within their limited perspective the young not only tariffs for detecting shadow puppets any lapse from and didn't a professional the standard but more real practice art and they nestle a sleaze satirize all this recently a senior and allies

who wrote a letter to his local newspaper about businessmen for home office permissible that is not actually illegal about parents whose highest standards about husbands and wives so we will have that that mormons are broken because they lack the majority to wear that the spartans would shake every cop a letter written by a senior in high school it wasn't a balanced temperate to desist letter that i know you might have written but it left the impression although young study looking for reality sincerity integrity and reading

whenever i saw them the disease although do respect him a skeptical youth yes but for my plaque reading the letter i saw in the skepticism the beginning of growth and this is the thing to foster this is the thing to not basically robert ed leon is fool's gold and promise too often it remains are all is undeveloped for the lack of inspiration and and is it surprise it isn't surprising that in it sets up what is a real rising generation in i'm kind of willing to dance to be in revolt with idealism makes internet what would be shock though would be better execute an unquestioning

acceptance of the status quo while a youth is the time for carrying torches use is the time for enlisting positives your young men shall dream dreams every athlete i'd intelligent young person isn't a nonconformist he's up in arms against injustice slams poverty segregation law these are details that make it may be he feels that he must championed human rights he feels that he's got to take some sort of pop in building a better world and these are days when the markets when he demonstrates when he predicts the white house now instead of criticizing denouncing as socially responsible leave the adults would be leading should be inviting in this recall

against the evils of society if we will flow direction and guidance if we on the sidelines during a little ourselves good designs and from them you know and these youngsters will lose faith in the us and they will find nothing worthy of respect in our world and then one of two things may happen to the rebel the rebellion may become so your response which is what you so often happen and that's happening in the days of the beatniks auto they may we're a overhaul come to the place where they say what they use and then themselves become stephanie

respectable from forbes so that by the time they reached middle aged they are walking majority are i'm kristen and supporters and defenders practically of the entire status quo the steps and they're safer today was about the us facing a dial a ma and taking it to jesus as you're listening to the reading of the incident did you happen to observe three reception where youth was given to jesus the mascot was for you on the show for what he had it

in him to become as hot went to two and he he felt affection for the incident didn't have a happy ending as the piece on the front page of the calendar for today he says it a lot when we have to be careful not to romanticize about youth this and every am still follows the bleeding what that is and what analysts integrate clause challenge by jesus to commit himself to a life of service and self tomorrow the rich young ruler made what bag to close the great refusal but what i want to emphasize i don't have those of you are middle aged and all that what i want to emphasize is the reception they use the receiver he was received with affection he was received with understanding a very fast need of a

young as they seek to find themselves that bigness that memo as they go out to a quest for what is a real i know that big dilemmas is acceptance affection understanding those are among the greatest moments that a parent it checks and he had helped and bestow on man was all the rising generation let us pray it thank you