elders

This morning I heard a really interesting story on NPR. It seems that Elderhostel, the popular travel and edu-travel program for seniors, is changing its name because people don't like to be called "elders" and are embarrassed to admit that they went on an Elderhostel trip because it might make them seem old. Simultaneously, they insist that if the program allows younger people to come, they won't participate any more. "If the younger people come, I'm out. They'll make us feel old."

Umm...is anyone else seeing a problem? Or possibly a couple of problems?

How about that tired old complaint that young people are just not the same, that we don't listen to or learn from older people, that there's too much separation between generations and families and worldview and history and whatever else...

Gee, I wonder why.

I think this is like the church in a lot of ways. We want younger people, but not the change younger people bring and certainly not noise or movement from children during worship. We don't want to feel old/worn out/doddering/irrelevant/fading. We want to pretend that we aren't something that we are. And, of course, every group can say "we don't want *them* to come be with *us*..." and with the next breath lament the lack of new volunteers, new people in the pews, new families in the Sunday School.

Elderhostel has been renamed "Exploritas"...but it still doesn't make me want to do it, especially after this story. A rose by any other name...