“You show promise.” Do you remember when someone told you that? It may have been a teacher or a coach. Some other adult you respected in your growing years. I can’t pinpoint the memory in my own mind, but the phrase swirled around me, caught hold and pulled me toward the future with more hope. I had almost forgotten about it, until I heard it recently. Suddenly, time-released capsules of images exploded in little visions of all those in my past who said that to me. Maybe they never said it out loud, but I somehow knew that they believed that I would amount to something in the long haul. Without realizing it, that memory was my future.
As our children and grandkids grow, it’s very important that we love and respect them from day one. An inherent part of that love is to believe in them — even in adolescence. Especially in adolescence! As our forebears encouraged us by saying “You have a promising future”, we must always be on the lookout for the hopeful characteristics of all our children. No matter how far they may stray from our expected norms, we must continue to raise the signal of our faith in them. Our belief that they too will make it. No matter what else we leave them as legacy, our faith in them will be the most important key they will need to unlock the future.
It is the old Pygmalion principle that brought life to the breathless statue, and it continues to breathe life into every person who is loved for the promise they show, no matter how low they may be or feel. In the musical “My Fair Lady”, Eliza Doolittle is transformed by the belief of Henry Higgins. In the down-trodden flower peddler of Convent Garden, he saw the promise of something more. He bet his life on that possibility he saw in her, and she won.
Pausing for a moment on the cusp of 2021, we just might realize that we are betwixt and between the expectations and promises that are driving forces from generation to generation. Susan Werner captures this idea in her haunting song “May I Suggest”…There is a hope/ That’s been expressed in you/ The hope of seven generations, maybe more/ And this is the faith/ That they invest in you/ It’s that you’ll do one better than was done before. Meanwhile, Terry Tempest Williams expresses the notion that we must play the promise forward: “The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with clasped hands that we might act with restraint, leaving room for the life that is destined to come.”
We shall always be grateful for all those dear hearts and gentle people who raised us to do what’s right for this world so that generations on their way will inherit our memory of their future. For instance, if we take seriously the issue of climate control, they just might inherit what’s left of the promised land we call Earth.
Did you remember “dear hearts and gentle people” from the old Hit Parade as I did, or did it just pop out of memory unannounced?
I like to think people may be kind enough to look back at the positives in the intentions of earlier generations and in due course look on us the same way – rather than damning by the application of contemporary concepts of morality to previous understandings, misunderstandings, mistakes or downright wrongs. Some things do move for the better but each generation will have its own successes and failures, insights and blindness. Concentrating on growth, learning with generous eyes from past mistakes and being humble about its own limitations will allow each generation to make a more structured and positive contribution to future humankind and the planet. Maybe, of course, my limitations lead me to miss something – it’s my age!
John
Sometime wonderful music and your good friend leads you to a promised land. Thank you!